Page 45

45

LEONA

I shut the door in his face and collapsed to the ground.

The tears trickled, but the stabbing pain in my heart left me feeling more numb than anything.

Cas was usually the one I turned to for comfort. He’d been with me through everything—from the time when Romolo had teased me a little too much about liking Max and I cried myself to sleep, to when my dad screamed at me after I got caught at Max’s birthday party at the club, to when I’d gotten my first B on a college paper and was terrified my dad would make me quit. But right now, I wanted nothing to do with him.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, wishing I could talk to Chiara. I stared at my messages.

Chiara would throw on a movie, wrap us up in blankets, and get pints of chocolate cookie dough ice cream for us to devour while we shit-talked whatever person had put us in a mood , as she called it.

Well, now I was in a mood with no best friend to give me ice cream therapy.

The little cursor in my messages box flickered.

I typed “ Are you there, God? It’s me, Leona” and sent it away with a tearful chuckle. It was what we always sent each other when we had gotten in trouble and needed to talk—and usually it resulted in one of us sneaking out to go to the other’s house.

That couldn’t happen anymore. Max was using her as a hostage.

I had to believe she would never throw away our friendship. It would literally ruin me. I held onto hope that she just didn’t have her phone anymore.

I sank even further to the ground.

I felt so lost. What the fuck was I trying to do here? Was all this pointless? Should I just step back, and let the guys handle it? Or should I disappear?

Before I could really question what I was doing, my fingers dialed a number.

“Leona, how are ya?” Fallon’s voice answered from the other side after only two rings.

I gulped. “Um, fine.”

She paused. “Is everything all right?”

“No.” My voice came out strangled.

She sucked in a breath. “Where are ya? Tell me right now.”

“Just at the penthouse.” I slowly pulled myself from the ground. Fallon had way more important things to worry about than me and this stupid fight. It was ridiculous to even call her. What was I hoping for? That she’d give me a pep talk? Smack some sense into my men? “It’s fine. Forget I called. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“I’m on my way.”

The line went dead before I could respond.

My throat went dry. Tears pricked at my eyes again.

I hung my head between my hands, just a teensy bit hopeful that Fallon would come armed and ready to shoot.

A knock at my door had me finally sitting up from the bed. I’d showered, pulled my hair up into a towel, and stared at my phone. I had no idea how much time had passed. Still no response from Chiara.

With a sigh, I pulled open the door and then jerked back in surprise. The Irishwoman stood next to Willow and Zoya Makarova, arms laden with bags.

“What?” I asked, eyes wide. “What is this?”

Fallon pushed past me into the room without a word. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail and she wore joggers with a racerback T-shirt. I’d never seen her look so comfortable . A confused laugh escaped my lips, but I still opened the door wider. “Well, come in, then.”

Willow pulled me into a tight hug, also wearing comfy clothes. “It’s good to see you, Leona.”

I squeezed her tighter. She’d helped us so much when Cas and I were on the run. “You, too.”

She looked so much like Wynn with their hair color and light eyes. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to put together that they were siblings. “Thanks for taking care of my brother.”

My cheeks went hot. “He’s…um. You’re welcome?”

Before I shut the door, I peeked around her shoulder, half expecting to see a bloody hallway from Fallon fighting her way through the penthouse. Only part of me was relieved when I caught Wynn standing at the end of the hallway, looking guilty as fuck. Whatever.

Zoya glanced around my room while Fallon dumped their bags on the bed.

“Fallon, I’m really glad you came, but what’s going on?”

She gestured to the bags, grinning. “Girls night.”

“Girls night,” I repeated with a laugh. That sounded amazing. All that was missing was Chiara. “The guys just let you in?”

She gave me a look. “Do ya really think they are capable of keeping me out?”

“Definitely not.” I chuckled, matching Willow’s snort. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was bleeding right now.”

She waved a manicured hand. “Threats of violence can accomplish quite a lot without having to resort to getting your hands dirty.”

“Noted.”

“Cas folded quickly, as expected,” she said. “Plus, we had an inside man.”

“Wynn?”

“I called him on the flight,” Willow said. Flight? How exactly did they get here? “He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but there are many guilty faces in the other room.”

Let them wallow. They deserved it.

“It didn’t take a genius to put together that your guys did something stupid,” Fallon added.

My mouth pressed into a thin line. Yeah, they did. But I picked at my nails for a few moments, unsure what to say. Eventually, I asked Willow, “How did you get roped into this?”

“Well, it started when the helicopter landed in my street, and then Fallon stormed into my house and demanded I pack a bag and follow her,” Willow said with a heavy exhale. A helicopter ? “I was terrified! I thought one of the guys had died!”

“My men can handle themselves.”

