Page 78 of Deception & Desire

It takes us a moment to find our footing again, but then Cas is running, shouting for a husband like a woman possessed.

Leon’s arm wraps around my waist, helping me over every minor obstacle in my path. I lean desperately into his touch and take as much reassurance from it as I can as we clear the room and stumble out into the foyer.

The entire house looks like it’s been through an earthquake. Cracks have appeared up the walls, lighting fixtures have crashed into the floor. The glass of the Caravaggio has smashed into a thousand pieces and lies half torn beneath its previous spot on the wall.

But nothing is more harrowing than the expressions of the people who turn to look at us.

Rocco is already embracing his wife, while Teo and Isabella cling to each other desperately. Dante and Max are both on the floor—Max is suffering from a gruesome-looking head wound that Dante is attempting to bandage.

Each of them turns to look at Leon with a chilling sense of expectation. There’s anger in their faces, desperation. Pain.

I realize with a start that they’re looking to their leader.

And Leon Natali was forged for war.

“We retaliate,” Leon says, his voice now cold, as he steps forward. His hand lingers on my waist as if to reassure himself that I’m still there. “We go to war.”

It’s Isabella who speaks up first, eyes frantic with fear. “We don’t know anything yet. We don’t know who this was for sure.”

“They attacked my home. They attacked my pregnant wife. They attacked myfamily.There is no more room for waiting around and playing this safe. As of right now, The Prince’s Hand is at war with the Cartel,” Leon’s voice booms out with authority.

As his words sink in, he turns to Teo and Rocco. “Is the Guild with me?”

Teo shares a long look with Rocco. Their faces are grim with the same resolve that has defined them all these years.

“Of course,” Teo says, his voice laced with the same anger I can see burning in Leon’s eyes.

“I guess my sabbatical is officially over,” Rocco mutters over Cas’ head.

I sag against Leon’s arm and listen to him bark out instructions, the adrenaline finally starting to wear off and the exhaustion kicking with a vengeance. I don’t realize how close I am to toppling over before Leon suddenly catches me.

“I’m fine,” I say to the frown on his face.

Leon’s chocolate-colored eyes are everywhere, darting across my body as if he can somehow do a comprehensive medical analysis by sight alone.

I expect him to chastise me, to hit me with some insistence that I rest.

I don’t expect him to bark for Teo. “I need a favor, Vitale.”

The Guild’s don enters my periphery with a concerned look at me. “What do you need?”

“I seem to recall that you have a bunker. I need Mia to stay somewhere safe until the babies are born.”

22

LEON

The Cartel’s blood seeps into Brooklyn’s streets like a stain that refuses to lift.

After four months, even the local broadcasters are getting wind of “extensive gang activity”, warning civilians to stay home at night, suggesting curfews for their own safety.

I have no interest in civilians. I have no interest in the Cartel’s goons either.

The only blood I long for is Amos Rubios.

I’ve turned the borough into a chessboard, every block a battleground, every move calculated to deliver maximum pain.

They thought the explosion would cripple us. They were wrong. I prove it to them every time they seek us out, every time I annihilate everything in my path.

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