It had taken a few days to get to this point, even though Uncle Ronaldo had knocked at my bedroom door on Monday night to let me know that “it was done.” Two days later, the evidence locker was compromised, and everything, from Leo’s confession to Spider’s fingerprints, had been “lost.” The case was a waste of time to pursue now, and Leo was free to go. Probably. Unless he punched somebody.
My teeth nipped at my lower lip.
I really hoped he didn’t punch somebody.
I coasted up the drive of the Battista residence and put my car in park. The air was getting thick; I climbed out and peered up at the sky. Rainclouds were rolling in fast. I thought of Leo and pressed my lips together.
I tread up the walk and knocked at the door. When it swung open, my eyes were wide and my heart was pounding, ready for Leo—but Max was the one standing there.
“Max,” I said, my tone reflecting my disappointment with this development.
“It’s lovely to see you, too.” Max braced his forearm on the doorframe and smiled down at me.
“Right.” I crossed my arms over my chest and returned the smile, rolling my eyes. “It’s just that I thought—you know—”
“I know.” He stepped forward, touched my arm, and dusted both my cheeks with a light peck. “Congratulations, mami. Why don’t you come on in? He’s just a few minutes late.”
“A few minutes late?” I repeated, following him into the foyer. “He was supposed to be here by now.”
“Was he?” Gabe’s voice floated from the den. I could only see his bare feet propped on an ottoman from my vantage point—and a remote control in a hand on an armrest. “Time really flies without that guy around.”
“Please, don’t get up,” Max called into the den. “That would be rude.”
The feet on the ottoman didn’t even shift an inch. “Aww!” Gabe cried, the hand holding the remote control on the armrest going limp with exasperation. “She knows I love her!”
Max grinned at me and winked. I returned the smile and traipsed into the den, where, yep, Gabe was still in his boxer shorts. “Lovely,” I chirped, taking my seat on the couch beside him. “So, you’re excited about the news?”
Gabe paused the television and turned toward me, his face going serious. “Let me tell you something, Sofi,” he said. He chucked beneath my chin winsomely. “I was the little angel on Leo’s shoulder this whole time.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” I scoffed.
“I was! I didn’t necessarily tell him that he was wrong, or that he’d regret it,” Gabe went on. “I just asked him if he was really okay doing it. People like our Little Lion—you can’t push them into anything. You have to let them draw their own conclusions.”
“Little Lion,” I repeated, a slow smile curling on my lips.
Gabe winced. “That’s just between you and me,” he whispered.
“And me,” Max’s voice emanated from the foyer.
“We pay your salary!” Gabe cried.
“Little Lion pays my salary,” Max corrected him.
I spent three hours lounging on the couch, rerunning the scenario in my head, being assured by Gabe that he was late all the time—which was NOT true—before I finally got up to leave, cheeks burning with embarrassment. He was supposed to be here. Gabe and Max assured me that their lawyers were picking Leo up from jail, and if anything was wrong, they would’ve called one of them already. But I was done waiting.
I opened the front door and froze. Time froze. The fucking angels sang.
Leonardo Battista was standing on the front stoop, smiling broadly at me. He wore a suit, as always—of course—but the sleeves and the neck were a little loose, a few buttons undone. His hair was still perfectly parted down one side. His eyes were twinkling and he tilted back and forth on his loafers, barely containing his glee. He looked like a dream materialized.
“There she is,” he greeted me.
“Leo,” I breathed, rushing onto the stoop and bracing his face in my palms. “You’re here.”
His arms wrapped around me and secured me against his chest. “A little late,” he agreed, eyes shimmering at me. “I tried to—”
I cut him off by pressing my lips to his, fingers winding and clutching around his collar. I didn’t care what he tried to do. I had to kiss him right then or I would just asphyxiate and die.
At first, our bodies were rigid with restraint, his lips hard, my back stiff, and then, we unfolded. My hands slid over his chest and his tongue broke into my mouth and we melted together. The outside world melted with us, and I was as loopy as a sleepwalker when the sound of a clearing throat inside the house interrupted us.
