Page 138 of Vicious Little Princess

I shot out my hand, just a couple of inches from snatching up a blade, when an arm wrapped around my neck, wrenching me back.

Another kicked at the back of my legs, ripping them out from under me and forcing me onto my knees, while the guy with his arm around my neck applied dizzying pressure.

“No,” I rasped, slamming my elbow back.

But then my arms were yanked behind me and held hostage.

I twisted on the ground and went to ram my head back into the guy trying to choke me out, but my head was grabbed in a painful grip, forcing me to be still.

The room was spinning within moments.

I could barely breathe.

And then everything went black.

30

~Emilio~

Tonight had gone exactly to plan.

Everything had run smoothly without a single hitch.

It was unheard of.

There was always some aspect that went off the rails when you were dealing with so many people and different moving parts. Especially in our world.

But in this case, it had gone swimmingly.

We’d accomplished what we’d set out to do.

All the product and the weaponry had been moved to secure storage facilities off Nico’s territory, Julian had worked his charms and devious business skills along with Caterina’s blackmail to severe over a dozen of the most influential people from Santino, our distraction of commandeering the coke shipments of Gio’s had succeeded in stopping the attacks on Benzino businessesandleading them into an ambush where Carlo and his soldiers had been waiting, the raids had taken down all Leone and Marchetti gambling dens and strip clubs in one shot.

Now there was just seeing if we could salvage some of Gio’s soldiers as our own and turn them in our favor.

I swung my leg over my Harley in the lot beside the two Ferraris of Nico and Carlo, having come to the abandoned apartment building, now that I’d completed my own part of the mission, to give Nico a hand.

He didn’t want to goferalin front of Carlo, so I was there to bring the intimidation factor.

My phone started ringing when I was halfway to the building. I pulled it out and looked to see Julian calling.

I stopped and swiped it open. “Still atLuster?”I asked.

“Yes. Listen, I can’t get a hold of Cat. There’s an issue at the club. A minor one that I can fix, but I don’t want to make a decision for her. I need her go-ahead.”

“What do you mean that you can’t get a hold of her? She’s runningbase opstonight, as Nico calls it.”

“Well, have you managed to connect with her?”

“Not for a little while. I’ve been on my Harley for the last twenty minutes, and before that I was finishing up—”

“Whatever. I don’t need a play-by-play,” he snapped, very unlike him.

He was worried. Really fucking worried.

And now, so was I.

“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll connect into the Manor security system. Give me a few seconds.”

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