Chapter 66 -
Micheal took a shaky breath. “Andrea had been planning it for months. She had notebooks full of ideas, sketches of flower arrangements, lists of songs she wanted played. She drove everyone in the house completely insane with her preparations, but she was so happy. I had never seen her that happy.”
“What was Leo doing?” Nia asked.
“Leo was at Don Emilio’s estate that night,” Micheal said. “There was a meeting with some of the senior members of the Cimmera. Security arrangements for the party, finalizing guest lists, making sure everything would be safe. The Don was particular about these things, and Leo, he was trying to prove he could handle the responsibility. That he could be the man Andrea deserved.”
Micheal’s voice cracked slightly on the last words, and he paused, swallowing hard. “Andrea was home, here at the mansion, getting ready. She had picked out her dress weeks in advance. This beautiful white thing with lace sleeves. She showed it to me, asked me if I thought Leo would like it. I told her Leo would probably cry when he saw her in it.”
“Did she laugh?” Nia asked softly.
“She laughed so hard she snorted,” Micheal said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “She said that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to make him cry happy tears for once instead of the sad ones he tried to hide when he thought no one was looking.”
Nia felt her throat tighten. The image of Andrea, young and in love and completely unaware of what was coming, was almost too painful to bear.
“What happened?” Nia asked, though she was not sure she wanted to know.
Micheal’s hands clenched tighter. “Someone broke in,” he said flatly. “Somehow, they got past all the guards, past all the security, past everything that was supposed to keep her safe. We still do not know exactly how they did it. Christian thinks it was someone on the inside, someone who knew the patrol schedules and the blind spots in the cameras.”
“And they went straight to Andrea’s room,” Nia said.
“Straight to her,” Micheal confirmed. His voice had gone cold now, the warmth drained out of it entirely. “She was alone. Rosa had been with her earlier, helping her try on the dress one more time, but Andrea sent her away. She wanted to practice her speech for the party, wanted to make sure she got the words right when she thanked everyone for coming.”
“Her speech,” Nia whispered.
“Yeah,” Micheal said bitterly. “She was practicing how to thank people for celebrating her engagement when someone walked into her room and killed her.”
The word hung in the air like a curse. Killed. Not died. Not passed away. Killed. Murdered. Taken.
“How did they do it?” Nia asked, then immediately wished she had not. But Micheal was already answering, his voice mechanical, like he was reciting facts from a police report.
“Stabbed her,” he said. “Multiple times. They wanted to make sure she suffered. The coroner said some of the wounds were shallow, meant to cause pain rather than death. Whoever did it, they took their time.”
Nia’s hand flew to her mouth, her stomach churning. The cruelty of it, the deliberate torture of someone who by all accounts had never hurt anyone, was incomprehensible.
“Leo found her when he came to surprise her,” Micheal continued, and now his voice was shaking. “He had left the meeting early. He wanted to see her, to tell her he could not wait until the party to tell her how much he loved her. He had this stupid romantic idea about sneaking into her room and reading her poetry or some nonsense like that.”
“Oh God,” Nia breathed.
“He walked in and found her on the floor,” Micheal said. “There was so much blood. It was everywhere. On the walls, on the carpet, pooled around her body. And Andrea, she was just lying there, her eyes open, staring at nothing.”
Tears were streaming down Micheal’s face now, falling freely, but his voice remained steady, as if he had told this story so many times in his head that he could recite it even while falling apart.
“I was in my room when I heard him scream,” Micheal said. “I will never forget that sound, Nia. It was not human. It was the sound of something being ripped apart from the inside. I ran toward it, and Christian was already there, pounding on Andrea’s door because it was locked from the inside.”
“Locked?” Nia asked.
“The killer locked it on the way out,” Micheal explained. “Probably to buy time, to make sure they could get away before anyone found the body. But it also meant Leo had to break down the door to get to her. By the time Christian and I got there, he had already kicked it in and was inside.”
“What did you see?” Nia asked, though she was not sure she could handle the answer.
“I saw my brother covered in her blood,” Micheal said simply. “He was kneeling on the floor, holding Andrea in his arms, rocking back and forth like she was just sleeping and he could wake her up if he just held her tight enough. He was saying her name over and over. Andrea, Andrea, Andrea. Like it was the only word he knew.”
Nia was crying now too, hot tears sliding down her cheeks. She could picture it too clearly, could see Leo, always so controlled, so contained, completely shattered.
“We tried to pull him away,” Micheal said. “Christian and I, we tried to get him to let her go so the doctor could examine her, but he would not. He just kept holding her, kept saying her name. It took four guards to finally pull him off of her, and even then he fought them. He was screaming that he had to protect her, that he had promised to keep her safe.”
“How long did it take him to stop?” Nia asked.