Chapter 5 - THE FIRST RULE OF LOVING A DANGEROUS MAN
Tessa did not speak to Leo during the drive back.
Not because she blamed him.
Because if she opened her mouth, she might scream.
At 7:10 a.m., they returned to the estate.
Leo ordered breakfast.
Tessa refused.
He ordered it anyway.
She glared.
He canceled it.
Then, after approximately thirty seconds:
“Would you like breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Pancakes.”
He called the kitchen again.
Tessa stared.
“What?”
“You’re trainable.”
“I dislike you.”
“No, you don’t.”
The answer came too quickly.
They both went quiet.
Leo looked away first.
That frightened her almost as much as the gunshots.
They examined the documents while she ate.
Antonio Santoro had apparently used a foundation called Saint Aurelia Medical Outreach to move money and narcotics.
But Evelyn’s notes suggested something worse.
Witnesses.
People who had seen crimes committed by Santoro associates were being admitted to private clinics under false names.
Some later vanished.
Evelyn had discovered the system.
“She was building a case,” Tessa whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then why fake her death?”
Leo looked at Daniel’s photograph.
“Maybe because somebody she trusted convinced her to.”
Tessa drove to her father alone.
Leo objected.
She stared at him.
He stopped objecting.
Compromise arrived in the form of two security vehicles following at a distance.
Daniel knew immediately.
“You found it.”
Tessa placed the photograph on his blanket.
“Tell me everything.”
Her father closed his eyes.
“Your mother survived.”
The words destroyed something inside her.
“Why did you tell me she died?”
“To keep you alive.”
“Don’t.”
“Tessa—”
“Don’t make cruelty sound noble.”
Daniel cried then.
Quietly.
It made anger difficult.
“Your mother discovered what Antonio was doing. After the crash, Leo’s father believed she was dead. We decided to keep it that way.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lie.”
“I swear.”
“Then why were you with her three years later?”
“She contacted me once.”
“Why?”
“To see you.”
Tessa stopped.
“She came back?”
Daniel nodded.
“You were fifteen. She watched you leave school from across the street.”
A sob escaped Tessa before she could stop it.
“She was there?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she come to me?”
“Because men were still looking.”
Tessa stood.
“You chose for me.”
“Yes.”
“You all keep doing that.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Tessa left before anger turned cruel.
Outside, Leo was leaning against the car.
“You followed me.”
“I followed at the distance negotiated.”
She walked past him.
“Tessa.”
She stopped.
“I’m tired of men protecting me with lies.”
Leo absorbed that.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
His voice changed.
“My mother died because my father decided what she was allowed to know.”
Tessa turned.
Leo rarely mentioned his mother.
“She wanted to leave him. He discovered it.”
“What happened?”
“He locked her inside the estate for eleven months.”
Tessa’s anger disappeared.
“I was sixteen.”
Leo stared toward the road.
“She escaped once. He brought her back. Three weeks later, she was dead.”
“How?”
“Officially? Pills.”
“And unofficially?”
“I’ve never believed it.”
Tessa looked at him differently.
“You stayed.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You became him.”
Leo flinched.
She immediately regretted it.
But he nodded.
“In some ways.”
“No.”
Tessa stepped closer.
“You became what survived him.”
His eyes lifted.
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Leo looked almost unable to process kindness.
Tessa understood something then.
His possessiveness was not confidence.
It was terror wearing expensive tailoring.
Everyone Leo had loved had vanished.
His brother.
His mother.
Perhaps even Evelyn, the woman who had once protected him.
So Leo controlled doors.
Schedules.
People.
Information.
Because somewhere inside the feared thirty-four-year-old crime boss was a fourteen-year-old boy who believed that if he knew where everyone was, nobody could disappear.
Understanding did not excuse him.
But it made him human.
Tessa touched his hand.
“Protection without freedom is just a prettier cage.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m trying.”
She believed him.
That was the dangerous part.
Leo’s fingers slowly turned beneath hers.
He did not close them around her hand.
He waited.
Tessa intertwined their fingers herself.
His expression changed.
Barely.
But she saw it.
A man receiving something instead of taking it.
They stood there in silence.
Then Leo’s phone rang.
Marco.
“We opened the deposit box.”
Inside were ledgers.
Photographs.
Three passports belonging to Evelyn.
And one sealed letter.
Addressed to:
LEO SANTORO.
He opened it at home.
The letter contained only four sentences.
Leo, if you are reading this, Antonio is dead and someone has started hunting again.
Trust Tessa.
Do not trust the man who tells you he saved me.
And whatever happens, do not let them open Room 17.
Leo read it twice.
Tessa looked at him.
“What is Room 17?”
Leo’s face went pale.
“I don’t know.”
Marco entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found Saint Aurelia’s original clinic.”
“And?”
Marco swallowed.
“There are sixteen rooms.”
May you like
Leo looked at the letter.
“Then where the hell is seventeen?”
