“Carla—” He broke off at the sound of an incoming call on his cell phone, taking it from his trouser pocket before glancing at the caller’s name on the screen. “I have to take this.”
She nodded. “I’m going to my bedroom to lie down anyway. Close the door behind you on your way out,” she dismissed coldly before turning on her heel and walking down the hallway and into one of the two rooms there. Seconds later, Leon heard the finality of the door closing behind her.
Leon was torn between following Carla and taking the call.
Something told him to take the call. “Yes?” he barked at Kieran.
“Calabro is the great-nephew by marriage of Don Sebastian Russo.”
Sebastian Russo was one of the five dons from New York, and amongst the mob families that had come to London for the wedding yesterday. He was aged in his sixties, and an old friend of Leon’s father. Leon had known for years that the older man didn’t approve of his more modern methods of keeping the Famiglia in check, and that Sebastian wished for the return of the old ways.
Until Leon became capo, the older man had ruled his borough by fear, followed by death without a defense if Sebastian should take offence at another’s actions. Leon had decreed there would be no further killing without an acceptable reason for doing so and the evidence to back it up. Preferably before the killing took place.
Was it possible Don Sebastian was also responsible for the human trafficking in New York without Leon’s knowledge?
It was more than possible if the older man was genuinely behind this assassination attempt.
Leon was stunned. He’d known of the other man’s displeasure, but he hadn’t thought Russo would actually try to kill him and take over as capo dei capi in order to drag all the families back into that archaic regime.
“Instruct our men at the hotel to stop Don Sebastian and his men leaving for the airport and have them brought to the warehouse,” he told Kieran tersely. “If any of them try to refuse, you know what to do.”
“Kneecaps only?”
“Yes.”
“Including Don Sebastian?”
“Especially Don Sebastian.” He wanted the older man alive so he could question him personally.
“Got it, boss.”
“Have Natalia and Killian left for New York?”
“An hour ago, yes.”
“Contact Killian and instruct him to be doubly vigilant once they get there.” If Don Sebastian was guilty of all this other shit, then he was just stupid enough to have instructed his men in New York to take Natalia when she returned home. That way, he would be able to use her as leverage against Leon now the assassination attempt had failed. If that happened, Leon would kill Russo himself.
“On it, boss.”
He drew in a steadying breath. “Also, did Calabro talk any more of his association with Miss Andretti?” He winced as he waited for Kieran’s answer.
Mainly because Leon now believed he already knew what that answer was going to be.
“He said she hates him and wanted nothing more to do with him even before he shot her. After listening to him, I’m not surprised she feels that way,” Kieran added derisively. “Apparently, she found the stupid bastard in their bed with another woman just weeks before their wedding. He swears they haven’t seen or spoken to each other in the year since, and that he was totally stunned when he saw her with you at the hotel last night.”
Exactly the same explanation Carla had given Leon just minutes ago. “Do you believe him?”
“Oh yeah,” Kieran confirmed dryly. “The guy was crying and sniveling over how he’d lost his beautiful Carla because he was too fucking stupid to keep his dick in his pants.”
In the same way Leon had just been too fucking stupid to believe Carla when she told him she wasn’t involved in the attempt to kill him.
Their matching answers could, as Leon had already accused, have been pre-decided between Calabro and Carla. But they were also answers that could be verified from outside sources, by interrupting Grace’s honeymoon, if necessary. Because if anyone knew Carla’s true circumstances, it was her best friend, Grace.
If Leon was mistaken in the accusations he’d leveled at Carla a short time ago, then the only way to salvage any sort of relationship was for him to show he believed Carla without Grace’s input.
It was a giant leap of faith.
One Leon wasn’t sure he could take.
For years, his father had groomed him to take over as capo, his eldest son and Grace’s father, having shown himself to be too weak to assume that role. Leon had spent the majority of the past twenty years not allowing himself to trust anyone one hundred percent.
Except Natalia.
But Natalia had always been his weakness rather than a threat.
As Carla had now become another weakness?
Because Leon wanted more than anything to believe her denial of being in cahoots with Calabro in an attempt to assassinate him.
He wanted to believe that more than he wanted his next breath.
It was dark outside the window of Carla’s bedroom when she woke. She’d been so upset and hadn’t thought she would be able to sleep after that conversation with Leon, but an hour of swimming laps of the pool, on top of being shot the previous night, had obviously exhausted her. The darkness outside said she must have been asleep for quite some time.