“They’re still in Philly?” I asked.

“Keeping watch over the city,” she said with a nod. “They’ll be fine without me for one night.”

“What about your challengers?” I asked. Wynn had told me before, in light of Max’s attack, there had been others that tried to take power from her.

She waved a hand. “We’ve dealt with the worst of them. Ronan can handle anything else.”

Ronan. Eventually, I needed to learn more about Fallon, her men, and how they got together. They all seemed extremely capable.

“Anyway,” Willow continued. “Fallon said you needed us, and that set off an entirely new round of heart palpitations. I swear, it was like she wanted to give me a heart attack.”

“Penchant for drama. But when a woman is in trouble, we answer the call.”

A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. Were they friends? I wanted them to be.

Zoya sat on the edge of the bed next to us, folding her arms over her chest. “I didn’t get a choice either. One minute, I was brushing my teeth and the next, I was being pushed into a helicopter.”

I still couldn’t get over the helicopter.

“Settling in down there, okay?” I pulled a pillow into my lap and hugged it.

Zoya shrugged, but Willow grinned. “She’s been helping me at the clinic. It hasn’t been long, but she’s a quick learner, and the guys are already taken with her.”

My eyes widened. “Guys? Already ?”

“ No, ” Zoya snapped with a roll of her eyes. “It’s nothing. Some of the Irish guys are just friendly, but don’t tell my brother.”

I laughed. “Secrets are safe within the girl’s circle.”

Fallon dug some snacks out of the plastic bags. She tore open a bag of chips while pointing her finger. “You tell me if any of those men are bothering ya, aye? I’ll cut their balls off.”

Willow ate a chip. “Don’t worry, Fallon, I know how to use a scalpel, and I’m not afraid to use it. The guys know to keep it respectful.”

Fallon gave her an approving nod. “All right. Willow, give Leona the official prescription.”

“She insisted I say this, you know.” Willow rolled her eyes but sat up straight. “Leona, you’ve been diagnosed with—” She looked at Fallon to ask, “What was it?”

“Dumb men disease.”

“Ah, yes. You’ve been diagnosed with dumb men disease,” she continued. I tried to hold in my laughter. “Your official prescription is girl time. The first step in your treatment plan is snacks and movies.”

I nodded solemnly. Zoya handed me a bag of popcorn. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Fallon handed Willow a laptop. “Let’s begin.”

“Zoya, I swear to Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, if you eat all that popcorn, I will stab ya.”

Zoya sniggered and tossed her the bag. Cheesy romances played on Willow’s laptop. The tension in my chest had ebbed as we stuffed our faces and relaxed on the bed. Fallon, as it turned out, was a movie talker. She interjected, sassed, and shouted at the characters whenever they did something stupid. It had us in stitches, with even Zoya telling her to shut up so we could watch the movie.

It had been a welcome distraction, allowing me to bury the thoughts swirling in my head. Thank God they came. Friends . Chiara had been my only real girlfriend growing up.

“Now, Leona,” Fallon said, stuffing a handful of popcorn in her mouth. “Chat.”

“Excuse me, chat?” I gestured to the movie still playing.

“We didn’t take my private helicopter to the city for nothing,” she said, ignoring the two characters getting into a fight. “Tell us what happened. How did you contract dumb men disease?”

“Well, they’re dumb,” I finished lamely.

“Aye.” She nodded. “Especially multiple at once. They tend to feed off one another’s stupidity.”

“What happened?” Willow asked, bracing her head against her palm on the bed. “All I heard was you got into a fight and you needed us. I actually thought she meant a physical fight, so I brought my doctor’s bag. And Wynn wouldn’t say anything other than you were pissed and hurt.”

I exhaled. “Physically fine; emotionally is another story.”

“Spill,” Zoya urged, eating another handful of popcorn.

I filled them in on what happened: how we were trying to turn some of my father’s men back to my side, but in the process, I’d learned that Cas had been hiding the fact that the men would only come if I married him and he led the Family. He’d lied about what they were expecting, and Max showed up, and forced me to declare we were getting married for the sake of our lives.

Then it got worse. Obi had been scheming and manipulating me the entire time. Why, I had no idea. Wynn was too afraid to tell me the truth. All of them, except Ciel, knew to some degree, and not one of them said anything.

Oh, on top of that, Ryuji was making backup plans so he could bolt as soon as everything fell apart. I’d thought that we were growing closer, that he was opening up to me, but nope. He’d been ready to run the whole time.

Things were going great.

“So, I guess I’m engaged now,” I said bitterly as I rubbed the fourth finger on my left hand, where a ring should have gone. “If we want to keep those men on our side, we have to get married. And I’m left being another pawn in the grand game of power. When does it fucking end?”

