Leon (Dance with the Devil 2) Read online

  That had been fifteen minutes ago.

  Fifteen minutes during which Leon had caught the unconscious Carla before she hit the floor. He had then swung her up into his arms, uncaring of the rich red blood gushing from her temple and soaking into his own clothing.

  He’d shouted for his men to capture the shooter before he stepped back into the elevator, and it ascended at what felt, in his agitation and need to get medical help for Carla, like a snail’s pace in comparison to its earlier descent.

  Thank God it was late. The corridor with the private elevator to the penthouse had been deserted, and the gun had been equipped with a silencer. Otherwise, Leon knew he wouldn’t now be pacing up and down his bedroom in the penthouse apartment while waiting for the fucking doctor to get off his ass and arrive. In all probability, Leon knew he would instead be answering a lot of questions from the police about the shooting, because the authorities would have been alerted to the incident by either a hotel guest or receptionist.

  The first thing Leon did when he—finally—reached the penthouse had been to shout for Killian to call for the doctor Matteo kept on call, while Leon carried Carla through to his bedroom.

  The same doctor who was going to have his balls cut off, slowly and with a blunt knife, if he didn’t soon make an appearance!

  Natalia, with far more presence of mind than Leon was capable of right now, was keeping a towel pressed against Carla’s temple, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

  Leon paled as he saw there were already two towels stained bright red with fresh blood, discarded and lying on the floor beside the bed.

  Carla’s blood.

  Which should have been his blood.

  He took out his cell phone and pressed a couple of buttons. His call was answered one second later. “Do you have him?” he snarled.

  “It’s a fucking maze out here, boss,” Jericho snapped his frustration. “And the little fucker knows how to use every inch of it to elude us.”

  Leon thought quickly. “Come back to the hotel and I’ll arrange for you to check out the security footage.” The Mafia owned this hotel, so there would be no problem with them doing that. If they were lucky, the shooter would turn up on at least one of the security feeds. “If he’s on there, we’ll find him.” And once they had…

  Leon was then going to take great pleasure in “questioning” the bastard himself.

  When Carla next regained consciousness she felt numbed all over rather than in that earlier excruciating pain.

  A medically induced numbness?

  She had a feeling that might be the case. She appeared to be lying in a bed, her head resting back against slightly elevated pillows. She also seemed to recall Leon mentioning something about waiting for a doctor to arrive. To be precise, he had demanded “Where the fuck is the doctor?” in that arrogant, gravelly, and utterly furious voice.

  Her eyelids still felt too heavy to lift, and she was actually too afraid of the pain returning to try to turn her head.

  Instead, she moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue before speaking. “Leon?”

  “Thank God!” It was a rasp of relief, and there was a dip of the mattress on the right side to indicate someone was now sitting beside her on the bed.

  “What time is it?” She could sense low lighting in the room through her closed lids.

  “Two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is it okay to hold your hand?” the same voice prompted gently.

  She managed to move several fingers on her left hand. “Please,” she invited weakly. “Leon?” she prompted again once her hand had been gently taken into his much larger one.

  “I’m still here,” he confirmed. “How are you feeling?”

  “As if I’ve been run over by a truck!”

  “Can you open those beautiful eyes?”

  “Flattery will get you— My God, you look terrible,” she gasped as, having finally managed to force her lids open, she’d gotten a good look at his face.

  His skin was almost as gray as his beard, and there were deep lines grooved into the flesh beside his mouth and eyes. He was also still wearing the white shirt, waistcoat, and black trousers from the wedding. The shirt and waistcoat were stained a dark red.

  Dried blood.

  Her blood.

  Rueful humor now lightened Leon’s grim expression. “Back atcha.”

  “You’ll never seduce a woman with that sort of honesty!”

  Leon didn’t want to seduce a woman, he wanted this one, in his arms, where he could keep her safe. “Again, back atcha,” he drawled.

