Page 43 of Where the Wicked Reign

Proud that she’d punished an enemy.

Proud that she’d hurt, maimed, and killed.

Proud that she’d utterly decimated a threat.

She’d effectively admitted that she was a monster.

Just. Like. Me.

Just like all three of us, actually.

Julian came off as upbeat and innocent in the ways of our life, but he was actually anything but. The wholesunshinething was a façade, and Milo calling him that was a throwback to it, to us knowing the real him beneath it all.

Milo, while he didn’t particularly like violence, would carry out the most brutal of reckonings in the name of protecting me and our brotherhood.

Ourbrotherhood, not the Family.

Me. Emilio. Julian.

That brotherhood. The real people we could count on in this life.

We’d made a pact, one that had been forged in blood—literally—during our college days. One that trumped my loyalty to the Marchetti Syndicate.

One that trumped everything.

By doing so, pledging my loyalty to another force beyond the Family, I’d taken a major risk because it wasn’t something that would be tolerated. It wasn’t just frowned upon; it was completely outlawed.

But the way things had been, the way I’d been passed overandthreatened into standing down on so many issues, not just these recent weapons deals on the table, had shifted things for me.

It had pushed me in another direction when I’d realized that Icouldn’ttrust my own blood anymore.

I sucked in a breath as I finished rinsing out my hair.

Things were in a precarious state all around and I needed to be at the top of my game, not lost to my carnal desires or myferalside.

After Leo had forced us to deliver thatmessageto Carlo Benzino, nothing had come of it. Not a word, not a strike back, not calling a meeting between the three families, absolutely nothing. It meant he was gearing up for something big. Everyone was on high alert.

I also had eyes on Marco and Santino and I’d received confirmation that they’d been immersed in a meeting at the Leone Realty offices, Santino’s home base. Unlike my father, he didn’t use his home for that.

My father had also sent me some text messages to confirm the marriage directive that had come from Leo. Not even the decency of a call or a meeting. Just fucking texts.

And Leo, that fucker, had been liberal with the texts too, taunting me with images of a ball and chain, a cage, then a leash and a collar. Even his mocking was pedestrian. He was a pathetic, bitter man.

After realizing how exhausted Caterina had been that night, we’d decided to give her some time before we met to organize the op—the proof of trust that she needed from us before we went any further with the deal I wanted to make her and ensure we sealed before we were engaged.

I still couldn’t fucking believe it.

I hadn’t wanted it like this.

Julian had been right on, as he usually was with emotions—well, other people’s, not so much his own—Ihadwanted to have my thing with Caterina all to myself. I hadn’t wanted interference. I certainly hadn’t wanted to bind her to me in marriage against her will.

And now even that choice had been taken from me, just like everything else.

To say I was disillusioned with things didn’t even begin to cover it.

Butit was just the status quo for now. It wouldn’t be like this forever.

I had to keep reminding myself of that, both to remain saneandto play the game.

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