How were we supposed to keep up this partnership if we couldn’t even be honest with each other?

“Ya don’t want to marry Caspian?” Fallon asked carefully.

“I don’t know,” I responded. Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it. At this point, it didn’t feel like a marriage. It felt like an agreement. He didn’t even propose. “I just…I have all my men. I want all of them. How am I supposed to commit to one without ruining everything?”

Fallon studied me. “You’ve seen me and my men.”

An image of the four of them making out the first time I met Fallon in her biker bar flitted across my eyes. “Yes.”

“Relationships are never easy, and especially not with multiple partners.” She leaned back on the bed. “But there are no rules that say things must be a certain way. You and your men get to make them yourself.”

I frowned. I saw how pissed off Ryu and Ciel were at the thought of me marrying Cas. I saw Wynn’s hesitance. There was no way they’d be okay with it. “I can’t really see them finding common ground with it.”

And hell, even I was still pissed. They’d all broken my trust. The rules meant nothing when I couldn’t trust them.

“It took time for my men and I to find our rhythm. We did not get off on the right foot, but we found our way because our love meant something,” Fallon said. “Figuring out one relationship, let alone multiple, takes time, patience, and understanding. And many, many mistakes.”

Mistakes. Were these lies a simple mistake? Or were they an indicator that this wasn’t going to work at all?

“This engagement,” Willow said, leaning over to mute the movie. “It gives you power?”

“Yes. I guess.”

“And you’re upset because it’s not a choice you would have made for yourself?”

“I’m upset because I couldn’t prove to those men they should follow me,” I said, exasperated. “They immediately turned to Cas without even giving me a second thought.”

Fallon raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Caspian.”

“It has everything to do with him.” Fallon and Willow exchanged a knowing glance. “What? Why are you looking at each other like that?”

Zoya closed the laptop and put it on the nightstand. “It sounds like you’re mad because you don’t think you’re good enough.”

My mouth hung open. “Good enough? Yeah. I wasn’t good enough. I failed, again, to show that I’m more than the little girl I used to be. I’ve been trying to demonstrate that I belong in this world, and that I’m strong enough to create a new mafia syndicate from the ground up. But those men only wanted to come to our side because of Cas, and he’d been hiding that from me the entire fucking time.”

“He should have told ya the truth,” Fallon agreed with a nod. “Absolutely.”

“I’m pissed for you, Leona,” Zoya said. “You told me before that you’re tired of women being used as pawns, and you’re right. This was really shitty. Of all of them.”

I sighed.

“But,” Willow added, “it sounds like he didn’t want to put you in that position either. He wanted them to see the truth about you because he believes in you. He didn’t want you to feel forced.”

“Well, a lot of fucking good it did me,” I said, picking at a loose thread on the comforter. “I had to make a judgment call to keep us all from dying at the expense of my own agency. In the end, it didn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Fallon insisted. “It matters because you got what you wanted. You’re turning the tide.”

I scoffed. “If the tide is turning, it’s not because of me.”

“So fucking what?”

“Excuse me?”

“So. Fucking. What? You keep trying to prove yourself to other people. What about yourself?”

I frowned. Hadn’t I changed? Hadn’t I gotten stronger?

“Changes are happening. It doesn’t happen all at once,” she continued, sitting up on the bed and leaning forward. “Baby steps. Small, incremental shifts. That’s how ya take a city. That’s how ya own the world.”

My jaw worked as I tried to make sense of what she was saying. Everything was supposed to be fine because I should think of it as a stepping-stone in the grand scheme of things?

“But he still lied. They all did,” I continued. “Obi treats me like I’m a complete idiot. Cas clearly didn’t think enough of me to tell me the truth. Wynn was scared. Ryuji is selfish?—”

“And that’s on them.” Her voice went hard. “They’ve got their own flaws that most likely have very little to do with you. But when are you going to believe that you’re good enough on your own?”

A shock of pain twisted in my gut as I sucked in a breath. “We can’t do this—be in a relationship, create a new future—if they lie to me, if they don’t believe in me.”

“They lied and schemed, and you’re right. That’s on him, that’s on all of them,” she agreed. “Honesty is critical for any relationship. But your father’s men believing in Caspian does not mean they don’t believe in you, or that you don’t deserve their faith. You are powerful, Leona. But you’re only as powerful as you let yourself believe.”

“You’re taking on too much,” Willow added, reaching across the bed to grab my hand. “Their lies were wrong. But you have proven time and time again how you deserve to stand beside them.”

Emotion choked my throat.

That was all I really wanted. I didn’t want to let them down. I didn’t want to make those huge promises, only to disappoint them all. Our lives were at stake here. I just wanted to be worthy of their dedication and hard work.

