Chapter 47 -
Leo's jaw clenched tighter, if that was even possible. A muscle jumped beneath his skin, visible in the lamplight of her room. He turned away from her, moving to stand by the window, his shoulders rigid with tension.
"My problem," he said, each word clipped and precise, "is that you were at a party full of criminals. A party where every single person there would kill you without hesitation if I gave them permission. A party where Santiago spent the entire evening trying to figure out how to use you as leverage against me."
"I was with Matteo the whole time!" Nia shot back, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "Your precious guard was right there, watching over me like I was some kind of child who could not be trusted to stand on a balcony without causing a catastrophe."
"You were not with Matteo," Leo said, turning to face her again. His eyes were blazing now, that careful control slipping enough that she could see the raw emotion underneath. "You were with Santiago. You were with Micheal. You were putting yourself in situations where you could be influenced, manipulated, turned against me."
"Turned against you?" Nia laughed, a bitter sound that filled the room. "I am already a prisoner in your house, Leo. I am already separated from everything I care about. You cannot possibly turn me against you because I already hate you."
The words seemed to hit him like a physical blow. She watched something flicker across his face, something that might have been pain before the mask slid back into place.
"So what?" she continued, her voice rising. "So what if I was with Santiago? So what if I was with Micheal? They are your family. They are part of this insane world that you have trapped me in. And at least when I am with them, I do not feel like I am constantly on trial for some crime I did not commit."
"You do not understand what you are dealing with," Leo said, his voice dropping back to that dangerous quiet. "Santiago is not some misunderstood cousin. He is a predator. He sees weakness, and he exploits it. He looks at you, and he sees an opportunity to hurt me. And Micheal, for all his charm and sensitivity, is still a man who has been raised in a family of killers."
"Yes, and so have you!" Nia shouted, finally giving voice to the accusation that had been building in her chest since the moment he grabbed her arm on the balcony. "You are the most dangerous of all of them. At least Santiago does not pretend to be anything other than what he is. At least Micheal admits that this life is destroying him. But you, Leo? You stand there and act like you are the moral authority. Like you are protecting me when really, you are just controlling me. Just like you control everything else in your life."
Leo moved toward her so fast that she did not have time to process his movement. One moment he was by the window, the next he was directly in front of her, his face inches from hers. But he did not touch her. Did not raise his hand or make any aggressive movement. Instead, he simply stared at her, his breathing ragged, his eyes burning with an emotion so intense it frightened her.
"You think I am controlling you?" he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You think this is about power? You are delusional, Nia Wallace."
"Am I?" She held her ground, refusing to step back despite every instinct screaming at her to do so. "Then what is it about? Why do you care who I talk to? Why does it matter to you if I spend time with your family? You have made it abundantly clear that I am just a tool. A means to an end. So why does it bother you?"
"Because Santiago will hurt you," Leo said, and the words came out like they were being torn from somewhere deep inside him. "Because Micheal thinks he is being kind by making you believe that you have some sort of choice in this situation when you do not. Because everyone in that house is damaged and broken, and the only thing I can do is try to limit the damage they inflict on each other and on you."
"That is not your responsibility," Nia said, her voice softening slightly despite her anger. "I did not ask you to protect me. I did not ask you to care."
"No," Leo agreed. "You did not. And that is the problem."
He stepped back, running a hand through his hair, the gesture almost desperate. When he looked at her again, she saw something raw and bleeding in his expression. Something that looked almost like the beginning of an admission.
"You should not be here," he said quietly. "You should not be in my home. You should not be reading bedtime stories to Gabriel. You should not be having conversations with Micheal on balconies. You should not be any of the things that you have become in the weeks that you have been here."
"Then let me go," Nia said, her voice steady despite the tears that were starting to form. "If I should not be here, then let me go."
"I cannot," Leo said, and the words sounded like a confession. Like something that had been locked away for so long that speaking it aloud felt like a violation. "I cannot let you go. And the moment you leave this house, the moment you step outside of my protection, you become fair game. And I cannot allow that."
"So I am trapped," Nia said flatly. "With you. In this house. Until either the Don loses patience or you find a reason to finally execute me yourself."
"No," Leo said, and something in his voice had shifted. Something almost desperate. "You are trapped because the world is a cruel place, and the only way to survive in it is to be crueler than everyone else. And I am trapped because I have spent so long being cruel that I cannot remember how to be anything else."
He moved toward the door, his movements slow and controlled. When he reached it, he paused, his hand on the doorknob.
"Stay in your room," he said, not looking back at her. "Do not leave except for meals. Do not speak to Santiago. Do not spend time with Micheal. Do not do anything that might give people the impression that you are anything other than a prisoner here."
"And if I do?" Nia asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Leo turned to look at her one final time, and in that moment, she saw everything he was and everything he had lost written clearly across his face.
"Then I will have to prove to myself and everyone else that I am exactly what I have always been," he said quietly. "A man incapable of caring about anything except my promises to the dead."
He opened the door and stepped into the hallway, closing it behind him with a softness that was somehow more final than any slam could have been.