Chapter 4

Chapter 4

**Leonardo**

The moment she glared at me, I knew something was off. Not with her…with me.

Nobody looked at me like that. Not in this city, not in any room where my name carried weight. People avoided my gaze, measured their words, understood exactly who they were standing in front of. Fear did that. Power did that. I had built both carefully, deliberately, until the Mancini name meant hesitation before speech and silence when I walked in.

Giovanni understood it. That was why he chose alliance over war.

And yet, his daughter looked at me like I was something beneath her.

Curiosity settled in, slow and unfamiliar. Not anger. Not offense. Just the need to understand who thought she could stand in front of me like that and not look away.

Then it clicked.

Those eyes.

The same fire I had seen eight years ago, buried under fear but still there. Older now. Sharper and still defiant.

She didn’t recognize me. I expected that. I had made sure she wouldn’t see my face that night. The mask, the chaos, the blood…none of it had been meant to stay with her.

But she stayed with me.

For eight years.

A memory I never explained. A loose end I never found.

And now she stood in front of me, Giovanni Romano’s daughter, completely unaware that she had been living in the back of my mind since the night I pulled her out of that room.

I watched her more closely after that. She was barely holding herself together.

Across the table, the Romanos had gone quiet. My family knew better than to look up. 

Matteo was smiling, hand half-covering his mouth, failing to hide his amusement. My gaze darkened. I might end up killing two cousins today.

He'd warned me before we even arrived. Today's lunch with the Romanos will end up being a bloodbath. The bastard was right. I didn't want to think about why. Because if I thought about her cousin right now—his gun, his recklessness, her in the crossfire—I would put a bullet through his goddamn head too. For making me choose between diplomacy and blood when I hadn’t planned to spill any today.

Luca, my underboss stood slightly behind me, silent as always, watching everything without drawing attention to it. He didn’t waste words. Didn’t react unless it mattered. That was why he stood where he did. Not because of loyalty, loyalty was easy to claim, but because he saw what others missed and knew when to act on it.

Killing Petro was never on my list. The idiot had been loyal once. But he disobeyed me. Pointed a gun at her head in my presence.

I didn't know what Vito, another idiotic cousin of mine, had done to Enzo to spark this feud. I didn't care. I'd warned Petro before we came. Behave, no blood. And of course he didn't listen.They never fucking did.+

Who would have thought it was Enzo who killed Vito? That piece of history had been rotting between them for years. And stupid Petro decided to avenge his cousin’s death at a lunch table where I was trying to build peace. By the time the gun was pressed to her head, the outcome had already been decided.

I didn’t hesitate.

The shot was clean and necessary.

The room settled quickly after that, like it always did. Shock lasted seconds in our world. Then it turned into order again. Chairs moved, voices returned, food replaced. Like nothing had happened.

My attention kept returning to her.

The way she forced herself to eat when her hands were still unsteady. The way she kept her posture straight despite everything. She didn’t break. Not where anyone could see.

Most people would have.

She didn’t.

********

Giovanni moved before anyone could speak.

His fist slammed into Enzo’s jaw, the crack echoing through the office as Enzo staggered back, blood spilling from his mouth almost immediately.

“Have you lost your damn mind?” Giovanni snapped, grabbing his collar and dragging him forward again. "You put Alessia’s life at risk for your stupid games."

Enzo didn’t fight him.

Blood dripped down his chin as he steadied himself, breathing hard but saying nothing. Enzo lifted his head slightly, jaw tight, pride still sitting in his eyes like he hadn’t learned anything. He was one of those men so high on their shit to even feel pain.

That was the problem.

Giovanni saw it too.

His hand tightened around his gun.

For a second, I thought he would shoot him.

Instead…

He turned and fired.

The gunshot tore through the room, the bullet slamming into the wall just behind Enzo’s head.

Enzo flinched, barely, but I saw it.

Giovanni lowered the gun slowly, breathing controlled again, like he’d forced the anger back where it belonged.

“That,” he said quietly, “is the closest you come to death today.”

"You fucked up, Enzo." Salvatore's voice came mildly from the corner. "You knew what this meeting was meant to be. Yet you chose to act foolishly.”

Matteo and Luca stood beside the door, Matteo’s eyes focused coldly on Enzo’s head. Antonio and Draco, her cousins, leaned against the wall watching the scene with their arms crossed.

All the guests, both my family and the Romano’s that came today had filed out, and it was safe to say this lunch was a total failure. Which only meant more lunches and events I’d have to attend.

"Leonardo." Giovanni's tone shifted. "What would you have done?"

"No need." My voice was flat. "You've handled it."

I could start a war for Vito's death if I wanted. My papà would have. Rafael Mancini would have turned this room into a massacre, then pounded his chest and called it justice.

That was probably why Giovanni was offering me the lead. Why he was inviting me to finish Enzo on my own terms. He expected a Mancini response. Expected blood.

If I obliged, Enzo would be dead in seconds.

But spilling more than one man's blood today would be a mess I didn't need.

So I let Giovanni keep his nephew.

My gaze settled on Enzo, steady, cold, uninterested in excuses.

“You got lucky,” I said.

His eyes met mine this time.There was still something there. Not fear.

Not fully.

But it was coming.

“You lost control,” I continued, voice even. “And when men like you lose control, people die.”

I took another step closer, close enough now that he had no choice but to feel it.

“This ends when I decide it does, and next time…I won’t be this patient.”

That did it. Something in his expression shifted.

I straightened slightly, turning away from him like he wasn’t worth more of my attention. Because he wasn’t.  Enzo had endangered Alessia’s life today.

And that, I wouldn’t forgive.

*********

I was halfway down the hallway when she collided with me.

She hit my chest hard, like she hadn’t slowed down at all. The impact knocked her off balance and she slipped, going down against the marble with a sharp breath.

My hand almost moved. Almost caught her before she fell. I stopped it and watched instead. My jaw tightened.

She pushed herself up immediately, ignoring the fall, ignoring the fact that she’d just run straight into me. There was no hesitation in her, no pause to recover. Just that same refusal to stay down. It was very familiar.

My gaze moved over her before I could stop it, taking in the damp hair, the shirt clinging to her skin, the way she hadn’t even thought about how she looked before running out here. Alive. Real…I cut the thought off before it settled into something else.

She didn't recognize me. Not even a flicker, Good.

“Move,” she muttered. “You’re in my way.”

There it was. That edge in her voice. Sharper now, colder, but still there. I felt the faintest pull of amusement before it disappeared. No one spoke to me like that.

She stepped closer instead of backing away, like she understood exactly who she was standing in front of and chose not to care. Or worse—she did care, and ignored it.

My eyes dropped briefly to the pulse at her throat. 

"You should be more careful," I said, my voice low. "Running toward danger when you don't even know what you're walking into."

I stepped past her before the moment stretched any further than it needed to. Because staying there would have been a mistake. A mistake I wouldn’t be able to fucking take back.

"Did you kill him?" she called after me, her voice breaking slightly. "Did you kill my cousin?"

She was still looking outward. Still focused on everyone else.

I paused. Just for a second.

"I should have."

I kept walking after that, not slowing, not turning back.

Control was everything.

And I wasn’t about to lose mine.