80
80
“Tell me again how the fuck this happened” Leo paced at the foot of Ivon’s bed, scrubbing his eye bags aggressively. “Are we that easy to get to now? Our enemies are mocking us Leon.”
“I didn’t think they were going to attack in broad daylight with the press covering the area like hungry vultures.” Leon tried not to let his grandfather’s energy rub off on him or they’d both wear holes into the floor. “His girlfriend called because they’d set up shop in front of her house.”
“And you didn’t think to go with him or discreetly send guards to follow him?”
“And then what? Jump in front of a gun that came out of fucking nowhere?” Leon failed to keep his voice even. “Have you watched the videos? One minute he was standing, and the next split second, he was bleeding out on the floor. What do you think my men were going to do in that scenario? Pull out their guns and bring more eyes on our family? Contrary to what you believe, I know my job and I try to do it well”
“Watch your tone” Leo warned. “Regardless of how your father taught you about the workings of this family, it is important to always remember that a day like that day your brother was shot was a failure.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, grandpa. I am a failure, it’s nothing new, you should get used to it-”
“Miss me with your pity party. There’s no place or space right now to accommodate your hurt feelings. Suck it up and put half of that unneeded emotion into finding Aielle or are you still pining for your beloved to come home to you arms open.”
“What about the man I left under your perfect care?” Leon wasn’t in the mood to talk about Aielle, and Leo wasn’t going to react well if he found out she was here and he let her go. “Have you gotten any information from him?”
“Maybe if you and your brother managed to stay out of trouble for two minutes, I’d be able to work, but you have me jumping into vehicles every hour. Is your plan to put me in a bed beside your brother?”
“My plan is to get any kind of lead and you can get it from the gift I left on your doorstep. Ivon is stable and fine, when he wakes up, I’ll be here to tease him and call the doctor. Can you go back to getting the information?”
Leo didn’t look happy about the off handed dismissal. “I’ll call you when I have something and call me when he’s awake. I won’t be coming back here seeing as you’re trying your hardest to get rid of me.”
Leon let out a huge sigh of relief when Leo left, taking his chaos with him. He could be dramatic in moments where he wasn’t getting his way.
“I thought he was never going to leave”
Leon jumped, leaning over his brother. “Ivon? That was you right? I’m not dreaming am I? Let me get the doctor”
“Give your brother time to be back in the land of the living before those people poke me with more things that’ll send me to sleep.” Ivon’s voice was rough and small, two combinations that didn’t mix well. “What did you do to bring out the mother hen?”
“I should be asking you that brother” Leon touched the drips, running his eyes over the tiny words on the bottles. “You went and got yourself shot. Are you trying to start a war with your death? You don’t know how important you are.”
“I didn’t but grandpa made me see myself in a different light” Ivon coughed and held his chest, groaning. “Hell that hurts! Have you been shot before?”
“Yea but not that close to the heart” Leon joked “Let me get the doctor, I can’t take another lecture and I really don’t need you dying on me or both responsibilities of head and enforcer become mine.”
“I’ll do anything except be shot” Ivon mumbled, “Do you think it was Aielle, cause I got a good look at the shooter, and except she now has a beard, it couldn’t be her.”
Pausing with a hand over the knob, Leon sighed and returned to his brother’s side. “After I was attacked by Aielle the second time, grandpa came around to tell me Aielle was the one who sold Conan’s location”
“She wouldn’t” Ivon’s eyes grew clearer then foggy. “She loved that boy.”
“Exactly my standpoint, but he’s convinced she’s the one who did it with her friends or as he put it – mercenaries. She was here you know, yesterday, staring down at your face with a look of whatever it was she feels. Why will someone that shot you go through the pains of scaling security to see how you are?”
“We don’t know why she switched on us or her agenda, but Conan- I refuse to believe that. I’ll kill her with my bare hands if that’s true.”
“I dropped one of her pawns at grandpas. He should have something for me tomorrow. I normally don’t tell you anything about this side of our family but you took and survived a bullet, so it’s okay to ask about the person that shot you.”
“Floating around in this weird space has made me understand that I need to be involved on both ends for things to flow better. I can’t keep trying to take one side and completely neglect the other. I don’t want to stab and shoot people, but we can track and find them together, what do you say?”
“I’ll say what I always do brother” Leon slapped his shoulder gently. “Don’t bring any strange women home who might see me torturing a man to death, and you might want to take this advice to heart because of your new girlfriend, that one looks very skittish.”
“New girlfriend?”
“Nice try with the amnesia card, could have pulled it before having a full blown conversation with me.” Leon pressed the button to call the nurse. “She’s cute though, I can have her if you don’t rememb-”
“Watch yourself cowboy”
Leon laughed, making way for the nurse that barreled into the room. “You know me and your sloppy seconds”