“Oh, uh, don’t mind me,” Gabe murmured. “I’m just—I’m just trying to watch my Criminal Minds marathon over the sound of you two, making out.”
“That’s a good—” I began, but Leo grasped my wrist and tugged me out of the living room without exchanging any pleasantries.
Within twenty seconds, Leo’s bedroom door slammed with us on the other side of it. He twisted the lock, but before he could even turn from the door, I was already pulling my top up over my torso. A grin split Leo’s mouth and he cocked his head to the side, watching as my hair filtered back down onto my shoulders.
“I’m in no hurry this time,” he breathed, stepping closer to me. My heart rate amped up.
“Yes, Sir,” I agreed.
Leo descended to his knees in front of me, his fingertips skating over my abdomen thoughtfully.
“What are you doing?” I asked, waiting for a kiss, a bite, anything.
But he just peered up at me and smiled. “Thinking,” he replied.
The smile was infectious. My hands traveled over his, enjoying their roughness, their strength. “Thinking about what?”
“The future.” His eyes never left me, even as he stood. “Sofi—”
“You’ve said enough,” I said, running my hands beneath the shoulders of his jacket and pushing it off his back. Some little part of me still didn’t believe this. “You don’t need to say any more.”
But Leo caught my hands, and his grip wasn’t tight, but it was firm. “No,” he said. “I do need to say this. Sofia.” He swallowed, and I swallowed too. The mood slowed, becoming acoustic, careful. “I took all the variables for granted, my whole life. That I could control all of them. I believed in myself—and nothing else. Just me.” He pulled my hands to his chest, pressing them over his heart. “But now…with you…when I met you, it was like—being drugged. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and I wouldn’t—I told myself it wasn’t real. Up until the last minute, I assured myself that it was just a figment of my own imagination. Like I had just come down with a bug, and I could shake it if I tried.” He reached forward and threaded his fingers into my hair, barely grazing my throat. Still, my skin prickled against the mere space of his hands. “But I can’t.” His hands balled into fists and pulled me against him by my hair. “Even two hundred miles out at sea, I couldn’t escape it. The only break-through I had was that I needed you.”
His lips pressed to mine and I gave in. I let myself believe everything I’d been afraid might not be true. When he touched me, I had to believe it. And I wanted it with an animal ferocity. I wanted him. I wanted the future he imagined when he kissed my belly.
“Oh, Leo,” I sighed, burying my face into his chest, letting my hands roam over his body at a leisurely pace.
But when they passed over his rear, I paused—and not for the usual reason.
There was a small, hard bulge in his back pocket, and I knew. I knew in part because I was a woman, and in part because I was a jewel thief. I knew that it was a ring box, and my heart squeezed like a python around my chest.
Leo rested his chin on the top of my head, and we stood there, locked. I wondered if he knew that I knew.
“You know, before you came into my life,” he went on quietly, “strangers could really piss me off. Traffic would piss me off. Bad timing. The weather. But now…now,
the weather is just the weather.” He pressed a kiss onto the top of my head. “It just doesn’t matter as much anymore. I don’t know why. The rain falls, my suit gets ruined, and I don’t even feel it. I don’t even care.” He pulled back and gazed down at me with heavy, somber eyes. “Because I love you,” he said, his voice a hush.
I swallowed. “You never told me that before.” I commanded myself to not cry. That would be so embarrassing. “You never told me that you love me.”
“Really?” He smiled. “To me, it seemed like I was shouting it with every move I made.” His thumb traveled tenderly over my lips. “I can say it with my mouth now, Sofi.” He brushed a kiss over my lips. One. Two. Three. His hands slid away from my face, away from my hair, and spread a chemical fire over my breasts, singing down into my sex. My eyes closed and I almost groaned aloud. “I want to claim you. For my own. Forever.” He gripped my buttocks and hoisted me into the air, then reached behind himself. “I have something to show you.”
My eyelashes fluttered open and there, in his hand, he braced a black velvet ring box.
