Page 136 of Vicious Little Princess

“No worries. The shipments have crossed the border. Carlo needs you at the apartment.” Theapartmentwas the abandoned building outside the city that we’d met Carlo and Remo at before. It was where Carlo and his soldiers were going to transport Gio and his men to. He needed Nico there as future Boss of the Marchetti Syndicate to make a play for turning them.

“On my way.”

“Great,” I said, shoveling another bite of frittata into my mouth.

“I’m glad you’re eating.”

“You can hear it?”

“I can hear you chewing, yes. I was worried the stress of tonight with all the craziness would lead to you forgoing the meal Milo made for you.”

“Nope. Got to take care of our baby, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Besides, everything is on schedule and progressing nicely. Thanks to your in-depth strategizing with Carlo.”

“Actually, thanks to all the work you did with intel-gathering and setting yourself up as our base ops for tonight.”

I smiled. “A team effort. As usual, these days.”

He chuckled. “I’m loving it,principessa.I’ll keep you posted.”

We disconnected, and I cycled between feeds, keeping an eye on everything. I winced as I caught sight of Carlo’s lab, now on fire. Well, he’d been willing to sacrifice it to function as a distraction so we could accomplish a lot more tonight. Nico had given Cassio a heads-up, so he knew what was really going on.

I was tapped into a couple of cameras belonging to businesses that Marco had been slated to target tonight, and I watched as Giovanni Guerra arrived with his soldiers outside one of them, but then received a call and suddenly gestured for his men to turn back around.Good.He’d gotten word that his shipments had been intercepted. Word that we’d had Cassioleakto him. As we’d planned, it put the kibosh on the attacks as Giovanni rushed off to deal with that instead.

Everything was going precisely to plan.

I blew out a breath and sank back for a moment, munching on some berries.

It was the first relaxing breath that I’d allowed myself since the guys had headed out.

Not being in the field with them was difficult to reconcile, but I knew it wasn’t them pulling some overprotective move. They needed me here monitoring everything.

Besides, truth be told, I’d actually been feeling uneasy about going into combat now that I knew I was pregnant. The idea of it made me feel guilty, because it wasn’t just about me anymore. And ever since I’d overheard the guys talking about making sure they weren’t too overprotective with me, and Milo had mentioned how lucky I’d been that I hadn’t lost the baby during the motorcycle crash, it had really stayed with me. Ihadbeen lucky. So fucking lucky. The idea of pushing that didn’t sit well with me at all.

There was also my concern about mymonstrousside. It had grown so strong lately that controlling it had been difficult, and I’d noticed it worsening every time I let it out. Now I was having this baby, I had to rethink that; I had to rethink a lot of things.

Maybe they were just things that I needed a little time to adjust to, because not being in combat this one time was all it was—one time. We were at war. That definitely wouldn’t last. And I had to be okay with it. It wasn’t just for the good of the mission; I had to do everything it took to fight for a better life for our child.

My phone buzzed on the island and I snatched it up, expecting it to be Julian, likely sending me a photo of some sort to add some levity to the night.

Instead, my breath caught in my throat when I saw it was actually the farthest thing from Julian.

Blocked Number:How’s my pretty cock slut? He’s definitely still obsessed with me, frantically trying to track me down, pretending it’s all for revenge when he’s really craving me. Not to worry, he’ll be able to get his fill soon enough.

Angelo.

Caterina:Stay the hell away from him.

Blocked Number:No can do. And you, traitorous cunt, you’ve signed your death certificate. Your daddy knows what you did. He’s gonna force you to return what you stole and then he’ll do what he should have done a long time ago and bury you. Wish I could be there in person to see it, but I’ll settle for spitting on your grave. Wondering how I was able to contact you? Let’s just say I have some new friends. Better than the ones your boyfriends murdered. They were just a stepping stone to these guys. Bye, Caterina. I should warn you, it’s gonna be painful. Santino promised me it would be. Can’t wait until it breaks your boyfriends into pieces.

I choked and pushed off the stool.

I was just about to tap my earpiece to report this to the guys when a screen opened on my laptop with a flashing image of a black shattered circle that looked a whole lot like an eclipse with red and green light breaking through.

What the—

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