Chapter 67 -
“Hours,” Micheal said. “He screamed himself hoarse. By the time he finally went quiet, the sun was coming up and the Don had arrived. I have never seen Don Emilio cry, but that morning, he wept. He stood in the doorway of Andrea’s room and looked at his daughter’s body, and he wept like a man who had lost everything.”
“What did he do?” Nia asked.
“He ordered a full investigation,” Micheal said. “Every resource the Cimmera had, he threw at finding out who did this. He brought in outside investigators, forensic experts, people who specialized in tracking down killers. And he made a promise, right there in front of all of us. He said whoever did this would suffer. That they would beg for death long before he granted it to them.”
“And Leo?” Nia asked.
“Leo made his own promise,” Micheal said. “He knelt beside Andrea’s body, still covered in her blood, and he swore to her that he would find the person responsible. That he would not rest, would not stop, would not allow himself a single moment of peace until he had avenged her death. And then he kissed her forehead and walked out of the room, and he has never been the same since.”
The silence that followed was crushing. Nia sat there, trying to process the enormity of what she had just heard, trying to understand the depth of Leo’s pain and obsession.
“The engagement party,” Nia said finally. “What happened to it?”
“It became a funeral,” Micheal said quietly. “All those flowers Andrea had picked out, they were used to decorate her casket. All those guests who were supposed to celebrate her engagement, they came to mourn her death. And Leo, he stood at the front of the church in the suit he was supposed to wear to propose to her officially, and he did not cry. He did not speak. He just stood there like a statue, staring at her coffin, and I think that was the day the real Leo died too.”
“He has never been the same since,” Nia whispered, echoing Micheal’s earlier words.
“No,” Micheal agreed. “The Leo I grew up with, the one who read poetry and laughed at Andrea’s terrible jokes and believed that maybe good things could happen to good people, he died in that room with her. What came out was the Enforcer. Cold, efficient, ruthless. A man who sees the world in terms of targets and threats and collateral damage.”
“Until now,” Nia said softly.
Micheal looked at her, his eyes red and swollen from crying. “Until you,” he corrected. “You are the first person since Andrea who has made him question that worldview. The first person who has made him act like there might be something worth protecting other than a promise to a dead woman.”
“I do not want that responsibility,” Nia said, her voice breaking. “I cannot be the person who saves him from his grief, Micheal. I am barely holding myself together.”
“You do not have to save him,” Micheal said gently. “You just have to be yourself. The rest is up to him.”
Nia wiped at her tears with shaking hands. “What if being myself is not enough? What if I can never measure up to Andrea?”
“You are not supposed to measure up to Andrea,” Micheal said firmly. “Andrea was Andrea. She was wonderful, and we loved her, and losing her destroyed us. But she is gone, Nia. And you are here. You are real and alive and fighting, and maybe that is exactly what Leo needs. Not a ghost to worship, but a living, breathing person who refuses to let him hide behind his guilt.”
“He looks at me sometimes,” Nia admitted quietly. “And I see something in his eyes that scares me. Not because it is violent or cruel, but because it is vulnerable. Like he is letting me see a part of him that he has kept locked away for years.”
“That is because you are breaking through his walls,” Micheal said. “Whether you mean to or not, you are reaching the parts of him he thought were dead. And that terrifies him, because if those parts are still alive, then they can still hurt. They can still bleed.”
“I do not know if I am strong enough for this,” Nia said.
“You are stronger than you think,” Micheal said. He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it tightly. “You have survived everything this family has thrown at you. You have survived being kidnapped, threatened, locked up, and used as bait. And you are still here, still fighting, still refusing to break. If that is not strength, I do not know what is.”
Nia squeezed his hand back, drawing comfort from the solid warmth of it. “Thank you,” she said. “For telling me the truth. For trusting me with this.”
“You deserve to know,” Micheal said. “If you are going to be stuck in this house, in this family, you deserve to understand the ghosts you are living with.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, hands clasped, two broken people holding each other up in the darkness.
“Do you think Leo will ever be happy again?” Nia asked finally.
Micheal considered the question carefully. “I think Leo will always carry Andrea’s death with him,” he said slowly. “It is a part of him now, woven into every decision he makes, every breath he takes. But happy? Maybe. If he can forgive himself. If he can accept that he did not fail her, that her death was not his fault. If he can let himself want something again, really want it, without feeling like he is betraying her memory.”
“And do you think he can do that?” Nia asked.
Micheal looked at her with an expression that was equal parts hope and heartbreak. “I think you might be the first person who could help him try,” he said.
The bottle sat between them like a confessor, nearly empty now, the last inch of whiskey sloshing at the bottom with each movement they made. The lamplight seemed dimmer than before, or maybe that was just the alcohol working its way through Nia’s system, softening the edges of the room and making everything feel distant and slightly unreal.
Micheal had stopped crying, but his eyes were still red-rimmed, his face flushed from the whiskey and the weight of the story he had just told. He reached for the bottle and poured the remaining liquid into their glasses with the careful precision of someone who was very drunk but determined not to show it.
“Last round,” he announced, handing Nia her glass. “After this, we are officially out of Leo’s good whiskey and into the realm of severe consequences.”
Nia took the glass, her fingers feeling clumsy and thick. She was buzzed. More than buzzed. The room had taken on a pleasant, floating quality, and her thoughts were coming slower, filtered through a warm haze that made everything feel both closer and farther away at the same time.