Page 107 of Vicious Little Princess

“I’ll set Julian on that. No one can get the word out like he can,” Nico said.

I smiled to myself, despite the stakes and the complications that abounded, strategies within strategies, and all the rest, hope sprung.

For the first time ever, I could really see the end to it all.

That light that had been so long denied us.

A world where we weren’t ruled by others.

A world where the wicked would no longer reign.

Where we’d befree.

23

~Emilio~

We’d walked into a shitshow.

Caterina’s intel had warned us of something big taking place down by our three warehouse targets of the sickening operation we were to demolish tonight.

She’d flagged the movement of Wharton Transportation Services trucks, a dozen of them headed into the area, as we’d been on our way. She’d delved deeper than the surface level as she always did and determined there had been two guys to each truck, which put us at a disadvantage numbers-wise right off the bat with that being twenty-four to our twenty-two—me, Tony, and twenty of Nico’s soldiers. That wouldn’t have been a big deal if it hadn’t been for the two dozen we’d already identified at the warehouses to begin with.

Or the fact that last night, they’d moved theirproduct—hostages, really—into said warehouses that we’d been slated to burn to the fucking ground.

They’d brought in over two hundred of them, their totalsupplyfrom all over, that they were now going to ship out to numerous buyers in a rush via those dozen trucks they’d brought in.

It was a panicked move and clearly a desperate one to save their business, knowing that their HQ was going to be hit.

They’d fucking known we were coming!

Nico was back in Tolhurst sorting out the details for the multi-pronged attacks tomorrow night along with Caterina, while Julian was taking the brief calm-before-the-storm to attend to Carver Group in person, now that he was doing better physically.

I’d reported in the unprecedented issue of the hostages being here during our takedown, and Nico had given me the option to hold back and wait for him to send reinforcements. But that would have taken hours. I’d cited that we’d likely lose the hostages to these fuckers, to which Caterina had told me we could track them down and rescue them after the fact.

But that would have strapped our resources even more so, while we needed all we had for tomorrow night and what would hit us beyond that. This mission was supposed to be a reeling blow to Santino and Marco to throw them off tomorrow.

Plus, and something that had hit me deeply, was the fact that I could liberate the hostages here and now, this very night, and spare them any further pain and abuse. If we delayed the op, it would prolong their suffering, and the thought of them being shipped off andsoldto some sickos and even being in their presence for a limited time made me sick to my stomach.

Julian had only been in Angelo’s clutches for days and look at the damage that had been done.

No, I couldn’t stand the thought of it.

Nor the thought of that sick bastard slipping through our fingers again.

I’d insisted that it had to be now, that I’d handle it.

Giving me that option was just Nico and Caterina worrying about me. They didn’t want me hurt. Thank fuck Julian didn’t know about this and he was currently out of the Manor attending to Carver Group business down at his flagship Opulent Grand hotel tonight. He wouldn’t stand for it.

But this was bigger than that.

It didn’t mean it was gonna be easy, though.

Especially now we were in the thick of it.

When we’d first arrived, we’d caught sight of Shawn Price himself directing his men to drag the hostages toward the trucks. He’d been frantic, clearly panicking, and also irate.

How the fuck had they known to expect an attack?

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