My heart squeezed for him. “What happened?”
“Don Bellomo happened. Before Dad became the boss, there was a feud and bad blood between him and another Capo who wanted the position. That other man was pure evil. He threatened Dad if he accepted to be the boss, he’d ruin his family in return.
“Mamma was scared. She begged Dad to refuse the position, but Don Bellomo doesn’t take no for an answer. He always gets what he wants. If he thinks something is his, nothing else matters. Nothing stops him from having it. Not even his own family.”
“So when he accepted to be the boss…”
“Seppi killed my mom…and my baby sister.”
“What?” I gasped.
“Mamma was six months pregnant when he…” He burst into tears.
“I’m so sorry.” I rubbed his back and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, but he cried harder. “Leo, please, take it easy.”
“He raped her, Lina. He sat there and watched her bleed out my baby sister, and then he slit her throat.”
My tears fell with his, my heart in shreds. Why would anybody do something this horrid for a seat? “I’m so sorry. So sorry. Where were you and Tino when it happened?”
“I was sick that day and couldn’t go to school. It got worse by the afternoon. The doctor was too busy to come to the house so he asked her to drop by the clinic. Dad was home and said he’d take me so she’d rest. Her pregnancy wasn’t a very easy one.
“Seppi came to the house around three p.m. with his men, murdered all the bodyguards and tortured my mom to death.”
“That’s terrible. If you and Tino were there, too, you’d have been murdered as well.”
“But if Mamma and I had been at the doctor’s, Tino would have died, and she and my sister would have lived. Away from this fucking mess.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe Seppi would have found you all. You can’t blame Tino for what happened. He was taking care of you. You should be glad you and your dad survived.”
“Glad?” He chuckled bitterly. “None of that would have happened if he hadn’t become the fucking boss.”
“You can’t think that way, Leo. Tino is a good father.”
“Why are you taking his side?”
“I’m not taking sides. But when you have a father like him, you don’t take it for granted. What happened is a terrible tragedy, but it’s happened to both of you.”
He rested his forehead on his palm and shook his head, a troubled sigh escaping him. “Anyway, what’s done is done.” He looked at me, trying to smile. “Can we stop talking about Tino now? You’re making me jealous.”
“Jealous?” I tucked my hair behind my ear nervously. “W-why would you be jealous?”
“Because he’s hot, and you look at him like he’s something to eat.”
Heat came off my face in waves. “I…I don’t—”
His smirk taunted me. “It’s okay. I’m the spitting image of him. It’s normal that you find him attractive, too. I’m also aware that girls like you dig older guys.”
“Girls like me?”
“Beautiful, innocent, blushing , amazing girls like you who swoon over beards and tats.”
“Oh my God, Leo. You are…”
“I can grow a beard if you want. And,” he leaned in. “I have tattoos of my own.”
I bit my lip, imagining where on his body they could be. “Do you?”
“Yeah. Wanna see?”
Yes, please. I jerked up, leaving him alone on the bench. “You’re trouble.”
He wrapped his fist around my wrist and gazed up at me. “Marry me, Lina. Make an honest man out of me.”
I laughed. A wholehearted laugh. I didn’t think I’d ever had one of those before.
“What do you say, Lina bella? Will you give me the chance to make you as happy as you make me? Will you share this life with me that without you will mean absolutely nothing? Will you do me the honors and be mine for as long as we both shall live?”
Chapter 38
Lina
Tino’s stare at my hand in Leo’s curdled the blood in my veins. As I stood in his office, I was shaking like a kitten in the rain, while Leo was snickering. How could he not be scared of his dad when it was Tino Bellomo and he looked like he was gonna stab someone?
“With your permission, we’d like the wedding to be on Lina’s eighteenth birthday,” Leo said.
Tino didn’t reply. He seemed to be frozen in place, a deep line between his brows, two fingers rested on his temple, his thumb under his beard, the rest of his fingers covering half of his mouth but not the pinch to it. His legs crossed as he sat on the leather couch. He didn’t take his eyes off our clasped hands.
I tried to free my hand from Leo’s grasp, but he squeezed it, holding to it tighter. “I know it’s less than five months away but it’s—”
“Angelina,” he interrupted Leo, and I almost pissed myself.
“Y-yes, Tino?”
“Come sit beside me.”
Shoot. This was about the hand. Why did Leo have to provoke him all the time? I tugged my hand out of Leo’s tight grip. He wouldn’t let go easily, but I managed to break free. Then, my heart in my throat, I sank in the couch beside Tino.
“What do you say, Papà?”
“You know what I’m going to say.”
“I’ll take care of the Lanzas.”
“How?”
“I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t make their daughter happy.”
“And you expect them to just say congratulations?”
“They should.”
“In what world do you live in, Leo?”
“The same world that you do. The same world you dragged me in. If that world, with all its power, doesn’t make it possible for me to live with the one person my heart wants, then maybe I don’t belong there at all.”
Oh. My. God. I must admit, Leo was the bravest person I’d ever seen. To challenge and threaten Don Bellomo himself…
Or maybe Leo wasn’t brave at all and was just stupid.
Either way we were screwed. When I said yes, I knew it was a long shot. I didn’t expect Tino to approve of our marriage. He’d never give us his blessing. Heck, I didn’t expect Leo to go through with it and tell Tino.
Part of me only said yes to give Leo what he wanted so his fixation would fade, and maybe I’d find out it was nothing but an obsession, a need to have something he couldn’t have. After all, things like having a boy like Leo fall in love with a girl like me didn’t happen, not to people like me anyway.
I was wrong. Leo was going through with it with more determination than ever, and the other part of me that hoped he would was dancing with happiness.
However, happy fairytales didn’t belong in my world. Tino would never let this marriage happen, and I’d never want to come between a father and his son.
Tino’s leg dropped. The sound of his shoe hitting the floor made me flinch. He leaned forward, his hands clasped under his beard. “Give me a minute with Angelina.”
I gulped, glancing over at Leo. Don’t leave me alone with your scary father right now.