“Look at this.” He popped it open with his thumb and grinned at me.
My jaw dropped.
It wasn’t a diamond ring.
It was a round topaz, the size of a pea. A miniature version of the Heart of Icarus.
“Be my wife, Sofi,” he whispered. “Fill my heart.”
My hands went up into his hair and I crushed my mouth against his. “Yes,” I gasped. “Yes, yes, yes! God, you’re crazy!”
The ring ended up on the floor with everything else: the pieces of his suit, my clothes, the pillows. We slammed into the mattress and pinned against one another and ground our bodies together savagely, as if we were fighting, as if we were going to destroy each other, but—not quite. We didn’t want to destroy each other; we just wanted to mix perfectly together. If that meant we had to roll around on the mattress and crash onto the floor, then so be it. Somewhere between lovemaking sessions, I did end up wearing the ring, anyway. (We rolled on top of the ring box, and it was digging into my back.) We had to make it physical, make it real, make it now. Us, together, forever. Something I could believe in.
When his fingers laced into mine and I felt the metallic band press against my skin, tears welled suddenly in my eyes, and I had to clamp my lips together to keep from sobbing. Of course, Leo noticed.
“What is it?” he breathed, his thrusts slowing to a stop. “What happened?”
“I didn’t have to steal anything at all,” I said, letting the tears slip down my temples. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in the side of his neck, relishing the throb of his pulse against my nose. “It’s mine. It’s all mine.”
20
Leo
The ceremony was supposed to be subtle and intimate, but it was being planned by two large, Latin crime families, so—obviously, it was a hot mess. I hardly had a moment to rest for days before the wedding, and only saw Sofi occasionally flittering past in the background all the morning of the ceremony. The event was held at the Castillo home, but Sofi herself had been living with me at the Battista house for almost a year now. In fact—after the honeymoon—I was going to have to talk to Gabe about finally moving to his own place.
It was all set-up to be a beautiful affair: white folding chairs in front of an arbor laced in roses, against the backdrop of the ocean.
We invited Sofi’s aunts, uncles, and cousins on her mother’s side, but Ronaldo was still pissed off about his brother being ratted out eleven years ago, and he unbottled a rant about “those backstabbers” sullying his house at around 9 AM—as in, roughly four hours before their arrival. Gabe, of all people, went for a walk with the man and calmed him down.
I asked my brother what he could possibly say to soothe an irate thug like Uncle Ronaldo, and Gabe said, “I told him what he needed to hear: that this is a beautiful day, honoring your love for Sofi, and the new family being born.” He winked. “He thinks I’m in seminary school, by the way.”
Then, at 11 AM, Madeline climbed out of a taxi and came down to the beach wobbling, ripe with the scent of liquor. Her sunglasses, even though the lenses were the size of bagels, still couldn’t hide the fact that she was still drunk from the night before and had yet to sleep. “Oh, god, look at all this,” she scoffed, flailing her hand in the air at Sofi, who stood holding our six-month-old daughter, Rosalie, on her hip. “Seriously, Sofi.” Madeline crinkled her nose. “Children are so…so…” She pointed her finger at Rosalie, searching for the word, but Rosalie grinned at her, proudly displaying all four of her teeth. Madeline brought the finger back to her mouth and turned from us. I blinked, realizing too late that she was trying to hide tears. I looked at Sofi and bulged my eyes, saying, What are we supposed to do about THIS? Could Madeline really cry?
Sofi bulged her eyes back at me and dumped Rosalie into my arms, diving for Madeline and slinging an arm over those bony shoulders. “You’ll find someone, Maddie,” she cooed. “You’re freaking gorgeous, you know.”
“I know, right?” Madeline sniffed.
Sofi looked over her shoulder at me as she led Madeline away, toward the Castillo house. I twisted my eyebrows at her. Who saw that coming?
Sofi pulled her mouth tight in an expression of alarm, replying, I have no idea who this woman is, honestly.
“I’m going to be thirty soon,” Madeline wailed.
“Well, in two years,” Sofi added quietly.