  Humor gleamed in those dark brown eyes. “I don’t think I’m in any condition right now to seduce anyone.” She sobered as she glanced down at herself. “What the hell am I wearing?”

  “One of Natalia’s nightgowns.” Leon grimaced. “She has a fuller figure than you.”

  “I noticed.” The froth of satin and lace gaped at the already low neckline. “But why am I wearing one of her nightgowns, and why does my head hurt so much?” She raised her hand. “Why do I have a gauze bandage on my right temple?”

  His jaw tightened. “To keep the wound from becoming infected.”

  “What wound?”

  “You took a bullet earlier meant for me.”

  Her brows rose. “I did?”

  He scowled. “You don’t remember?”

  “Not a thing after we walked to the elevator as we were leaving the penthouse.”

  “In that case… Someone tried to shoot me, but shot you instead. Because of the way you threw yourself sideways in front of me, the bullet creased along your temple rather than penetrating flesh or bone.” Thank God!

  A mortally wounded Carla, or an irreparably brain-damaged one, would have incurred the full wrath of Leon Brunelli on whoever had tried to shoot him, but shot Carla instead. At the moment, Leon was managing to keep a measure of control over his temper. Once they had the man who had done this and the person who had employed him, that was going to change. Rapidly.

  “The wound was bad enough the doctor had to apply several strips of butterfly tape,” he explained.

  She winced. “Did the doctor have to shave my head to do it?”

  “Only directly around the wound.”

  “No wonder you said I look awful.”

  “You could never look anything but beautiful.”

  “Liar!”

  “You look fine, Carla,” he reassured. “The doctor also decided, as you were unconscious and couldn’t drink to replace the fluid you’ve lost, that you needed this,” Leon explained when she glanced up at the IV stand and bag of liquid, and the tube down from it taped to the back of her hand.

  She paled. “The liquid being blood.”

  He nodded abruptly. “Head wounds bleed. A lot.”

  She shuddered. “Lucky I don’t remember it, then.” She grimaced. “I’m not very good with the sight of fresh blood.”

  “The doctor’s asleep but on call in one of the bedrooms down the hall if you want me to call him?”

  “No need. I gather he’s here because I can’t go to a hospital without a lot of questions being asked as to how I acquired the wound.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Leon sighed heavily. “Yes.”

  “Someone tried to kill you.” Again a statement and not a question.

  “They obviously missed,” he attempted to tease. Even if humor was the last thing he was feeling right now. “Why did you do it, Carla? Why step in front of me at the risk of taking a bullet yourself?” His fingers tightened about hers.

  She frowned and then winced as it obviously pulled on her stitches. “It’s what people do.”

  “No,” he said slowly. “In my experience, people who aren’t trained or paid to do so really don’t do that.”

  “I guess I didn’t read the manual properly.”

  “What manual?”

  “What to do when someone tries to shoot the man…the person standing b
eside you,” she concluded awkwardly, color brightening her cheeks.

  Leon eyed her for several long seconds before speaking again. “Can I lie on the bed with you? I have a fierce need to hold you in my arms,” he explained gruffly.

  “It’s your bedroom. Isn’t it?” she added uncertainly as she looked around them.

  “Yeah, it is,” he confirmed as he swung his legs up on the bed before lying back to slowly take her in his arms, careful to avoid touching the bandage on the side of her head. “Better,” he stated flatly.

  It was better, Carla acknowledged. She felt safe, cared for.

  In the arms of Leon Brunelli, the man who was capo dei capi of the Italian Mafia worldwide?

  She wouldn’t have been shot at all if she hadn’t been standing next to him!

  Would she?

  There was something nagging at the back of her brain. Something about the shooting—

  “Stop thinking about it,” Leon murmured against the temple that didn’t have a wad of gauze over the wound. He hated the fact that was going to leave a scar.

  “I need to go home—”

  “You need to stay exactly the fuck where you are!”

