“Whatever he’s told you, he’s lying,” I said. “When he speaks about her, when he mentions what he feels for her, he uses present tense. With his kind of psychosis, Leo will never stop fixating on your sister until he believes she’s dead.”
She glanced at me over her shoulder, her chest heaving. Then she swirled and stalked back to me. “Do you think I’m an idiot to trust someone like Leo Bellomo?”
“You trusted him over your husband.”
She scoffed. “I trust no one in this whole world but my sister. I care about no one but her and my nephew.” She leaned in to whisper in my ear. “You think I don’t know what he’s planning after he shoots Tino? He keeps saying he’s a dead man, and he’ll be shot on sight right after, but I know he thinks he can use my sister as leverage to save his life and then kidnaps her.”
“Then why are you helping him?”
“Because I won’t let Leo Bellomo anywhere near Lina ever again. Once he kills Tino,Iwill make sure of it.”
My eyes bulged, and a terrible cold shiver took over me. Even if he managed to off his father and get away with it, Nicole was going to kill Leo herself. “Leo! Leo!”
She giggled, almost as manically as Leo. “Scream for him all you want. He’s not coming. He doesn’t give a shit about you, Ravenna. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone. He only cares about himself and getting his fucking sick needs taken care of.” Her face darkened. “Just like all of them.”
I pulled hard at the cuffs, writhing for a way out. “Leo!”
“I’d save my energy if I were you. You don’t know how long you’re gonna be staying here all alone in the cold before they come for you. But as a courtesy, even though you don’t deserve it, I’ll help you pee before I go. Sleeping in your own piss would be very unpleasant.”
Shit. I couldn’t let her abandon me in this condition. I wouldn’t let her lead Leo to his death, either. I couldn’t. No matter the price I had to pay. “Your hatred is blinding you from the truth. Don Bellomo isn’t the enemy, Nicole. He isn’t the one who used you. He isn’t the one who told your husband to imprison Leo.”
Her big, blue eyes squinted at me. “What?”
“You’re hating the wrong person, Nicole. You’re having your revenge on the wrong Mafioso.”
“Do you know who did it?”
I swallowed. I was playing a dangerous game, and the risks were lethal, but I had no other choice. “Yes.”
“Who the fuck is it?”
“I’ll only tell Leo.”
Deep lines appeared between her eyebrows. “You’re unbelievable. Are you that weak, that pathetic? How could you feel any kind of affection for someone like him?”
“How could your sister? For him and his father?” I looked her in the eye. “How could you for Domenico Lanza?”
Jaws clenched, she seethed. “They’re all mistakes. Ones I’ll make right once and for all. But, at least, those men wanted us. Leo… He didn’t even bother to come over and show you any sign of respect, any gesture that you meant anything to him, that you even existed. He hasn’t even come to say goodbye before he leaves forever.”
I writhed again, ablaze, needing to punch this bitch silent. “Leo!”Why the fuck isn’t he answering me? Why hasn’t he come?My mind screamed with the answer as I kept screaming for him.Because everything Nicole has said is true.“Leo! Your father didn’t put you in that cage! I know who did! I know it for a fact just like I know Lina is never going to love you! She never has. Never will.”
Never like I do.Tears streamed down my face as for the first time in my life I acknowledged my true feelings for him. I’d deluded myself for years, convincing myself he was nothing but a fantasy and a crutch to avoid relationships, but it was never true. I’d been irretrievably in love with him. The psychopath who had always been madly in love with some other girl but me. The monster who murdered the objects of his obsessions when they no longer served his delusions. The man I’d betrayed and sentenced to a destiny worse than death.
I was a psychiatrist, and I’d fallen in love with a vicious made man who was criminally insane. My most forbidden fantasy and worst nightmare. I’d fallen in love with Leo Bellomo.
“You know what she must be doing right now?” I continued my hopeless shouts. “She must be in your father’s arms, begging him to kill you so her beloved husband, the father of her child would be safe. So they’d all be safe. Her real family that never included you!”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Nicole yelled at me.
Using her bitch psychology technique against her.“She must be so scared, and your father has to be comforting her…in his bed, never leaving her side, doing all kinds of—”
His face popped at the entrance. The sound of his huffs reached me from here, silencing me. It wasn’t my intention to wound him. I only wanted to anger him enough to lure him back to me.
He limped in until he was close enough for me to see him clearly; he’d never put my glasses back on my face. My heart thumped, and my breath snagged in my chest as he just stood there, staring at me, as I knew the state of his anger was a danger to all of us, himself included.
Suddenly, he pounced on me despite his injuries, choking me with his grip. “How do you know it’s not my father who told the Lanzas’ dog to torture me?”
I’d grown to like the feeling. A counter defensive emotion to fear that turned the hazard of asphyxiation into something erotic rather than painful.