I looked at Rosalie and brushed my thumb over her plush, pink cheek. “I think you and Auntie Madeline should get along very well,” I murmured. I turned and nuzzled her neck. “You’re both big babies. Yes you are!”
Then, at 1 PM—an hour before the ceremony—the caterer was fired for saying something disrespectful about Sofi’s parents. That one was my bad. I’d overheard two of the chefs muttering about the “ruined” family this food would feed. Their backs were turned to me, one of them banging a bag of ice onto the table and the other dumping a bottle of champagne into a punch bowl. “That bill will be paid with blood money, sweetheart,” the one with the bag of ice whispered.
“If it’s paid at all,” the one with the champagne replied. “The bride is basically—” He turned and went ashen at the sight of me. “Excuse me, sir,” he breathed. “Please, please accept my apologies.”
I tilted my head to the side and glared. “The bride is basically what?” I hissed.
“N-nothing, sir,” he said, his face gray.
My hand darted out and caught his collar, crushing it in my fist. “What IS she?” I roared.
“N-nothing.”
The rest of it was a blur of overturned skillets. I physically removed the two gossiping chefs, then starchily informed the others that they were also dismissed.
I went to warn Sofi, passing Madeline curled up in a snoring bundle at the bottom of the stairs. “You have no idea how sorry I am,” I explained through her room door, “but if you’d heard their tones—”
The door fell open, and so did my mouth. My throat closed up out of sheer gratitude.
I’d never understood the majesty and romance of it all—until now. Until seeing her in the gown. She was like an angel who had lost her wings to be—well—mine.
“We can go to a restaurant,” she assured me warmly.
“You…look…”
“Radiant?” she suggested, her eyes crinkling.
I swept her hand up to my mouth and kissed her knuckles with brutal passion. “As the sun,” I replied hoarsely. “I can’t believe you still fit in that thing.”
Sofi gaped. “Leo!” she chided.
“Well! You had a baby!”
“And I’ve had the waist let out twice since we bought it, so shut up,” she said. “Get out of here. You’re distracting me. Check on Rosalie for me, will you? I gave her to Gabe.”
“Gabe?” I groaned dramatically. “He uses her to pretend to be a single father. You know that, right?”
Sofi grinned and leaned closer.
“I’m just kidding,” she whispered. “You’re so easy.”
“Yeah, well, he does do that,” I pointed out, though I was not sure why. I could feel my blood pressure ticking up, just talking about it. “He used her to get a discount on his stupid car. He saved two grand on the down payment!”
Sofi’s hand fluttered over my chest delicately. “Shh,” she coaxed. “It’s all right, honey. She’s our baby, you know.”
I looked at her beautiful face—and her white gown—and my breathing relaxed. I bowed my head. “You’re right,” I said.
“We can use her to get all sorts of discounts we want,” Sofi added with a grin.
I couldn’t help but smile back, damn her. “You’re awful, Mrs. Battista,” I said.
“Shh.” Sofi shut the door.
The seats on the beach were filled with con men and forgery artists and fencers, thugs and frauds and their trophy wives. Hell, one of them was holding our baby. But I didn’t see any of that. All I saw was the infinite expanse of ocean in front of me—and then, when the quartet began to strum, all I saw was Sofia Castillo Battista, floating toward me in her frothy gown of white, curls as loose and wild as the day we’d met. I half expected her to be barefoot.
And when we met under the arbor to give our vows, she went first, speaking with a simplicity that surprised me—but she couldn’t hide the way her eyes were shining. Those were tears of joy. “I have spent my life as an outsider, Leo,” she said. “Even my own family lived in another world, and when my parents…separated…I didn’t know if I could ever believe in the idea of a man and a woman, forever, ever again. But then I met you. We tried to be separate, but we couldn’t do it. Instead, we had Rosalie. And I feel…connected. I feel whole. We have our own world. Our own family.” She laid her hand over her heart and I smiled.
The Perfect Con (A Bad Boy Romance Novel) (Bad Boy Confessions Book 1) Page 18
