Chapter 70 -
“I am not trying to do anything,” Nia protested, though even as she said it, she knew it was not entirely true. She had asked about Andrea. She had spent hours in Leo’s study. She had let herself wonder what it would be like if he looked at her the way he must have once looked at his dead fiancée.
“It does not matter,” Micheal said, cutting through her denial with the blunt certainty of someone who had seen this story play out before. “Whether you are trying or not, whether you want to or not, if you care about him at all, you need to know this. He will choose revenge every time.”
“Over what?” Nia asked, though she was afraid she already knew the answer.
“Over everything,” Micheal said. The sadness in his voice was so profound it made Nia’s chest ache. “Over family. Over happiness. Over his own life. Over you, if it comes down to it. Leo made a promise to Andrea, and that promise is the only thing holding him together. It is his purpose, his reason for existing. And nothing, nothing will ever be more important to him than keeping that promise.”
Nia felt something cold settle in her stomach. “Even if it destroys him?” she asked.
“Especially if it destroys him,” Micheal said. “Because in Leo’s mind, being destroyed while pursuing Andrea’s killer is still better than living without having avenged her. He thinks he owes her that. He thinks it is the only way to prove that his love for her was real.”
“That is insane,” Nia said.
“That is grief,” Micheal corrected. “Grief that has had years to calcify into something hard and immovable. Grief that has become the foundation of his entire identity.”
Nia pulled her knees tighter to her chest, wrapping her arms around them like she could hold herself together through sheer force. “You said I might be able to help him,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Earlier, you said I might be the first person who could help him try to be happy again.”
“I did say that,” Micheal agreed. “And I meant it. You are the first person in years who has made him act like a human being instead of a weapon. But that does not mean you can save him, Nia. That does not mean he will choose you over his obsession.”
“Then why tell me I could help him?” Nia asked, frustration bleeding into her voice. “Why give me hope if it is pointless?”
“Because maybe it is not pointless,” Micheal said. He turned to look at her, his eyes reflecting the lamplight in a way that made them look almost golden. “Maybe there is a chance, a tiny, impossible chance, that you could reach him. But I would be lying to you, I would be failing you as a friend, if I did not warn you about what you are up against.”
“So warn me,” Nia said. “Tell me everything.”
Micheal took a deep breath, his hands clenching and unclenching in his lap. “His eyes are sad,” he said quietly. “I have watched him die inside for years. Piece by piece, day by day. Every lead that goes nowhere, every person who cannot give him answers, it takes something from him. And he does not even try to get it back. He just lets himself become emptier, colder, more focused on the one thing he thinks matters.”
“Revenge,” Nia said.
“Revenge,” Micheal confirmed. “And the thing about revenge is that it is a bottomless pit. You can pour everything you have into it and it will never be enough. It will never make you whole again. It will never bring back what you lost. But Leo does not care about that. He does not want to be whole. He wants to suffer. He thinks suffering is what he deserves.”
“Why?” Nia asked. “Why does he think he deserves to suffer?”
“Because he was not there when Andrea needed him,” Micheal said. “Because he was at a meeting, handling business, being the good little enforcer, when someone was murdering the woman he loved. He thinks if he had just stayed with her, if he had just said no to the Don and stayed by her side, she would still be alive.”
“That is not his fault,” Nia said immediately.
“Try telling him that,” Micheal said with a bitter laugh. “I have. Christian has. Rosa has. Hell, even the Don tried to tell him that Andrea’s death was not on him. But Leo does not believe it. He cannot believe it. Because if it is not his fault, if there was nothing he could have done to save her, then her death is just random and senseless and cruel. And he cannot accept that. He needs it to be his fault. He needs to believe that he could have stopped it, because that gives him something to punish himself for.”
Nia felt tears burning behind her eyes again. The picture Micheal was painting was so bleak, so hopeless, that it made her want to scream. “Maybe he needs someone to bring him back,” she said, the words coming out more like a plea than a statement.
Micheal looked at her for a long moment, his expression a mixture of pity and something that looked almost like pride. “Maybe he does,” he said softly. “And maybe you are brave enough to try. But Nia, you need to understand what that means. Trying to bring Leo back from where he is right now, trying to make him choose life over death, happiness over revenge, it is going to break you. Because he is going to fight you every step of the way.”
“Why would he fight me?” Nia asked. “If I am trying to help him, why would he push me away?”
“Because letting you in means admitting that he wants something other than revenge,” Micheal explained. “It means admitting that maybe, just maybe, there is a future worth living for. And that terrifies him. Because if he lets himself want that future, if he lets himself believe in it, and then it gets taken away from him the way Andrea was taken away, he will not survive it. He barely survived losing Andrea. Losing someone else he cares about would destroy him completely.”
“So he pushes people away to protect himself,” Nia said, understanding clicking into place.
“And to protect them,” Micheal added. “Leo genuinely believes that everyone he cares about is in danger just by being near him. He thinks he is cursed. He thinks Andrea died because she loved him, and if anyone else makes the mistake of loving him, they will die too.”