Page 104 of Vicious Little Princess

So, yeah, he was right to be a little paranoid.

And if it made him and Carlo feel better and more secure by venturing inside here out of sight, so be it.

“That’s a lot of power you hold in your hands—or at your fingertips,” Remo went on.

I drew my concentration away from what I was doing—sifting through all the intel that Nico and I had combined a little ways back on both families—and looked out at him.

It wasn’t worry that I saw from him, just intrigue and him looking mighty impressed.

“Sure is,” I said, offering him a wink.

He chuckled. “We’d heard rumors, but we couldn’t substantiate them. This is good. Really fucking good.”

“I’d say so,” Carlo spoke, him and Nico coming back to us after they’d been discussing Nico’s confirmation that he would take power over the Marchetti Syndicate like Carlo had put to him at their lastmeeting.“I’m concerned, however, about what Nico’s just told me concerningyounot wishing to take your rightful place as Boss of the Leone Family.”

“Do you really think they’d accept a woman, anyway?”

Expecting him to be like the others I’d been surrounded by all my life, I was more than a little surprised when he answered, “Yes. You’re qualified. You have a well-established reputation throughout the City of Tolhurst. And you exude strength. All those qualities make for a competent leader.”

“Santino has only discounted you out of fear,” Remo added. “That you’d one day supplant him.”

“That is true,” Nico said.

Yes, he’d told me that was what my mom had revealed to him.

“I walked away from it years ago. I’m only neck deep in it now because I was forced back in. I’ll help end this nightmare, but when it’s done, I want no direct part of it. I won’t take the reins.”

“You are the most optimal candidate to take on the mantle,” Carlo told me. “As I understand it, even Dante Rivera, the technical Underboss of the Leone Family, believes that to be the case.”

“There doesn’t need to be any candidate.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“We destroy all the illegitimate aspects of the Leone Family business, then divvy up the remaining aspects, namely Leone Realty, between you and Nico.”

“You want to wipe out the entire Leone Family altogether,” Carlo realized.

“It’s rotten to the core. With the exception of Dante, Matteo and the four soldiers they have on their side, the poison that Santino and Angelo have infected it with has spread everywhere. There’s nothing to save. It’s different for the Marchettis. So many are loyal to Nico. There are also good men in Cassio, too. I’ve been determining the true loyalties of those under Cassio’s leadership, and most of them will follow Nico as well. The issue lies with the other Capo, Gio, whose soldiers are loyal to Leo. And Marco by extension. But when we draw this line very soon, there’s a lot more to be saved. That’s not so for the Leones. It needs to go. It needs to be fucking eradicated.”

“Well, it would be easier to manage an alliance just between two families,” Remo said.

“There’s also a significant difference between launching a coup and realigning the power structure of an organization like the Leone Family, to completely eradicating it,” Carlo warned.

“If anyone took power from my father, aside from Angelo, who he’s all but tapped as a backup for the role over Dante, there would forever be dissent in the ranks. It’s the way he’s set things up to reinforce his position. There would be an internal war raging, the organization would be impossible to lead with constant pushback and concerns of disloyalty and mutiny at every turn,” I pushed. “Sure, I could take Dante and Matteo up on their offer to help me take power, but keeping it would be near impossible. Not to mention, the damage that Santino has already done to its reputation through the human trafficking deals he’s been striking all over the place. And if you thinkthathasn’t made it onto the Feds’ radar, you’re dreaming. I have confirmation that they’re launching an investigation as we speak. It will take time, yes, but they’ll succeed in the end.Ifwe don’t cut the poison that the Leone Family is out of our lives now while we still can.”

I saw Nico flipping his Zippo on and off as he took my words in.

He was trying to sublimate his frustrations.

He didn’t like it.

I knew that some part of him had bought into the romanticized notion of us, as the two heirs to powerful mafia families, taking our supposedrightfulplaces and leading alongside one another.

It just didn’t work forme.

It never would.

Maybe I’d entertained the possibility before, but with the recent revelation about my pregnancy, it had made it clearer than ever that it could never be, that it could never fucking work.

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