Chapter 77 -
The silence stretched between them, fragile as glass. Leo’s thumb moved across her knuckles, a soft stroke that sent electricity racing up her arm. His eyes never left hers.
“You cannot be here,” he said one more time, but the words had lost all their conviction. They sounded more like a wish than a command, like he was trying to convince himself more than her.
“Too late,” Nia whispered again.
The room felt smaller now, like the walls had moved closer while they were talking. Or maybe it was just that Nia could not stop looking at Leo, at the way his shoulders had started to curve inward like he was trying to make himself smaller, less visible. Like he wanted to disappear into the shadows that clung to the corners of his bedroom.
She had spent weeks being afraid of this man. Weeks watching him move through the mansion like a storm barely contained, all sharp edges and controlled violence. She had seen him threaten people with nothing more than a look, had heard the way even Christian and Micheal stepped carefully around him when his temper was running hot. Leonardo DeSanto, the Enforcer, the weapon the Don had sharpened until there was nothing left but the blade.
But standing here in his bedroom at two in the morning, watching the way he would not quite meet her eyes anymore, Nia did not see the Enforcer. She saw a man who was so tired of carrying his grief alone that he had forgotten what it felt like to set it down.
Without thinking, without planning, without letting the sensible part of her brain talk her out of it, Nia stepped forward.
Leo’s head snapped up, his eyes widening slightly as she closed the distance between them. “Nia, what are you—”
She did not let him finish. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled herself against his chest, pressing her face into the hollow of his shoulder where his skin was warm and he smelled like tobacco and something darker, something that was just him.
Leo went completely still.
It was like hugging a statue. Every muscle in his body locked up tight, his arms frozen at his sides, his breathing stopped mid-inhale. Nia could feel his heart hammering against her cheek, could feel the tension radiating through him like he had just been hit with an electric shock and his body had not caught up yet.
“What are you doing?” His voice came out strangled, uncertain, like he genuinely could not understand what was happening.
“Hugging you,” Nia said. Her words were muffled against his shoulder but she did not pull away. If anything, she tightened her grip, her fingers splaying across the warm skin of his back.
“Why?” The question sounded lost, confused, like he had forgotten what hugs were for.
“Because Micheal told me about Andrea,” Nia said quietly. She felt Leo stiffen even more if that was possible, felt the way his whole body tried to pull away even though his feet stayed planted where they were. “He told me about the engagement party that never happened. About how you found her. About what that did to you.”
“Nia.” Her name came out rough, damaged, like saying it cost him something. “You should not—”
“And I am sorry,” Nia interrupted, cutting through whatever deflection he was trying to build. “I am sorry that happened to you. I am sorry you had to see that. I am sorry you have been carrying it alone for so long.”
For a long moment, nothing changed. Leo stayed frozen, his arms still at his sides, his breathing still stopped somewhere in his chest. Nia wondered if she had made a mistake, if she had pushed too far, if he was going to pull away and throw her out of his room and never speak to her again.
Then she felt it. The smallest shift in his posture. The tiniest release of tension in his shoulders.
His arms came up slowly, hesitantly, like he had forgotten how they worked. One hand settled on her lower back, tentative, barely touching. The other came to rest between her shoulder blades, his palm flat and warm through the thin fabric of her sweater.
Then he pulled her closer.
It happened all at once. His arms wrapped around her completely, holding her against him with a kind of desperate strength that made her ribs ache. His face dropped to the top of her head and she felt him breathe in, long and shaky, like he was trying to memorize the smell of her hair.
Nia held on tighter.
They stood there in the middle of his bedroom, wrapped around each other, neither of them speaking. The lamplight cast their shadow long across the floor, turning them into a single dark shape against the wall. Nia could feel Leo’s heart still racing against her cheek, could feel the way his fingers gripped the back of her sweater like he was afraid she might vanish if he let go.
“You do not have to carry it alone anymore,” she whispered into his shoulder. “The grief. The guilt. All of it. You do not have to do this by yourself.”
Leo made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been something closer to a sob. His arms tightened around her. “You do not know what you are offering.”
“I know exactly what I am offering,” Nia said. She pulled back just enough to look up at him, though she did not let go of his waist. “I am offering to be someone who sees you. Not the Enforcer. Not the weapon. Not the man who failed to save Andrea. Just you. Leo. The person underneath all the armor.”
Leo looked down at her and Nia watched something crack open in his expression. His eyes were wet, though no tears had fallen yet, and there was a kind of raw vulnerability in his face that made her chest hurt.
“I do not know how to be that person anymore,” he said quietly. “I do not know if that person even exists.”
“He does,” Nia said. She reached up with one hand, keeping the other wrapped around his waist, and touched his face. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, rough with stubble, then moved up to brush a strand of dark hair away from his forehead. “I have seen him. With Gabriel. With Micheal. In the moments when you think no one is watching. He is still in there, Leo. You just have to let him out.”
Leo closed his eyes, leaning into her touch like it was the first gentle thing he had felt in years. “You are going to ruin me,” he said, and it sounded like both an accusation and a prayer.
“Good,” Nia said. “You have been ruining yourself for long enough. It is someone else’s turn.”