Page 153 of Vicious Little Princess

“Apparently, me rushing off like that and dropping everything in a bid to protect our pregnant woman was received very positively. With me going against my father, Leo and Marco themselves had started to frame it as me having no respect for family and being a power hungry fuck, basically. My response to somebody I loved being in danger disproved the bullshit they’d been spouting, and with some further proof of said bullshit presented to them by Carlo, the truth came out. Why I’m really doing this, that I want to bring back the honor and loyalty of it all that has been lost along the way under Marco’s reign.”

“Wow, that’s a hell of a thing.”

“Not just that, but after the success of tonight’s assaults, including the raids,andnow news that Santino Leone is dead, Cassio’s soldiers have also pledged their loyalty to me.”

“You’re saying that—”

“I’msayingthat I now unofficially control the Marchetti Syndicate by numbers alone.”

“Damn, that’s incredible,” I breathed. “We’re almost there.”

“So now we have Marco sign everything over to you under the threat of death?” Julian spoke, strolling out onto the patio. “Give you Marchetti Holdings?”

Before Nico could get a word out, Caterina emerged from around the side of the house carrying a laptop in hand as she walked toward us in just her bathrobe. “It’s more complicated than that, unfortunately.”

What was happening?

“I thought you were asleep?” Julian asked her. “The doctor gave you something to help you doze off after… you know?”

She lifted a shoulder, her focus on her laptop. “Yeah, I didn’t take it.”

“She told you that it was fine for the baby.”

“I’m aware. I didn’t want it. I can’t sleep right now. There’s too much to do.”

“Or because of the massacre?” I asked carefully. Well, as carefully as something like that could actually be put to her, considering.

She looked out at each of us in turn. “I don’t regret that. I don’t feel guilty. I’m fine.”

Nico frowned. “You felt a whole lot of guilt before after the garage takedown.”

“Well, that was my mistake, wasn’t it?”

Goddammit,this wasn’t good. The three of us exchanged a look.

Unfortunately, she caught sight of it. “Calm yourselves. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Nico bit back, unable to contain the edge in his tone.

“Do you deny that my father needed to die?”

“Well, I—”

“Eventually, but not yet, because of the power vacuum,” Julian said. He grimaced as soon as he’d put the words out there. “I’m sorry, darlin’. I just—”

“I get it. You’re worried that Angelo might return to fill the position,” Caterina said. “Especially as Dante told me that he doesn’t want it, that he won’t take it, that he and Matteo just want this done and then they want out.”

“They told you that when?” I asked. They weren’t supposed to tell her anything triggering whatsoever, not until more time had passed between this night wherein she’d murdered her own father and his security team.

“Just after the doctor had checked me and the baby out and the two of them came to make sure I was okay.” She held up her left hand. “And to give me my ring back. It was taken off me when they registered a signal coming off it, something that shouldn’t have been possible. That’s how good these ghosts are.”

“So they used that opportunity to do more than that and try to coerce you into taking power?” Julian bit out, as disgusted as we were. Talk about giving them an inch and them taking a mile in return.

“Regardless, I’m going to make damn sure that Angelo doesn’t have the opportunity to take control of anything. Iwilltake power. Temporarily. Until we dismantle things. Turning Marco’s soldiers to follow you is very different from trying to bring Leone soldiers under the Marchetti empire. It just doesn’t compute. They won’t trade one family for another. It’s just… it’s not done. Our plan was to dismantle the Leone Family anyway, and that’s what we’ll do. With me murdering Santino, though, the timeframe has obviously altered. And because it’s my fault, I need to be the one to fix it. So this is me doing that. I’ll take power with Matteo and Dante assisting me. They’re actually meeting with Leone soldiers now to prepare them, so it’s all in progress.”

“This was the last thing you wanted, Caterina,” Nico said.

“Nico, murdering eight or nine people is a whole lot different from massacring every single Leone soldier and—what—blowing up every business under its stead, including Leone Realty, which would be the only quick way to do things because of what I did tonight. It would be like firing off hundreds of flare guns to the Feds and basically begging them to arrest us all and strip everything away from us.”

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