Page 21 of Where the Wicked Reign

“It is what it is.”

And as much as I’d tried to deny it, the brutal truth was that it would always be like this. There would always be something coming back on me because of my father.

Unless the Leone operations came to an end.

But achieving that would be a whole other story.

And as sure as I was in myself and my abilities, I wasn’t fool enough to think that I could bring that about—at least not on my own.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what I was.

On my own.

Both by choice and necessity.

Emotion welled in her eyes as realization hit her. “I won’t even be here for your award now.”

“It’s okay. You’ve always been my biggest supporter. I know you’ll be there in spirit.” I gave her hands a squeeze. “What’s important to me is that you’re safe. Please do this for me. I couldn’t live with it otherwise.”

She sucked in a breath. “I will, my sweetheart.” She threw her arms around me then, holding me tightly to her. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

I let her hold me for as long as she needed, despite my body buzzing with the need to get down to dealing with all of this right away, adrenaline starting to thrum through me, and putting me on edge.

Truthfully, it couldn’t have come at a worst time with my business expansion plans.

But I also couldn’t allow it to continue.

My father had to be stopped from doing something this despicable.

The problem was, beyond the obvious anyway, the fact that he’d already gone this far and delved into something so fucked-up very likely meant this wouldn’t be the end of him going down this sort of path.

It was also a violation of the truce between the three families.

The tide was turning.

A tipping point was coming.

And if they weren’t all very careful, war would reign.

4

~Nico~

What was going on?

Why hadn’t Caterina struck back against me yet?

It had been almost two weeks since I’d made my move.

Normally, she didn’t take more than a couple of days to respond in kind.

She was well. I knew that for a fact, because I obviously had eyes on her.

Was that it, then? After three years, had she just walked away from our little war?

If she thought for one second that I’d allow that to happen, that she could just turn her back on it, onme, without a word—

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