Possibly because she wasn’t.
Fucking hell. Was it possible Leon had just made the biggest mistake of his life?
Chapter Nine
“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
