Page 24 of Where the Wicked Reign

“What?” he asked, as he rose with me. “It’s smalltime. An annoyance more than anything. These guys are ill-equipped, to say the least.”

Were they?

I mean, yes, on the surface, that seemed to be the case.

But the timing of this kept nagging at me.

It obviously wasn’t public knowledge when our shipments took place. That information was only known amongst the three families, largely so we didn’t end up overlapping one another. That, combined with the fact that the Red Vipers had collided with the Benzinos, had a whole lot of suspicion sparking.

I fucking hoped I was wrong and just being unduly paranoid because of the precarious nature of things.

“They may not be acting alone.”

“You think they weresentthere to fuck with us?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“This might be the beginning of what you predicted when Marco tried to make that fucked-up deal with those mercenaries.”

“Let’s hope it’s not.”

“And if it is?”

“Then we’re all in a fuck load of trouble.”

5

~Emilio~

He was covered in blood.

It was literally dripping off him.

I hadn’t seen him this way in a long time.

Unleashed.

Out of control.

Succumbing to all that inner darkness of his.

People thought I was the brutal one. I mean, I looked the part. I was a massive, musclebound guy, for one. And I always wore a cold and unforgiving expression whenever we were out in public and I was doing my perceived duty guarding my brother-in-arms. And, yeah, I’d made sure key figures in our world had witnessed me dealing out some hardcore violence upon anyone who dared to cross Nico. It was an image the two of us had crafted well and one I’d learned to wear equally well. It was a deterrent. A major one, in fact. Although Nico had his nickname for other known reasons, my reputation was the one of a true beast in the physical and literal sense.

As far as everybody else knew.

Before my dad had become Underboss, he’d made a hell of a reputation for himself as a ruthless enforcer for the Marchetti Syndicate. He’d raised me to do the same, to make damn sure I made my public image like his so that people wouldn’t dare fucking cross me.

Nico was of the opposite approach.

He didn’t give everything away up front. There was proof that he’d succeeded in that respect, in the fact that very few people really knew of hisferalside, that he was actually the brutal one. He actually got off on it, while I didn’t. It was just a necessity to me. Duty, really, to go the violent route. But dealing that out, like we had done tonight, was kind of a chore to me. The crunch of broken bones, of drawing blood, of forcing screams from our enemies, didn’t make my dick hard. Nah, truthfully, I preferred peace and quiet. The calm. Whenever I had some downtime away from all of this, I delved into another world altogether, afantasy world, as Nico called it. I’d lost my taste for this life the day I’d also lost my parents. And I guess I’d never recovered from it in that respect. I was here for Nico and the brutal fact that there was no way out. Well, except death. For now, at least.

Now, thanks to our collaboration with a maverick and a highly determined fucker like Julian who never tooknofor an answer and could not, under any circumstances, accept failure, there was actually light at the end of this fucked-up tunnel. And it might not be a never-ending one after all.

“Benzino!”

My thoughts came to a grinding halt at the sound of that name being uttered shrilly from the final guy remaining conscious inside the warehouse.

Nico had been determined to deal with the final three and he’d had me hang back, so I’d just been watching and twiddling my thumbs—literally, actually—while he’d been unleashing all over them and spilling a fuck-ton of blood.

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