But she didn’t remember leaving the bedroom door slightly ajar or leaving the light on in the hallway.
She did remember having a conversation with Leon. Of his accusation followed by his decision of her being guilty without trial.
He believed her guilty by association.
Carla still had no idea what Benny was doing mixed up in something as awful as shooting an unarmed man. Not just any man, but Leon Brunelli, the powerful capo dei capi of the Italian Mafia.
The man, against all the odds, Carla had thought she was falling in love with.
She gave a self-disgusted snort. How could she have been so stupid? She should know by now that all men were—
“Is this the same bed where you found Calabro with another woman weeks before your wedding?”
Carla turned so quickly toward the sound of that familiar and huskily rasping voice, she made herself dizzy. She blinked several times to clear her vision before making out the shadowed form of the man lying beside her on the bed.
Leon.
What the hell…?
Obviously, the reason she didn’t remember leaving the bedroom door ajar or the light on in the hallway was because she hadn’t done either of those things. Leon had.
Carla continued to look at him over her shoulder. “Not the same bed or apartment. The first I threw out, and I moved out of the apartment. Now would you like to explain what the hell you’re doing in my bed?”
“On it,” he corrected. “I didn’t think you would appreciate me getting under the covers with you.”
Carla threw back those covers to get out of bed and turn on the bedside lamp.
She refused to be in the least concerned she’d taken off the jeans and top she’d been wearing earlier and now wore only a thigh-length cotton nightshirt over her bra and panties.
Or notice how sexy Leon looked with his gray hair ruffled. He had removed his jacket and was wearing only the white shirt and the tailored trousers of his suit, having removed his tie to unbutton the shirt at his throat.
She hardened her heart. “I don’t appreciate you being here at all. In fact, I want you to leave.”
“Is that a glittery unicorn on the front of your nightshirt?”
She felt her cheeks warm. “I didn’t buy it. It was a birthday present from Grace.”
“But you’re wearing it. Granted, at a time when you didn’t think anyone would see it, but you’re still wearing it.”
“So?”
He smirked. “I think it’s cute.”
She gritted her teeth. “I think I asked you to leave.”
“Carla—”
“Get out.”
He gave a shrug before swinging his legs off the bed and slipping his sock-clad feet into his shoes before standing.
“I told you to get out,” Carla reminded.
“And I got out of the bed.”
Her hands were clenched at her sides. “Are you being deliberately obtuse?” she snapped with increasing agitation.
“No more than usual.”
She gave a disbelieving snort. “Then let me put it more plainly so that you completely understand.” She spoke to him as if he were a child or mentally deficient. “I want you to leave my bed, my apartment, and my life. In that order. In fact,” she continued without waiting for him to answer, “I don’t know what you’re still doing here after I told you to leave earlier and to close the door behind you on the way out.”
If Leon had learned nothing else the past two hours as he watched Carla as she slept, it was that, guilty or innocent, he wasn’t ready to let her go. Because of that, he knew he had to make the choice to believe in her innocence.
Totally.
Anything less wouldn’t do. He either trusted her or he didn’t.
He straightened with new resolve. “I believe you.”
“Then why aren’t you leaving? Don’t you have someone’s fingers to break? Or toenails to pull—”
“I believe you when you say you aren’t in cahoots with Calabro in his attempt to assassinate me,” Leon stated firmly before she named any more of the vicious methods used by the old guard of the Mafia to extract information. Before he became their capo and found that monetary and family hardships were much more effective.
“And what gave you this amazing insight?” Carla looked less than impressed with his words. “Benny’s denials of my involvement? Possibly the admission of guilt from the man who actually paid Benny to shoot you? Along with his total lack of knowledge as to who the hell I am?”
Kieran had texted Leon a short time ago to say they had apprehended Don Sebastian and his men on their way to the airport and were now holding them at the warehouse.
Leon had instructed they keep them there but do nothing else. He wanted to question the older man himself. But first he needed to make things right with Carla.
“Or maybe you gave Grace a call, interrupting her honeymoon, and checked out my story with her?” Carla continued with a disgusted shake of her head. “Leon, you can take one or all of those things and shove them up your untrusting and superior arse— Are you laughing at me?” she demanded furiously.
Leon knew that he shouldn’t be. That there was nothing in the least amusing about this situation. That he was trying to get close to Carla again, not piss her off.
