Page 47 of By Blade, I Love
The funeral was more like a wedding, due to the guest list. The kitchen staff prepared a feast and had a selection of desserts and coffee afterward. There were pictures of my father at every table.
I got to hear stories about him from people I hardly knew. He had cousins and uncles come for the funeral, and I learned all about his life. His brother told me how he’d struggled to be a single father when we were little, but my father had insisted it was the greatest struggle of his life.
As evening descended, people started to clear out, stopping by to pay their final respects to me. Once the crowd had thinned outand it was mostly empty tables and chairs with dirty plates left behind, Leo appeared.
His hands were in the pockets of his slacks, and he stared at me from a distance, his face still fucked up from the way I’d hit him with the shotgun. His nose was bent too. Would probably stay that way for the rest of his life unless he had a surgeon operate on it.
I stared him down, seeing red in the corners of my vision just the way Wolfe described about himself. The flood of hatred was so distinct if filled my mouth with bile. If I’d had a pistol strapped to my leg, I might have finished the job.
My stare was undeniably hostile, but the asshole walked over anyway. He stopped a couple feet away, meeting my rage with quiet misery. His eyes flicked away for a while before they found mine again.
Wolfe was across the terrace speaking to someone, and he moved his gaze to watch us together. He finished up his conversation and started to head over, but instead of interceding, he pulled out a nearby chair and took a seat. Just the way my father’s bodyguards had protected him when he was out and about, Wolfe hung nearby in case I needed him but didn’t directly interfere out of respect.
Then I noticed Elio, Andre, and Salvatore do the same, treating me like I really was the boss.
It wasn’t clear if Leo knew they were all behind him, sitting in chairs and armed underneath their blazers, staring him down like an enemy that was about to fuck around and find out.
Leo took a heavy breath, and his eyes immediately started to water. “I’m going to live with this regret for the rest of my life.And trust me, that’s punishment enough. I don’t care if you kill me. I don’t care if Wolfe shoots me in the back. I—I have nothing to live for anymore.” He held my gaze as the tears swelled to the size of marbles and then streaked down his cheeks. “I love you, Frankie. You’re my sister, the only family I have left. And if you let me come back, I swear to you that I—” His voice caught in his throat as he started to cry. “I will bleed for you. I will protect you. I will serve you. I’ll be whatever your generosity allows me to be. When Warren hit your house…you don’t know how my heart dropped into my stomach. I know we don’t talk a lot and we aren’t particularly close, but you’re my sister. I fucking love you.” He sniffed. “And Dad was right when he chose you. He was so fucking right, and I wish I had put aside my fucking ego and just listened.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “If I’d known it was going to turn out this way, I wouldn’t have done it. I hope you believe me.”
I stood there and watched my brother cry in front of me, and as hard as I held on to my rage with a white-knuckled grip, I believed his sincerity. Leo might be stupid, but he wasn’t evil. He wasn’t sinister like Warren and Icarus.
“That last conversation with him will haunt me every day until I die.” More tears flooded from his eyes. “I wish I’d just listened. I’ve aged a decade in weeks, and I wish this wisdom I’ve gained had come to me sooner. Now I see what I didn’t see before. If I ran this business, it would go belly-up in a week. I would make deals with the wrong people and get us shot in the back. I wish I’d listened to him…and asked him to help me be better.” He took another heavy breath. “Because I know he would have done everything he could to help me. But now, he’s gone, and I realize all the stuff I never had the chance to ask. I don’t have a father anymore, and though I’m a grown man, now I feel like a lost little boy.”
My hands remained together at my waist, and I continued to stare at him.
“But I still have you—and you still have me.”
“Wolfe is my family,” I said quietly. “I will marry him and take his last name and give birth to his children, and that will be my family. You’re a stranger to me, Leo. You’re a distant relation, a fourth cousin twice removed. All we share is a last name.”
He started to tremble, his cries becoming more desperate. He didn’t seem to care that he had an audience to his crash out. “Please let me stay,” he whispered. “You don’t have to forgive me. But please let me stay. Maybe in time, maybe in decades, maybe someday…after I’ve proven my love and my loyalty…you’ll be able to trust me again?—”
“Dad is dead.”
He winced as if my words cut him.
“I watched his brains fly out of his skull.”
He closed his eyes to shut out my words, like they were torture.
“I watched him lie in a pool of his own blood.”
He kept his eyes closed.
“And you think one day I’ll ever be able to trust you again?”
When he opened his eyes again, more tears came, but now he was calm…and defeated.
“Do you understand what the fuck you’re asking? You should just be grateful that I let you live, Leonardo. That I allowed you to walk out of here with your life instead of letting Wolfe carve you into pieces like his enemies—because you’re my enemy.”
“You’re not my enemy.”
“Well, you’re mine.”
He swallowed as his eyes remained soaked with tears. “Frankie, please. Just…” He brought his palms together like he was begging. “Please. I’ll do anything to stay. Please.” He lowered himself to his knees and begged at my feet. “Please.” He sobbed on the floor.
I stared at him for a while before I raised my chin and looked at the others. Looked at Andre, Salvatore, and Elio. They stared at me but didn’t give a reaction, letting this decision reside in my hands. Then I looked at Wolfe.
He stared back with his calm and confident expression, his opinion hidden behind his stoicism.