  Her brow creased as she glanced up at him, the movement instantly causing her to give another wince of pain. “Did you know you use the word fuck a lot when you’re agitated?” she prompted mildly.

  He gave a snort of laughter. “Only you, having been shot and lost a couple pints or so of blood, could then decide to upbraid me for swearing.”

  “It was merely an observation, not a complaint,” she defended. “Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re leaving later today, and I need to go back to my apartment. I have to be at work on Monday morning too.”

  He eyed her skeptically. “You really think any of those things are going to happen?”

  Carla was starting to feel a bit woozy, if she was honest. So much so that she thought she might throw up if she didn’t close her eyes to shut out the room dipping from side to side. Except she could still feel that movement even with her lids closed. In fact, it wasn’t just dipping now. It was spinning. Round and round and—

  “I’m so sorry,” she managed to gasp as she pulled out of Leon’s arms before leaning over the side of the bed and losing the contents of her stomach.

  After which, she prompted fell back against the pillows and back into that world of darkness.

  Chapter Five

  “Papa, you really need to get out of those clothes and take a shower.” Natalia gave a pointed wrinkle of her nose as he paced in front of her. “You smell of blood and vomit.”

  Leon paused in his pacing to glare at her. “No one asked you to get out of bed and join me.”

  “You didn’t seriously expect me to be able to sleep through you raging about the apartment like a bull on speed as you hurled abuse at the doctor concerning his incompetence?”

  Leon had done that, yes. “We’re all a little on edge right now,” he dismissed. “Unless you’ve forgotten, someone tried to kill me tonight,” he reminded harshly.

  “And instead, they wounded Carla.” Natalia gave him a searching glance. “This one’s important, hm, Papa?”

  He scowled darkly. “This one?”

  “Carla.”

  He blinked. “I hardly know her.”

  “I’ve never seen you dance with any woman like that before. I didn’t even know you could dance like that,” Natalia added ruefully. “You have some sexy moves there, Papa.”

  Natalia hadn’t seen Leon dance before because his private social life—his sex life—had always been completely separate from his life with his daughter. Admittedly, it had been a while, but he had been to clubs in the past and danced with women before taking them to a hotel for the night.

  I didn’t dance with any of them in the erotic way I danced with Carla at the wedding reception. That had literally been like fucking to music.

  “That’s because you’re my daughter and don’t need to know every fucking thing about me.” Leon inwardly winced when he heard himself using that word again. Because, according to Carla, it was what he did when he was agitated.

  Right now, he was beyond agitated.

  After Carla had been ill, and then collapsed into a faint, Leon had hauled the doctor’s lazy ass out of bed so he could make sure she was okay and hadn’t lapsed into a coma or something equally as dangerous.

  The doctor had checked the wound again and confirmed he didn’t believe there had been any cranial damage. Instead, he thought Carla’d probably had a slight reaction to the morphine put in the saline drip to dull her pain from the bullet wound. His shrug and “it happens” comment hadn’t gone down too well with Leon.

  Instructing the doctor to deal with the IV unit, Leon had carried Carla into another bedroom and closed the door on the mess of blood and vomit in his own bedroom. He’d be paying housekeeping a huge tip in the morning to clean that up.

  The only reason Leon had left Carla now, with the doctor in attendance, was because Jericho and Kieran were now bringing up several images of the shooter on the security feed. They needed to know if Leon recognized him.

  “Good-looking guy,” Natalia remarked as they stared at the image of the laptop screen. “But obviously stupid,” she added dismissively when Leon glared at her.

  The man in question was young, probably late twenties, and tall and muscular. His swarthy complexion and dark hair and eyes indicated he was probably, but not definitely, of Italian descent.

  Leon was sure he’d never seen the younger man before.

  But that didn’t mean the man wasn’t working for one of the dons who had attended the wedding yesterday.

  Or that one of those images didn’t confirm the look of horror on the young man’s face when he realized his shot had missed Leon and hit Carla instead.

