Page 102 of Where the Wicked Reign

With my focus on protecting our brotherhood, I hadn’t really considered just how bad the entire thing was for her, or what she’d really be facing by being pulled back into the Leone Family—those sick fucks. I mean, they hid that shit really well.

I guess having the brutal truth of her situation rammed home to me from what I’d overheard that day had been nagging at me so much because of Julian. There were similarities there to what he’d gone through with his abusive father. That sick bastard had put his son through hell, undermining him, systematically trying to crush his self-esteem, all in a bid to control and use him for his own benefit. To use his brilliance for his own gain.

Watching Caterina for the last couple of weeks had made it irrevocably apparent that she shared that brilliance, although in a different way. She used it in a different way. While building her own empire, she was also on a mission to turn the extreme misogyny she’d experienced from her father and his domain as a whole on its head, to work the awfulness of what she’d suffered through into something positive. With her all-female lounges,MirageandMystique,the facilities, safe spaces, networking opportunities, and programs she had set up there worked to embolden and empower other women in business.

She worked around the clock too. From the crack of dawn until past midnight, she was hustling and busting her ass.

Nico had told me that her father had liquidated her trust when she’d left and taken it for himself, so Caterina had literally started with nothing, yet managed to build so much.

I mean, fuck, she was a year younger than us, only twenty-four, and she’d already accomplished a great deal.

She really was something and now that I wasn’t allowing my reservations and worry about her being brought into our brotherhood to throw up a wall against that, I could see it clearly.

The moment she’d had my back that night of the takedown, it had served to open me up to it.

And as unsettling as it still was, I was glad it had, because I’d been missing so much when it came to her.

Although Nico had given her space, in true Nico Marchetti fashion, it hadn’t been black and white where that was concerned, and he hadn’t been able to leave her entirely. So he’d enlisted me to keep the connection by watching over her and ensuring she was well.

At a distance, of course.

He was trying his best not to seem overbearing, or as going back on his word in any way, not even through this loophole of having her watched but not actually making contact. But from what I’d seen, I didn’t think she’d actually mind.

One night, I’d tailed her as she’d made her way toNocturne.She’d clearly wanted to see us, to make contact. But at the last moment, just as she’d been about to pull into the rear parking lot, she’d turned back around.

Another time, when I’d been watching across the street with binoculars as she’d been out on a patio waiting for her architect to show up for a lunch meeting at a fancy eatery, I’d seen her write several texts to Nico and Julian, but then delete them before sending them.

Something had twisted in me when my name hadn’t been in the mix.

But what could I really expect with how I’d been toward her? Terse, cold-hearted, determined to tame her?

Knowing what she was up against now and discovering exactly what the Leone Family had planned for her, I felt sick about that last part. Wanting to tame a woman who’d suffered under that years prior before she’d managed to escape by severing all ties with them? And now she was about to be forced back into that hell which she’d liberated herself from?Goddammit.Sometimes my fierce determination to protect us gave me tunnel vision, and that had certainly been the case here.

Now, though, I was out of that tunnel.

Even as I watched her from several blocks away, leaning against my parked Harley Sportster, I wasn’t just checking for physical wellness, or to ensure she was moving more fluidly with her injury healing well over the course of many days. I wasn’t only watching over her at Nico’s request, out of duty.

No, now I was registering the emotions that flitted across her face, whether she looked happy, upset, stressed, and wanting to know the reasons behind each. Wanting to know more about her in general, from a personal standpoint. With Nico’s stalking of her over the years, I’d kept out of it because it was his business and he’d also played it close to his vest for the most part. But now he’d brought her in with me and Julian, it was a whole different ball game. Now I was seeing and wanting to explore much more beyond the security aspect of things, of safeguarding the three of us with respect to her. I was even fucking noticing what she was wearingandhow goddamn well she was wearing it.

Just like at this particular moment in time as I watched her through the large window front of a coffee shop while she ate a lemon muffin and sipped from her go-to black coffee every now and then, while she typed on her phone and also kept an eye on the street in between all of that. She was a multitasker, even with that. Tonight was a lot colder, so she was inside, unlike usual, where she preferred to be out on patios, which I figured had something to do with her claustrophobia that Nico had told me about. Even in her lounges, she met with people in the largest room in the place. And at her nightclub,Luster,she either kept to her large office space or up on the wraparound balcony that overlooked the entire club below. When I’d snuck inside while she’d been there several nights to supervise and manage in person because she was clearly a control freak, she hadn’t once headed down onto the crowded floor, neither in the booths nor on the dance floor.

I sucked in a breath as I studied her again tonight. Her silky auburn hair cascaded in waves about the turquoise satin blazer she was wearing, the thing sporting some fringe too. It was done up with a black lace bralette beneath. My focus had been dropping to her thighs often too, with the perfect blend of a black mini-skirt and leather knee-high boots doing them amazing justice.

It wasn’t the first time that I’d felt myself stir as I’d started with the whole checking her out thing a few days ago halfway into this assignment. I actually found myself having to shift my weight and adjust my jeans a little, then force myself to focus on scrutinizing everybody in her immediate surroundings instead.Get a grip, asshole.

I could just imagine Julian smirking his ass off at this and Nico giving me a well-deservedI-told-you-so.

God-fucking-dammit.

One of the cars whizzing by slowed to a crawl, then pulled up outside the coffee shop, a beat-up old Mustang that had seen better days. A shame, given what a beauty it could have still been if the owner had taken care of it.

The driver got out, a pretty big guy with some muscle on him, although it was clear to me that he’d let it go a little. He was wearing a worn beater and a pair of ripped jeans, but not the stylish kind, just a pair that was in disarray. As I watched him waver a little, I grabbed my phone and zoomed in with my camera app, and sure enough, he looked fucking stoned.

I tensed as I watched him make his way into the coffee shop.

It got a whole lot worse, a shit-ton of adrenaline flooding my system as he went right up to Caterina’s table.

She didn’t so much as flinch as she took him in, meaning she’d already picked him up in her peripheral vision, and had been prepared. More than that, as a conversation began to take place, it looked like he was there to meet with her; it had been arranged.

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