Running from Leo

CHAPTER 13: Little Leo

Leonardo Agostini's POV:

"Drinking again?"

Adrian laughed and patted on the barstool beside him, motioning me to join him.

"No, brother. You know that I haven't had a sip in years."

I took a seat on the barstool and motioned the bartender for my usual. "There's no harm in one sip."

He twirled his finger around the rim of his full glass. "No, I rather not. The last sip had cost enough damage."

A frown etched on my face. "It's not your fault, you know?"

"It is." He sighed deeply and dumped the alcoholic contents on the nearby plant. "I killed an innocent woman that night. How can you say that it is not my fault?"

"We still don't know about that." I assured him and patted his back. "You said it yourself, you woke up with blood on your hands but there was no body."

He shook his head in resentment. "But I do remember screams. A woman's screams. I can never get that out of my head, fratello."

The bartender handed over my drink to me and I took a sip then closed my eyes, feeling the hard liquor creating a slight dizziness in my head.

"Does that explain your returning sleepless nights? I can see those bags under your eyes. That mask shit you apply doesn't work." I said.

He chuckled. "You should try that someday with me. It will be our elder brother-little brother bonding session."

A mental image of Adrian and I roaming around the mansion in the middle of the night, wearing face masks appeared but I shook it off quickly.

"I rather not. I value my sleep and you should too."

Adrian's shoulders slumped down and the smile vanished from his face. "Padre taught you to kill, not me. You might not feel any guilt, but I do. You do not understand how I felt when I woke up alone in my bed, blood on my hands along with a bloody knife. You might have forgotten that fear, Leo, but I haven't."

Fear? I don't even know what that is. Maybe I used to feel fear a long time ago after certain events when I was a little kid, but now I don't. Padre taught me to be strong and merciless unlike Adrian—who is four years older than me, but acts like a four year old—who only learnt the law and to fight and shoot.

I gulped down the hard liquor in one go and grimaced. "Try to take your meds and get some sleep at night. I'm pretty sure that you don't want padre to worry about you."

His lips slightly curved upwards. "Don't remind me. The last time padre got worried about me, he made me sleep on the same bed with him so that he could make sure that I was not going to ride a bicycle and scratch my knee again in the middle of the night!"

I burst out laughing as I remembered those times and felt slightly light headed. "I remember that. How old were you? Eight years? Nine?"

"I was fucking nineteen." He grumbled, "Can you imagine the embarrassment? A nineteen year old adult living in a four storey mansion is sleeping beside his loud snoring father because he scratched his knee while riding a bicycle."

"Padre always worries about you and he does not worry about me." I muttered the last part to myself and scoffed.

He shook his head. "It's not like that. He is strict with both of us, you especially because you do happen to be his favourite son, his only blood, by biological means."

I scoffed. "The only reason padre keeps me near him is because I am taking over. I'm not his favourite. Besides, if you simply go tell padre that you want to take over this famiglia, he'll give that to you with his eyes closed."