I wanted to be worthy of their love.

“But how can I trust them?” I whispered.

Fallon smiled sadly. “People make mistakes, especially when they’re worried about hurting the people they love or they’re afraid of being hurt. Haven’t you made mistakes, too?”

People make mistakes when they’re worried about hurting the people they love or they’re afraid of being hurt . The words struck me like a blow to the heart.

I’d been trying to fix my mistake by becoming the strongest version of myself possible. I’d been taking on as much responsibility as I could to become the leader I thought they wanted me to be. Was that wrong?

“Cas loves ya,” Fallon said.

“I know he does.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Five years ago, he broke up with me because he loves you . He always has. He just made a mistake because he thought he was protecting ya.”

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away.

“Don’t you want to be forgiven for your mistakes, too?” Willow asked. “Isn’t that part of being in a relationship?”

“Shit.” I rubbed my eyes at the waterfall threatening to cascade down my cheeks. I had been trying to earn their forgiveness for fucking up at Ryuji’s club for weeks. I’d done all of this to try and make up for how I messed things up then. “Of course.”

“Caspian is a worthy partner of ya,” Fallon said. “Your father’s men see that. Even with Max engaged to Chiara, another mafia princess of a powerful name, those men would turn on someone they know is deadly in order to follow you both. Don’t you think that means something?”

“Maybe,” I whispered. Maybe I was thinking about it all wrong.

I’d told Obi I will not stand behind you .

At the time, I’d wanted to prove I could be our leader. But I’d missed the point entirely. It wasn’t me anymore. It was us .

We should stand beside one another.

Shouldn’t we all equally carry the weight of charging forward into our future?

Willow grabbed my hand and squeezed.

“The lies? Yeah, fucked up.” Fallon shrugged. “The marriage? I know you don’t want to be a pawn in this game, but maybe stop thinking of yourself as the pawn and start thinking of yourself as the player. You are a chess piece on this board, but play yourself , Leona. Play the game and win.”

Play the game and win.

“We are queens, all of us.” She stretched in a gesture while looking at Willow, Zoya, and me. “We get to decide what power looks like to us. But we have to believe in ourselves enough to take it.”

Well, fuck.

“Damn, Fallon,” I breathed. Beside me, Willow and Zoya burst into laughter. I sat up a little straighter. The heaviness in my body lifted somewhat.

She was right.

Yeah, I was a fucking queen. And I had five kings at my side.

Ever since the club explosion, I’d been so worried about failing—about proving to everyone around me that I was strong—that I lost sight of the fact that this burden didn’t fall singularly on my shoulders. We were supposed to be a team.

We weren’t perfect human beings. Mistakes were bound to happen. They were unavoidable.

What mattered was that we were there to catch one another, and love one another, when we did.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, rubbing my chest absentmindedly.

“I once gave you a choice, Leona,” Fallon said. “I offered you a chance to run, but you chose to search out Wynn and the Shadows instead. I’ll give you another choice now. Do you want to stay in New York? Fight for the future you believe in, with these men by your side? Or do you want to come back to Philadelphia with me and the girls?”

I swallowed, looking between them. They all looked at me with kindness, not one ounce of judgment within the circle.

The idea of leaving cut me even deeper than the lies. I knew, as soon as she offered me that decision, that I couldn’t walk away from them. I still felt raw. There was still a lot the six of us needed to work through, but I knew my answer.

“Thank you, Fallon,” I said as a tear dropped down my cheek. “But I know my choice. I’m staying. For them. For us. For the future of our syndicate.”

We could fix this.

If they still wanted to be a team, I was all in, even when they made mistakes, too.

Willow smiled and grabbed my hand. “I don’t know the first thing about running a city or all this dangerous mafia stuff, but I do know that you get to decide how you want this relationship to look. You are partners . Partners talk about things. Partners work through things.”

“You’re right.” I glanced at the closed bedroom door. My men were just beyond that door. “I need to talk to them.”

“I’m proud of you, Leona.” Fallon stuffed another handful of popcorn in her mouth. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right choice.”

“Me, too,” Zoya pipped up. “I want a future where women get to claim their power. So don’t give up.”

I snorted a laugh. “I’ll do my best.”

“But!” Fallon said when I shifted on the bed. “It’s girls night . Talk in the morning.”

I leaned across the bed and pulled her into a bear hug. She grumbled, but her hand came around my back to pat my shoulder.

“When I was in your position, I had only just met Willow. I didn’t have a lot of women to help me. But the women that were in my life got me through some really hard shit. We need more queens in the world.”

“Thank you,” I said, releasing her, and meeting both Willow and Zoya’s smiles. “I think we have a pretty fucking badass group of queens right here.”