Page 3 of Broken Princess

I hear the metal gears of the garage door churn, wheels tear through gravel, and I know… he's gone. “Benny, go close the shutters after him and we’ll get to work here.”

“He’s a fucking maniac,” Nico growls. He may be the most violent member of our team, but he has limits; lines even he won’t cross. “Whoever these people were, was this level of overkill necessary? It’s fucking psychotic and you know it, Enzo.”

“I’m not disagreeing, Nico. Sin, take fingerprints and blood samples before you seal them up. I want you to find out exactly what Max is involving us in and whether we need to cover our asses.”

We’ve been keeping tabs on the heir apparent for years. From time to time, we’ve been called upon to monitor or vet certain family members. We know he has extra-curricular activities outside the organisation, but we’ve never had enough to track what he’s up to. All we know is daddy dearest is aware and doesn’t seem to care.

“Yes, boss.” Sinclair gets to work letting the faceless corpse down from the meat hook. The guy took a beating. Looks to be about mid-fifties from the greying hair and physique, but that’s all I can glean. He’s shirtless and wearing dark slacks—he could literally be anyone. When Sinclair is done, he drags a barrel over and with Nico, heaves the body in feet first. With some repositioning, the lid goes on and they drag over the next one for the woman. Best I can tell, she’s in her twenties, maybe thirties, with long raven-black hair. She’s in jeans and a shredded, slouchy, long-sleeved hoodie. She doesn’t fit this picture.

There’s no reason for a woman to be at this scene. Certainly not one who looks like they were snatched off a sofa mid sitcom binge. She’s even wearing fluffy house socks. Sin kneels to get her prints, and as he lifts her hand, the body jerks. With a loud rattle, she tries to breathe, desperately gulping as her battered lungs fight her.

“Shit, Enzo. This one’s not dead!” Sinclair grunts, as he falls back, trying to avoid the arc of blood she’s showering him with.

She stills, her breathing is so slight her chest barely rises. I kneel at her side and one eye opens wide and immediately I know. It may be ringed with red, but I’d know that colour anywhere. The same verdant green as Isabella. Deep emerald with flecks of gold arranged in a halo.

“Aurora,” I breathe. Sin’s head snaps up and his eyes widen in horror.

“No fucking way, Enzo. He wouldn’t,” Nico snarls. Sin remains quiet.

Benny runs back to stand beside us. “You’ve got to be fucking shitting me?” he roars.

“There’s no fucking way! The De Lucas wouldn’t possibly be this stupid? It would mean war,” Nico adds.

As I stare down, cataloguing the extent of her injuries, I’m horrified. She’s barely recognisable. “It would only start a war if anyone knew about it, and if her body could be identified. Hence, this guy’s missing a face, and she’s been beaten to a pulp. Without a body—she’s missing. Without a body, Max has a reason to go after any organisation in the city in search of her.”

“What the fuck do we do?” asks Nico.

“We go to Mateo. This can’t stand, Enzo,” Benny growls out, his jaw clenched and his chest heaving, obviously seething with anger. “This isn’t right. Mateo needs to know. The De Lucas can’t get away with this.”

He may be one of us now—part of a crew of bastards either by birth or circumstance—but he was once part of the Bianchi family. Son of a Made Man working under Mateo. That is until Benny fell in love, came out to his father and was unceremoniously disowned. His father may have cast him out, but Mateo felt differently. He took Benny aside and told him he valued loyalty above all else and that it was none of his business who he fucked as long as Benny didn’t fuck him over. While he couldn’t force Benny’s father to accept him, he could find a place for him within his organisation. With us.

Mateo approached me with an offer to expand my crew, and thus The Bianchi Bastards found their fourth.

I take a deep breath and survey the scene. “Right. Nico, Benny, you’re staying here. You’ll burn the clothes and then activate the hydrants and clean-up the floor. Standard sweep and spray like usual. Sin, we need to call in medical, someone we can trust. We can’t turn up at Mateo’s with her dead.”

Sin takes a moment to think and then adds. “Can’t have anyone come here, boss. Max has access to the external camera feeds. Equally, we can’t be seen to be leaving mid-job. I could loop the feeds, but it’s a risk if he’s paying attention to them.”

“Do it, Sin,” I order. “Benny, monitor her pulse and breathing. I need to find something to help us move her. Whatever you do, don’t remove that knife and if it starts bleeding, apply pressure.”

“She’s unconscious, boss, and her pulse is slow, but it’s steady.” Benny’s breath hitches. “How the fuck could he do this to his wife? To Aurora-fucking-Bianchi?”

I dash to the door at the back of the warehouse. It’s a storeroom and I’m hoping to find something we can carry her out on. The best I can come up with is an old shipping pallet, but it’s narrow enough to fit in the truck, so it’ll have to do. I drag it out to find Benny stroking her hair back from her face, shaking his head, whispering something in her ear. I can’t make out what, but I can see how affected he is from the pained look on his face.

We’re in so much fucking trouble. Whatever we do from here on out, we’re fucked. We will betray one family no matter what we do. But it’s really no choice for us. We started Bianchi, we’ll end Bianchi. We’ll do whatever it takes to save Aurora.

And I’m not telling Mateo his daughter is dead. Once was enough.

CHAPTER TWO

SINCLAIR

Aurora Bianchi. That sadistic fuck tried to kill Aurora Bianchi.

We transferred her to the pallet and got her into the van as quickly as we could while Enzo called the doctor. He’s driving us to our safe house while I stare at the near corpse-like form of the most broken woman I’ve ever seen.

Sometimes I hate what we do. Well, the clean-up element, at least. We’re who you call when things have gone so far south you’ve found yourself somewhere close to Antarctica. Our key skills lie in research, investigation, interrogation, and covert operations. We’re also the best at burying the bodies, and un-fucking the most fucked-up situations.

Yes, we kill people, and yes, we—as Nico puts it—interrogate people vigorously. But we don’t accept jobs that target women and children, or jobs that require collateral damage of innocent parties. We sure as shit don’t inflict pain for the sake of it… Well, most of us don’t. Nico can get carried away, but not like this.

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