Page 103 of Vicious Little Princess

“Excellent,” he said, settling before us and shoving his hands into his suit jacket pocket.

“Nico,” Remo greeted me agreeably.

“Long time,” I responded.

He smiled, then his gaze flicked to Caterina. “Congratulations on snagging the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Carlo and I were saying that it was about time. You should’ve won it last year, honestly.”

I knew well that it was exactly what she’d thought too. During mystalking,I’d overheard her saying as much to her architect, Nova Henderson.

“Thank you. I just wish the timing of receiving it had been more desirable.”

“Santino’s vindictiveness knows no bounds, I’m afraid,” Carlo commented.

“Especially toward his own daughter,” Remo basically spat in disgust.

“Well, that’s one of the things we’ve allied to combat,” I cut in, before it fired Caterina up—in a detrimental way. Especially when cooler heads needed to prevail for this meeting. And her father was definitely one of her triggers for hermonstrousside.

“It certainly is,” Carlo agreed. “Thank you, both for the information regarding Marco’s proposed attacksandfor letting us in on the Shawn Price situation concerning Santino and Angelo. Should you require additional resources for the latter, you need only ask.”

“The operation is set, thank you.”

“Then we’ll discuss other urgent matters.”

Remo told us, “Thanks to your intel, we’re well-prepared to stave off Marco’s attacks.”

“We need to use this as an opportunity to do more than that,” I spoke. “With our assault on Santino’s and Marco’s joint business venture the day before, we’ll already have them reeling.”

“And Marco has already taken a hit from his deal with Lynch collapsing,” Caterina pointed out.

“Exactly. This is our chance to strike.”

“You do this and there won’t be any question as to where you truly stand,” Carlo warned. “They will all see this as much more than you merely respondingemotionallyto what Angelo did to those you hold dear. This will be a definitive stand. You will be classed unequivocally as their enemy. All four of you will, those soldiers who follow you as well. There will be no going back.”

“We’re all aware of the stakes and what this will bring about.”

Carlo’s lip curled. “Well then, let us prepare for war.”

Yes, fucking let’s.

22

~Caterina~

“Do you have a ton of data on Benzino operations, too?”

I looked up from where I’d been focusing on my laptop screen that was settled on my lap as I sat on an old wooden table in the living room of the rundown apartment building to see Remo eyeing me curiously. And my screen more so.

“Yes,” I responded flatly.

After agreeing to the overall plan to use our own strikes to hold off Marco’s intended attacks against the Benzinos, we’d convened into the abandoned apartment building as an extra privacy precaution.

It was more paranoia from Carlo and Nico than actually anything necessary, because the whole time we were here I had alerts set up to warn of any approach within several hundred yards of us, and I was tapped into every form of surveillance in and around this area. I was also flagging the license plates of any vehicles passing on by on roads close to us and feeding them into my software, which would then warn me if any of them were owned by Marchetti or Leone members, or even their associates.

Yeah, I had it covered.

But I also understood that paranoia was bound to be running rampant with the weight of things and the extreme measures that we were about to take.

This wouldn’t just be pushing back against the Marchettis and Leones, it would be outright war. And for Nico, especially, it would be seen as treason and a massive betrayal. Those demons had brought it on themselves, no doubt, and they were driving the families into deeper and deeper depths of depravity and dishonor, ruining them essentially. On Nico’s end, his soldiers might be loyal to him, and we had Dante and Matteo too, but Marco and Santino still held a great deal of power and influence.

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