Leonardo Fiero turned up the collar of his coat against the freezing rain and biting wind; battling the elements, he ducked his head against the wind and fought on, heading towards the familiar dark, dingy looking pub.

The establishment had been running for decades, a home for the weary or the desperate for a few hours - and Leo had spent a considerable amount of time there after the death of his parents and youngest sister: the bar tenders, college kids with bad acne and a lack of confidence, all knew him by name. A whiskey for Leo, they'd say awkwardly, sliding it over.

Leo stamped his feet in the entrance, shaking off rainwater as his eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior - god, he hated it here. The bar reeked of poor decisions and a stench of depression; no one came to The Black Dog for a good time.

Glowering, he made for the bar. Alcohol never took away your problems for good, but whiskey could steal them away for a split second, whispering sweet nothings in your ear until you fell, dizzy and confused, to the bathroom floor with the taste of vomit in your mouth. And that's exactly what he needed.

Leo hunched over the bar, avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone - why should they get to live, he thought bitterly, when Cee doesn't.

"Two whiskeys." The Fiero stiffened, refusing to turn around. The voice was familiar - everyone knew the Romano Don's voice - but Leo wasn't ready. How could he face the man that sent his sister to her grave?

The bastard hadn't had the decency to pay his respects at the funeral - no flowers, no note, no appearance from the great Niccolò. Perhaps it had been guilt, Leo mused briefly: guilt that he'd sent yet another innocent to die in his place.

The funeral had been crap anyway. Leo didn't recognise half the people that showed up - some girl with her leg in a cast took one look at the casket and started sobbing, before being led away by another Romano scumbag.

The flowers hadn't been right, it was a grey, miserable morning - and then there was him. Leo Fiero, the last of his kind, searching the room desperately for a friendly face he recognised before he started his speech.

But there had been no one. The Fiero family was all dead and buried, besides the one who was in the process of having her funeral, and "work colleagues" (if they could be called that) were only interested in striking a bargain with the Fiero, desperate to take advantage of a brief moment of vulnerability.

Leo had almost fled the scene, like it had been a crime to mourn in front of so many strangers, to stutter over her ambitions and swallow tears when discussing her spirit.

But at least Leo had shown up. At least he'd been at the funeral, even if he had been the reason she was dead.

"Get out," Leo hissed, unable to face him. It was bad enough that one of her murderers was drinking away his guilt, let alone both.

The Romano didn't respond, instead sliding out a bar stool and taking a seat. Leo took a sideways glance, scowling, taking in his profile - he clearly hadn't shaved recently, or slept.

For a second, Leo wondered angrily about what his sister ever saw in him.

Leo downed the whiskey as soon as it arrived, ignoring the curious looks from the college undergrad - he'd never visited the bar with anyone else before - but he was sure as hell leaving like he always did: alone.

His stool screeched as he stood up abruptly, slamming down the glass, and made to leave, but the stranger caught his arm and attention.

"Leonardo."

"Niccolò." Leo shook him off angrily, making it clear that it was time for one of them to leave, and he personally didn't mind who walked out the door.

"It's my fault." The Fiero almost froze, a deer in headlights, before feeling something inside him splinter out of place.

He swung his fist wildly, making contact more out of luck than skill - or perhaps because Niccolò, seeing this coming, chose to accept the physical pain. Leo barely realised he was crying as Niccolò stumbles back, blood dripping from his lip.

"I know it's your fault," Leo spat, wiping his face furiously, "I know it is."

Quietly, Niccolò pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the silent stares of the bar staff and the singular other customer, looking gleefully as though Christmas and Hanukkah had both come at once. Crazy old man.

"I want to talk to you," Niccolò insisted, taking a nearby napkin from the bar to wipe the drop of blood from his mouth before it stained his clothes. "I need you to know."

"I know everything I need to know about you," Leo snarled, letting out a long breath of expletives, calling the Romano every name under the sun. To his credit, Niccolò didn't flinch, embracing every crude insult that Leo threw at him - after all, what was a little more pain?

"It's about her." Leo didn't fall like a puppet whose strings had been cut; he staggered like a man reeling from a punch.

"You don't get to talk about her." The Fiero backed away, poised like a wild animal, ready to maul and claw his way out. "You stay away from me."

Niccolò watched as Camilla's brother turned abruptly, sweeping out the door to leave a wake of silence, of stares digging into his back. He knew where the Fiero would head next - as he always did after a night at The Black Dog.

Not half an hour later, Leonardo was back at the graveyard, unaware of the eyes on his back. Slowly, he reread the inscription on the gravestone in front of him, hands stuffed angrily in his pockets.

Camilla Marie Fiero

She walked in beauty

The flowers laid by the tombstone were wilted already, damp with rain, their colour bleeding into the ground. Leo looked down at them, staring for a second - she'd never qualified as a nurse, never married, never loved, never lived her full life.

"I was wearing a bulletproof vest."

Leonardo turned, his fists drawn out of his pockets instinctively, but paused; Niccolò Romano wasn't there for him. The man standing with no coat, no umbrella as he gazed unseeingly at the grave, was there for himself, for Camilla.

