Page 147 of Where the Wicked Reign

In the next second, Santino’s two guards burst from the room in question, flanking Santino himself, tight to him. Covering him, they led him down the corridor, then around the corner, where I knew there to be a secret exit out of the mansion.

Angelo staggered out behind us, glared at Julian, then made his way back down the stairs toward the reception locale, calling his guys as he went and uttering orders to his soldiers to take this position and that to deal with the attack. “Put those fuckers down! No mercy!” he was yelling as he disappeared down the staircase.

Julian and I burst into the room that Bianca had been forced into.

“Jesus,” Julian choked as we took in the sight of her on the floor on her knees, her hair matted, her face bloodied, with a black eye, her bottom lip bruised severely.

“Mom!” a familiar cry sounded, a moment before Caterina was there, rushing by us and skidding to her knees beside her mom. “Oh my God. That piece of shit. How… how are you here? I thought we agreed—”

“He had his soldiers force me back here,” Bianca rasped, trying to stand and wavering.

Julian was there in the next second, helping her to her feet and taking her weight on his shoulder.

I turned to Nico, who was at the threshold, his gun at the ready, looking urgently from the corridor to us inside. “We need to move quickly. The chaos downstairs won’t give us complete cover, so we need to be careful. Julian, change of plans. You’re gonna get Bianca out and Caterina will cover you.” He pulled his other Sig, then handed it to Caterina. “Just don’t let any of the key members of either family see you. Anyone else, you shoot to kill. No witnesses.”

She nodded her understanding and cocked the gun.

Dazed, Bianca stared at him with a whole lot of confusion. She’d clearly been told Santino’s version of what this arranged marriage would mean for her daughter.

“Go,” Nico urged. He looked at me. “We need to put on a show.”

“Where’s Marco?”

“I saw him being evacuated by his guards. Leo’s still here.”

“Yeah, he’d never miss a firefight.”

“We’ll go out through my childhood bedroom,” Caterina was telling Julian then. “I used to sneak out when I was a teenager. There’s a way through that nobody knows about.”

“Sounds good,” Julian said.

And then the three of them were passing by us.

“Be careful,” Caterina told us.

“You’d better fucking be,” Julian added.

“Always, Sunshine.”

He gave me a withering look, knowing that hadn’t always been the case before, especially not where Nico’s safety had been concerned. “Just remember what we talked about, all right?”

“I will.” I eyed Nico. “Wewill.”

He sucked in a breath, then they headed on out.

As soon as they were clear, Nico and I headed down to the battleground.

29

~Nico~

There was an undeniable honesty in violence.

When somebody was in that more primal state of mind conducive to delivering such a thing, it stripped away all the rest.

The pretense, the dishonesty, all of that was banished when that was in play.

Because of the life I led, the only time I experienced any sort of sense of freedom was when I was immersed in a bloodied, gory bout of violence.

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