  A killer with a conscience?

  He was going to very quickly become a dead fucking killer with a conscience when Leon got his hands on him.

  No doubt the young man thought, by killing Leon, he would become a made man and quickly climb the ranks with whatever Mafia don had ordered the hit.

  When the truth was, and this was something the shooter obviously hadn’t considered, what was more likely to happen was the killer would then be killed, thus eliminating all evidence of the betrayal. Either way, the man who had shot Carla was a dead man walking. It was just a question of who got to him first, Leon or his employer.

  “Find out who he is and then bring him to me,” he grimly instructed the two bodyguards. “Needless to say, I won’t be returning to the States today after all,” he told Natalia.

  She shrugged. “Then I won’t go either.”

  Leon briefly debated insisting his daughter returned to the US with her bodyguards, against letting her stay here. “You’re going back on the jet first thing in the morning, accompanied by Killian. Once there, you’re to go straight to the New York estate and stay there. Is that understood?” His estate had the best high-tech security in the world, along with half a dozen security guards patrolling the grounds with their trained dogs.

  Natalia nodded. “Understood.”

  “I mean it, Natalia,” he warned. “I’m not in the mood to put up with any of your disappearing acts.” His daughter had a habit of redirecting his jet and going on shopping trips, usually to Milan or Paris, whenever she felt like it.

  “I heard you,” she snapped back. “Fly home on the jet. Do not pass go or collect two hundred dollars, but go straight to the New York estate and shut myself in. Got it.”

  One of these days…

  Leon knew it was too late for him to even think about disciplining Natalia.

  “I’m sorry, Papa.” She gave him a warm kiss on the cheek to accompany that apology. “But please don’t worry about me. I might be impetuous, but I’m not stupid.” She frowned. “It’s your girlfriend you need to keep an eye on, if only to make sure she doesn’t throw herself in front of any more bullets meant for you.”


  “She’s not my girlfriend!”

  Natalia patted his cheek affectionately. “Keep telling yourself that,” she taunted. “You probably don’t need it, but anyone willing to sacrifice themselves for you has my unconditional approval. Also,” she added with another telling wrinkle of her nose, “I meant it about you taking a shower and changing into some clean clothes before you go anywhere near Carla again.”

  “Go back to bed,” he ordered gruffly before striding out of the room and down the hallway to enter Carla’s new bedroom.

  “Miss Andretti wished for me to take out the cannula and remove the saline drip,” the doctor informed him as he rose from the chair beside the bed. “I have done so on the condition she drinks plenty of fluids.” He nodded in the direction of the jug of water with ice cubes floating in it, sitting on the bedside table.

  “I’ll see that she does,” he assured the older man, waiting until the doctor had left the room before crossing to sit in the chair the doctor had vacated.

  A band tightened about Leon’s chest, and he placed his hand over Carla’s—the one without the gauze pad on the back of it after the removal of the cannula—as it rested pale and unmoving on top of the bedcovers.

  She looked so damned young, her face deathly white as she lay back against the white pillows.

  Vulnerable.

  Fragile.

  All descriptions he knew this feisty and highly independent woman would deeply resent if she knew Leon had even dared to think of them in connection to her.

  But Leon needed to know why Carla had thrown herself in front of him when the shooter raised his gun.

  Carla claimed it was what people did. Leon knew it really wasn’t. Most people, when confronted with a gun, used their fight-or-flight response to run for the nearest cover. Instead, Carla had thrown herself in front of him. To protect him. Why?

  Leon sat forward to gently caress the hair off Carla’s forehead on the opposite side to where the square of gauze was taped over the gunshot wound. “You and I are going to talk when you’re feeling up to it.” He leaned forward and gently kissed the creamy flesh he had exposed. “In the meantime, I’m right here. And no matter how much you protest, you’re staying right here with me until the shooter has been found and punished.”