Leo Valdez Death Novels & Stories

The platinum collar around Eli’s neck felt warm against his skin, a reminder of the night before when Cove had held him through the tears. Lena stepped forward from the side of the room, her face serious and tired. She had been up all night dealing with the fallout from the box delivery. “This is not just a threat,” she said, her voice steady but edged with anger. “This is the start of something bigger. Don Caruso is dead. His own son killed him.” Eli turned to her, his eyes wide. “What? Matteo did this?”

A slow, deeply sad smile touched his lips. "Tell Leo..." his voice cracked, a crimson bubble forming on his lower lip as his lungs began to fail, "...tell him his father finally won a high-stakes match." And without a single microsecond of hesitation, Carlos Elmundo threw his weight over the stone balustrade and jumped into the abyss. 00:07

It wasn't a weeping born of sadness or guilt; it was the sound of absolute completion. "She's beautiful, Axel," he choked out, his thumb carefully brushing her tiny cheek. "She's going to be strong," Emilia whispered from the bed, her eyes shining as she looked at us. "Like her uncle. Like all of us." Three months after Isabella’s birth, a secure federal alert appeared on my workshop terminal. Leonardo Reyes had passed away inside his maximum-security cell. Heart attack. Natural causes. The man who had meticulously orchestrated the chess pieces of our lives, the man who had set every single violent catalyst in motion to break us, was officially gone from the earth.

"—pulled from the river earlier this afternoon. Despite the efforts of medical personnel on scene, Dante Valentino succumbed to his injuries shortly after being recovered from the water. He was thirty years old." She pauses. "Three other members of his security detail were also recovered and confirmed deceased. Our thoughts are with the families during this—" I stop hearing her. The woman on the screen, Dr. Elena, something in the back of my mind registers the name, Dante's personal doctor, the one who travels with him, the one Luca mentioned once — is looking into the camera and saying the words that end everything. Dante Valentino is dead. Confirmed. Official. Final. Something happens to m