And yet he couldn’t seem to control the smile of admiration from curving his lips. “You’re one hell of a woman, Carla.” He was more than a little in awe of her at this moment. Even when she was wearing that glittery unicorn nightshirt. Or maybe especially because she was wearing that unicorn top. “You simply know no fear, do you?”
Any one of Leon’s dons would have wanted to eliminate Carla if she’d talked to them in the disrespectful way she talked to him. No, that wasn’t disrespect. It was honesty. Complete honesty. Carla gave respect where it was due, not demanded. Leon wanted, needed, that from her, for himself.
Then earn it, idiot, a voice in his head told him.
A voice that sounded suspiciously like Carla’s.
She gave a shake of her head. “The opinion of a man who chooses not to believe a word I say isn’t of particular—”
“I believe every word you’ve ever said to me, including the insults,” Leon stated firmly. “Not because of anything your ex-fiancé had to say. Or his employer’s admission of guilt. Or because I’ve spoken to Grace. Because I haven’t allowed any of those things to sway me. I believe in your innocence because you told me that’s what you are.”
Carla stilled, eyeing him warily.
Could she believe him?
Half in love with him as she was, dare she believe him?
More importantly, what reason could Leon possibly have for lying to her?
If she had read the situation correctly, then Leon needed Benny to confess to whoever his employer was. Which meant her apartment was the last place Leon should have been for the past few hours. He had Benny to question. Punishments to decide and mete out once he had the brains behind the assassination attempt—because that certainly wasn’t Benny. The one place Leon shouldn’t have been was in—on—her bed or in her apartment.
Then why was he still here?
What did he have to gain from having remained here after she’d told him to leave? She couldn’t see a single reason for Leon to be here when he could quite easily have instructed one of his three Irish bodyguards to continue keeping a watch on her and report back to him if she left her apartment.
After falling asleep during the day for so long it was now evening, and after being shot on the side of her head last night, Carla was too befuddled to answer any of those questions.
“Tea or coffee?” Leon prompted briskly.
She blinked at this sudden change of subject. “Sorry?”
“Tea would be better, I think,” Leon decided. “It’s more refreshing and won’t lie so heavily in your stomach if you’re feeling nauseous.”
Carla reached out to grasp hold of the bedside table to stop herself from swaying. “How did you know I feel nauseous?”
He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Because the last person I saw looking as pale as you’ve suddenly become was lying in an open casket at their wake.”
“How descriptive,” she returned with saccharine sweetness. “I bet you have to fight the women off with a stick with slick compliments like that at your fingertips.”
Leon couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud.
He realized this woman made him happy.
Happy and joyous.
They were both concepts Leon hadn’t known for such a long time, if he ever had, that it had taken him until now to realize what was so different about Carla and the effect she had on him.
Obviously, she was beautiful, but she also made him laugh, at himself as much as anything else. He felt lighter in her company. Became Leon, rather than capo die capi. A title Carla had made it obvious she considered to be more of a detriment than something in his favor, as so many other people did.
He loved his daughter, even if Natalia was a spoiled brat.
He was proud to have taken the Famiglia into a less violent regime this past ten years.
He valued the men who followed him as capo and the ones who were his and Natalia’s personal bodyguards.
He appreciated his wealth and privileged lifestyle.
But none of those things made him happy inside in the way that Carla now did simply by being in the same room with him.
Most people tended to hold him somewhat in awe. Because of who he was and the power he wielded, over their future or their workplace.
Carla didn’t give a damn about who he was or that power he could wield with a snap of his fingers. She was irreverent, disrespectful, and told him exactly what she thought of him or anyone else who annoyed her.
Because a year ago, Calabro had betrayed her so badly she simply didn’t care what any man thought of her anymore?
Possibly, although Leon had a feeling Carla had always been outspoken.
And desirable.
So fucking desirable—and cute in that unicorn nightshirt—that Leon was in danger of starting to drool if he didn’t get out of this bedroom for a few minutes, at least.
“I’m going to make you some tea,” he announced firmly before striding out of the room.
Carla dropped down heavily on the side of the bed once she was sure she was alone. She had absolutely no idea how Leon came to still be in her apartment when she had told him to leave, repeatedly, let alone now be in her kitchen making her a cup of tea.
The Italian Mafia capo dei capi was in her kitchen making her a cup of tea.
And that was just—to use Leon’s favorite word when he was annoyed or upset—un-fucking-believable.