Page 64 of Assassin's Heart
Neither did I.“I know Remi, Dad. I—”Love him.But I couldn’t say it, not yet. Remi should be the first to hear those words from me.
Dad turned to me, his gaze full of fire. “Would you bet your life on him? Brooke’s life?”
“I would.” No hesitation. “I already have.”
He stared down at me for the longest moment. Finally, he pushed to his feet. “All right. Let’s see if he’s got a good enough plan to get this mess untangled, then. Come on.”
In the living room, only Remi and his brothers remained. Gesturing to the couch, Remi urged us to sit. “Need anything,lev sheli?”
My dad quirked a brow at the phrase but didn’t ask questions. Remi scrounged up a soda I hoped would settle my stomach, then brought Dad a coffee before settling on the arm of the chair across from us. Levi took one end of the seating area, Eli the other.
Dad eyed the arrangement as he took a sip of his coffee. “Leah said earlier you didn’t know you had the recordings when you went to meet Ross and Southerland. I take it you have them now.”
“We found them in a necklace Angelo gave Leah,” Remi confirmed.
“And what do you plan to do with them?”
Remi cocked his head, the predator rising in his eyes. “That depends on you.”
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Chapter Twenty-Seven
Remi—
Ross Windon Sr agreed to stay with us. Saved me the hassle of forcing him to. That would’ve put a serious damper on any future relationship we might have, and I didn’t need him interfering with Leah for the rest of our lives. Seeing me follow Leah into the bedroom to sleep near Brooke already had a sour look crossing his face. I’d let Levi do any further antagonizing that became necessary.
Leah stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the tiny bump of Brooke’s body beneath a mound of covers. The rigid set to her spine and the tense grip she had on her elbows shouted her anger more clearly than any words. Not at me, I didn’t think, or anyone else here. At the circumstances. The situation she found herself and her daughter in. The absolute, complete and utter unfairness of it all.
And we’d just added insult to injury.
“Leah...”
She glanced my way without meeting my eyes, but I could see the glistening of tears in hers. “Santo Fiori should be punished.”
I moved behind her, circled her body with my arms, wishing they were strong enough to hold every bad thing at bay.
“For the things he’s done to others,” she continued, “but not just that. I want him dead, Remi. I want it so much I feel like I’ll choke on it. For the things he’s done to my daughter, to me. I want him tortured and scarred; I want him to lose everything he’s ever cherished, and then I want him dead.”
I tucked my head down until my nose met her hair, breathed in that scent that was uniquely Leah’s. “I know.”
Her hands came up to grip my arms. “This won’t really be a punishment, will it?”
No, because the head of the Fiori mob family would live. The Fioris would continue with crime as usual, and the people Leah loved would be no more than a small glitch in their day. Life wasn’t fair. Leah knew that better than anyone—she’d lost so much of her life because of this man, this family. I wanted justice for the things that had been done to her too, but we couldn’t risk a war with the mob, not if we wanted to guarantee Leah’s and Brooke’s freedom. This plan would protect her, but the cost of that protection was tearing her apart.
There was only one thing I could give her.
Bending closer to her ear, I spoke softly. “Men like Fiori always get what’s coming to them in the end.”
“Do they?”
She didn’t believe it right now, but eventually she would. When it was safe.
“They do.”
Adjusting my hold, I ducked lower, pushing aside the long strands of blonde hair until soft, sensitive skin was revealed. My lips came to rest right beneath her ear where the scent of her, the heat of her was strongest. “It may not be tomorrow, or the day after, or the next after that.” We were too close; anything that happened to Fiori could be too easily tied to the woman I held safely in my arms. “But eventually justice comes for every one of the bastards like Fiori. It will come for him too.”
Leah’s breath stilled; her heartbeat picked up beneath my lips. “Does justice have a name?”
