Chapter 7 - The Price of Protection
“Leo!”
Mia dropped beside him.
Blood spread across the shoulder of his black coat. He gritted his teeth, pressed one hand against the wound, and tried to stand.
“Get her out of here,” he ordered.
“No!”
“Mia, move!”
Greg's men advanced through the snow. Declan fired toward the vehicles while Paulie pulled Dorsey toward the rear fence.
Leo caught Mia's hand.
“Listen to me. You're carrying a child. You cannot stay here.”
“Neither can you if you keep bleeding!”
She tore a scarf from around her neck and pressed it against his shoulder.
For a brief second, Leo looked at her with something almost like wonder.
Then Declan appeared beside them.
“Boss, the east gate is clear.”
They made it to the SUV under covering fire. Paulie drove while Declan called for a private medical team.
Mia kept pressure on Leo's wound.
“Stay awake.”
“I am awake.”
“Then keep talking.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
He managed a strained smile.
“You're a terrible nurse.”
“And you're a terrible patient.”
His eyes closed for half a second.
“Leo!”
He opened them again.
“I'm here.”
At the hospital, surgeons removed the bullet and confirmed that it had missed the major blood vessels. Leo would recover, provided he followed instructions.
He promised to follow them.
Nobody believed him.
Mia waited beside his bed until dawn. She had been given a separate examination, and Dr. Miller assured her that the baby was stable. Still, every time she closed her eyes, she saw Leo falling in the snow.
When he woke, she was sitting beside him with her arms folded.
“You're angry,” he said.
“I'm furious.”
“Understandable.”
“You keep telling me you're protecting me, but you never tell me when you're walking into danger.”
“If I had told you—”
“I would have come anyway.”
He stopped.
Mia's voice trembled.
“You don't get to decide that your life matters less than mine. You don't get to throw yourself in front of a bullet and expect me to be grateful that you survived.”
Leo looked at her for a long time.
“No one has ever spoken to me like that.”
“Then everyone around you has been making a terrible mistake.”
He laughed softly, then winced.
She almost smiled.
Almost.
“I found something in my mother's documents,” she said. “A copy of an employment record from Barton’s. Greg started working there eight years ago, but the record shows he was hired through a company owned by your grandfather.”
Leo's expression hardened.
“That isn't possible. Greg was never part of our organization.”
“Maybe he wasn't. But someone paid him.”
They examined the record with Vincent Moretti, who had been working through the night to verify the warehouse documents.
Vincent discovered that Greg had received unexplained payments through a consulting company. The payments had begun shortly after Vittorio's death and continued until the day Leo purchased the grocery store.
Someone had planted Greg at Barton’s.
Someone had known Mia worked there.
The revelation made Leo go completely still.
“This wasn't an accident,” he said.
“No,” Vincent replied. “It appears the manager was placed in a position to monitor her.”
“Why would anyone monitor a cashier?”
Mia looked down at the photograph of Elena.
“Because they knew who I was.”
Vincent nodded.
“There is another problem. The trust documents have been altered. The beneficiary's name was removed from the public record, but the original registration remains valid.”
“Who benefits if the trust disappears?” Leo asked.
Vincent slid a financial statement across the bed.
“Several people. But one stands out. Isabella Bellini.”
Leo stared at the page.
“My cousin?”
“Her company received assets that should have remained in the trust. If the transfer was fraudulent, she could lose everything.”
Mia thought of Isabella's warning in the hospital.
Ask him what happened to the last woman who carried a Castiglione secret.
“Maybe she was trying to scare me away,” Mia said.
“Or make you afraid of the truth,” Leo replied.
A nurse entered to check Leo's vitals. After she left, Mia stood and reached for her coat.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To speak to Isabella.”
“No.”
She turned slowly.
“Leo.”
“She's dangerous.”
“So is Greg. So is whoever ordered the attack. I'm tired of being the person everyone moves around a board.”
He studied her face.
Finally, he sighed.
“You won't go alone.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
At that moment, Vincent's phone rang.
He answered, listened, and turned pale.
“Mr. Castiglione, we have a problem.”
Leo sat up despite the pain.
“What now?”
“Greg Henderson has been found dead.”
Mia felt the room tilt.
May you like
Vincent swallowed.
“And the police found your fingerprints on the weapon.”
