Page 29 of Broken Princess

“Enzo,” she shouts, forcing his attention to her. With a tone void of all humanity, she repeats, “I don’t care what we have to do to make it happen, but I want them dead.”

She stops, pursing her lips as she thinks, considering her words carefully. “What the fuck am I saying? I want them brought here. You’re fully equipped. Nico filled me in on the room you built for him. I want them interrogated for whatever information they have, and then I want them slaughtered. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”

“The lady has a decent plan there, Zo.”

She continues, “I know Max and Salvatore need to be dealt with, but we have to clean house first. We can’t source any additional resources, or trust anyone else to help us until we bring them in and nail down exactly how fucked we are.”

Zo is nodding his head before his mouth catches up with him, “Agreed.”

A rough cough at the door alerts us to Nico’s presence. “There’s no fucking way you’re all in here deciding on the fate of Benny’s father without him.”

“Careful, Nico,” Zo warns.

Aurora’s furrowed eyebrows and tight grimace betray how conflicted she is. She looks pained. She casts a steady gaze around the room, taking each one of us in before landing on Enzo. “We go after him last. We use whatever we can get from the first two as leverage against him.” Turning and levelling her eyes on Nico, she adds firmly, “Benedict gets the final decision on Marco’s fate.”

Nico tips his chin in agreement. I can tell he’s thrown by Aurora, giving the orders. While it feels peculiar, it doesn’t feel wrong. We all sense it.

I don’t really know how to react. There’s been a shift that my mind can’t fully process. Zo is our leader. He is who we follow—who commands us. But Aurora is who we’re protecting—who we’ll lay our lives down for and she is calling the shots today. Besides, she outranks us.

Zo moves to stand at her side like a centurion, back straight, head held high and arms rigid at his side, nodding his agreement. That’s when he takes back control and enacts the details of Aurora’s plan. “Sin, we need to know our first two targets’ whereabouts and upcoming movements. Any locations we can exploit so we can pick them up cleanly. Ideally, we need to find somewhere both Tony and Carlo are going to be and grab them together. Otherwise, we’re going to have to grab them simultaneously, which is a tactical nightmare without a larger team. Sin, any way you can engineer a plausible reason to get them together?”

“I’ll work on it. What’s my deadline?”

“Picked up within two weeks; we’ll all need time to prepare. And we also want every scrap of dirt we can dig up on them. Nico, I know your methods are effective, but nothing scares men like these more than secrets they want to keep buried.”

Nico considers Enzo’s words and nods his agreement, then retreats back out the door. “I need to check on Benny,” he says as he turns toward his interrogation room instead of up the stairs. As he opens the door, I hear Benny screaming out a tirade of endless rage. I assume it’s directed at his father and as Nico slams the door, I’m thankful. Thankful that someone is there for Benny, but also for the soundproofing. Fuck, Benny is loud.

Turning and heading back up to my cave, I call out, “I’m on it, boss,” and leave Aurora and Enzo to figure out whatever is going on with them.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BENEDICT

Ripped in two. Torn apart, decimated, betrayed. I’m a raging storm of anger and despair. How could he?

The man cast me out like trash under the banner of honouring the family. A family he has betrayed in the most unconscionable of ways.

What starts as a mumbled rant ends in a rage filled outburst. “Unprincipled, dishonourable, corrupt, amoral, fucking cunt.” My throat burns as I vent my ire like an erupting volcano of profanity.

I’m pacing the interrogation room like a captive tiger. Itching to pounce, dying to attack something. Nico grabs the back of my neck, forcing my forehead to his and forces my eyes to his. “Breathe, Bambi.”

I surge forward to kiss him, and he swerves my advances, pushing me away. The rejection stings and I struggle to suppress the tears that threaten to well in my eyes.

“Uh-uh. Not a chance, Benedict. That is most definitely not going to help you feel better, and I refuse to be a rage fuck. It’s more insulting than a pity fuck, and twice as quick.”

I open my mouth to argue with him and stop myself as I realise, he’s fucking right. Of course, he is. That’s one of the most infuriating and contradictory things about Nicolo Fiero, despite how unreasonable he can be in nearly all things—when it comes to me—he’s usually right. Dick. I flex my neck, easing the tension as I roll my shoulders. “Alright then, smartass. What do I need right now?”

A knowing smirk rolls over his features and he replies, “You, my tantrum throwing little brat,” he leans in and kisses the pulse point at the side of my neck, weakening my knees and distracting me, “need to beat the ever-loving-shit out of something. Let’s go hunting.”

I do love a hunt. Nico has various side hustles, my favourite of which is making problems disappear for businesses protected by The Syndicate. He got me up to speed on his current mark on the drive over. It seems there’s a group of local college guys who’ve become tired of having to put in the effort to meet a woman. Our clubs have footage of them spiking drinks before ‘helping’ their dates home.

Syndicate businesses aren’t exactly keen to call the cops and let them trawl over their CCTV footage, so shit like this we handle in-house. Drug dealers, traffickers, and general scum encroaching on our territory need a swift reckoning. Otherwise, who the fuck will respect us if we can’t keep our own shit in order? There would be challenges to our authority left and right.

Nico does jobs like these to channel his less socially acceptable predilections into something more constructive. I’d love to say that the club in question has engaged him because they care about their female clientele, but the bottom line is, they’re a business. Hot women bring in more customers, and if word gets out our clubs aren’t safe for women, it hurts the bottom line. Callous but true.

Nico opens his door, stepping out into the dimly lit parking lot. He’s seen something I haven’t. Understandable, given how distracted I am. I’m not the look-out tonight. I’m the attack dog he’s going to set on our quarry.

Like lightning, Nico darts across the lot and lays in wait amongst the shadows for our target. I follow, blanketed by his massive frame. There’s a loud bang as a door crashes open against the brickwork. A girl stumbles out from the club’s back entrance, swiftly followed by a smarmy looking twat who’s eyeing her like she’s some wounded animal he’s going to pick off and devour. I’m right behind Nico as he steps out from behind the corner and takes the woman by the elbow and says, “Taxi’s this way, sweetheart.” Before turning to me and winking with a smile, “He’s all yours, Bambi. Go nuts.”

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