Rain dripped from the top of his nose, from the twists of his matted wet hair, soaking his suit jacket. "I was wearing Kevlar - it wouldn't have killed me."

For the first time, Leonardo let his fists unclench.

"He - Caito - was aiming for my heart." His head lowered slightly. "So it would have hurt like a bitch, but it wouldn't have killed me." Leo stared blankly, letting the words and rain wash over him.

"She just wanted to save me," he continued, his voice a little rough now, but Leo pretended to think it was raindrops on his cheeks. "I don't know why - I know-" He broke off. Leo focused at the tree behind the other man while he composed himself. "I know that I could have grown to love her."

"I did love her," Leo replied in a low voice.

"I think- I hope- she could have grown to love me." The brother blinked, feeling as though the grass underneath him had lurched like a boat in a storm; he felt sick. Camilla had been in love when she..?

Did that make it better or worse, he mused, knowing that she'd experienced love, only for it to be taken away almost immediately? Was it easier or harder to let go, now that he knew she'd fallen for the man who'd killed her?

"I wanted you to know," the Romano forced out, turning his piercing look to the living Fiero. "I don't know what I was to her - but I wanted you to know that she was special to me and I blame myself."

"I killed her too," Leo choked out, so strangled that he had to clear his throat to repeat himself. "I killed her too."

His voice was nearly drowned by the hammering of rain, the distant thunder and wind, the merciless unfeeling whine of the city, but Niccolò heard.

"I was the one who-" Leo broke off, his heart hammering like he'd run a marathon. "I told her to come back, that my father had asked for her." Niccolò turned to stone, his eyes made from flint, his body carved from marble - the only indication he was living was the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his shoulders.

"Before she even met you," Leo admitted hurriedly, before he lost his nerve, pressing a hand to his chest. "I told her that her father missed her and wanted her back - and I thought I could help our family, my mother - but then she went and exchanged herself and she was gone again-"

Niccolò watched as he turned away, breathing heavily, shaking from fear or cold or hatred. "I lied to bring her back and it killed her."

"You didn't kill her." Leo lifted his dead eyes to stare at the Romano, the man he'd blamed for his own mistakes.

"I didn't pull the trigger but I aimed the gun," he intoned hollowly, his ribcage an empty cavern for echoes to live. "She died thinking that my father had wanted to reconcile, died thinking he'd seen the error of his ways."

Niccolò stayed quiet, watching as the Fiero reached out, his fingers faltering before skimming the top of the slick marble tombstone. "She died for nothing," Leo stated quietly, raindrops trickling down his face and neck, falling from his eyelashes.

"Yes," Niccolò agreed, his voice soft; from far away, the pair heard a siren wail - they both turned, instinctively.

Niccolò stayed silent, his mind turning; maybe one day, he'd open a medical centre in her name, Camilla's name, to carry on her will to help. Maybe he'd open a thousand orphanages, open a fucking gelateria chain for her - but it wouldn't bring her back.

"I'm going to Italy," Leo told the grave, drawing Niccolò's attention. "See if I can track down any long lost cousins, that sort of thing."

"Your..." Empire? Family? Sex trafficking? "...father's business?" Leo shook his head.

"Camilla always wanted them to close down. She got what she wanted in the end." The Romano nodded absently; he could see exactly the way her eyebrows would furrow whenever the Fiero business was brought up. He took a second before realising the implications of the end of the Fiero business, turning to Leonardo.

"You're on the run," Niccolò accused the brother, his eyes narrowing.

"I suppose I am." Leo kicked at the ground, scuffing his filthy shoes. "There's nothing left for me here."

Niccolò nodded eventually, eyeing the boy carefully. He could see himself offering Leonardo a job, to work alongside the Romano family - and he could see Leonardo turning it down. The Fiero had too much pride, and an escape route from this world waiting.

"If you run into trouble, my family will help you," Niccolò told him, surprising them both. "I promise."

Leonardo Fiero looked up at the Romano, trying to see past the cold mask in front of his eyes, the hard, albeit dripping, exterior of a broken man.

"A Fiero never breaks a promise," Niccolò reminded him. "Neither does a Romano."

There was a pause. Two men looked at each other, separated by only a metre of air, but a universe. Leo's gaze lingered on the cut on Romano's lip, before looking away.

"Take care of her," Leo nodded down at his sister's grave. "Her favourite flowers were yellow roses."

Niccolò nodded, mentally making a note to buy yellow roses once a week - at least - to take care of her headstone, to pull out the weeds.

"Take care of yourself," he murmured to the last living Fiero, before he turned away, hands back into his pockets. Goodbyes were never Niccolò's favourite - now he hated them.

Leonardo watched as the Romano walked away in his dark coat, rain sliding down his shoulders; he walked out of the graveyard, past the lamppost. It seemed maybe he'd keep walking forever, like he could walk until the heavens had fallen to earth, until the storm had passed and space-time itself began again.

But the Romano wasn't a God, wasn't a hero: just a man. A lone wolf, but still a man. A stranger to everyone but the dead and buried. A stranger who burst into life like a fallen angel, but left without answering a single damned question, leaving a trail of destruction and death in his wake.

The Fiero kept watching until the stranger disappeared around the corner.