Page 61 of Cardinal

"You shouldn't have pissed her off." Leah sighed chidingly at Ares with a disappointed smirk and amusement in her eyes.

Then, Leah's eyes sharpened harshly as they landed on me. "You should have defended her." The snap from her felt like a direct slap to the face. "She may be young, but she is more than skilled enough, and you, out of everyone, should know that or, at the very least, believe in that and back her up against Ares when he threw those nasty words at her. Not only that, but she is also your girlfriend. You should back her up even if it seems foolish."

"What was I supposed to say in that situation? She…" Well, great, now I couldn't even defend myself without looking and feeling like an asshole.

Scowling, I scoffed and hissed a curse under my breath in Italian. "She is young. Yes, she has formidable skills for someone her age, but compared to those we hire, she probably pales in comparison." My stomach churned at my doubting words about Juliet, even if they might be true. I felt disgusted about myself for doubting her, though.

I shouldn't be doubting her. Leah was right. At the end of the day, Juliet was my girlfriend. My unsolicited support should always be with her, even if she was unreasonable.

Ugh, I fucked up, didn't I?

Groaning frustratedly with a hand down my face, I leaned back in my seat. "I'll give her a moment to cool off." I also needed a bit to get something good sorted. Otherwise, I might just piss her off more and end up with all my accounts being locked… and being locked out of my own damn house—again.

Shaking my thoughts away, I ignored the dull ache in my head as I recollected myself. "We need to go after the small fry first, slowly pick off the weak to get our names crawling up the ranks, and it'll weaken the main body at the end of the day." A long sigh exhausted my chest as I thought about the uproar our actions would cause. "We need to make it bloody and violent." More so for our entertainment, but mangled bodies always did wonders to make a statement impactful.

"We will need to block off any escape routes. No point in doing all of this if our main targets scurry off to regroup elsewhere in safety." Sebastian mentioned with a frustrated sigh of his own.

"That's going to be the tricky part in all of this. It's fucking New York. Good luck cutting off one exit without two more popping up. It doesn't help that we somehow don't have our foothold with law enforcement as we thought. What happened with Juliet revealed to us that our hold on the police departments has slipped into the sewers. Which is another issue we have to fucking deal with on top of everything else." Aidan complained with an exasperated groan of his own.

More and more shit kept on hitting the fan the more we dug into everything to formulate our plans.

"It's going to be a big shit show, but we've handled worse." Leah's light voice encouraged us with a heavy smile. "If we don't regain full control and lose it all, everything we have done will be for nothing, and the whole state is going to end up in literal hell again."

The sound of leather creaking scratched at the air as Leah's body slowly rose from the chair. "We all know how bad it was growing up. We took over and changed things for the better for a fucking reason. I don't care if we end up martyrs, but like hell am I going to let New York go back to how it was before and damn the future generations to come." Strengthening her voice, she gave us the infamous look of murderous determination that always got anyone to crumple upon its gaze. "I refuse to fail our people, let them suffer more than they already have. I do not want another case like Juliet's to emerge. I want to stop it all before it can even have a spark to begin. So, we are going to see this through, even if our bodies join the mass grave we will create."

Surge after surge of anger burned my veins with each pump of my heart as I thought about Leah's words. It was an unavoidable shit show, but it had to be done. To think that situations like Juliet's currently happened while we sat here talking away made me crave a good skull to bash in with my fists.

And the thing was, there were worse things out there happening than what Juliet went through. Things that went unnoticed by us and continued to happen because of our ignorance and naivety. Things that shouldn't have gone as far as they are had we been more diligent.

If we had been doing our jobs as we should, then my Juliet wouldn't have had to suffer as she did.

But if that had been the case, then I wouldn't have Juliet to call as mine.

I hated that she went through the hell she did, but if she didn't, she never would have fallen into my arms.

To meet The Devil, she had to go into Hell.

I felt like a bastard thinking of all of that, and I wish I could say I wished things had been different—but I can't.

Resetting myself with a deep breath, I looked at everyone with a newfound energy and confidence. "Leah is right. We need to remember why we chose to conquer the old. We have to go back on our promise to make things right, to make this new empire fair and just." Maybe we have lost sight of ourselves with time, but now is better than ever to remember our sole reasons for taking the steps our parents didn't dare entertain. "We are better than those rats. We are the necessary evil the city needs, and it is time we reclaim it all."

"Back to our roots we go then." Sebastian agreed with a nostalgic smile. "Our ideals, not our fucking stupid selves getting wasted into alleyway fights for shits and giggles." He reminded us of our wild days with a hearty laugh.

"Those were the fun days, though." Ares's crazed grin probably rivaled as the two of us gave each other nostalgic looks.

"They were not fun," Leah grumbled with a scoffing sneer.

"Maybe not for you because you had to patch us up along with…" A silencing glare from Leah made Aidan shut his mouth before she-who-shall-not-be-named could be mentioned.

And that was one way to damper the whole room again with a heavy somber. All of us probably had the same thoughts going through our minds about the unfortunate situation years ago, but none of us dared speak up and risk Leah's wrath.

We liked our bodies intact and wanted the good doctor to stay good.

Slowly and awkwardly, I got up from my seat, fully intending to slip away to Juliet to avoid the very possible war path from Leah if one of the other idiots set her off.

"Oh fuck me, daddy! Yes! Daddy!"

Neither of us could keep a straight face the moment a phone went off with the most ridiculous ringtone we have ever heard. Nearly everyone burst out laughing in an instant as she watched a red-faced Ares fluster around to pull his phone out, cussing the whole time in Greek before snapping at the person on the other side after picking the call up. "What!? What do you mean all my money disappeared!? Billions don't just… No, I did not buy five new Bugattis! Why the fuck would I do that?!... I don't care, just fucking fix it!" I was surprised that Ares's teeth didn't shatter from how hard his jaw clenched as he growled at his phone menacingly after hanging up.

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