Page 17 of Vicious Little Princess

“No, this is about you con—”

“Condemning you, right. Except I’m not and I never actually said that.”

“Then what? What exactlyisyour point?” She smashed her fist into the wall, making a dent in the process. “Just fucking say it!”

Yeah, this was guilt, for sure. And the rage that came along with trying not to feel it and shove it back down quickly to avoid the hurt of it. Again, as I’d heard from Milo and Julian when it came to this sort of thing.

I strode to her and grasped her wrist, eyeing her now bloodied knuckles. “Stop. You’re already hurt. No more. No fucking more tonight.” She went to pull free, but I held fast. “Listen.Just fucking listen.”

She stopped resisting and blew out a breath. “Fine.”

“I don’t condemn what you did. I’m just concerned. Youunleashingand being your true self is absolutely magnificent. There’s nothing else like seeing you free and uninhibited, not bound by yourself, anyone, or anything. And I love every moment of it.” I glared at her. “Even the parts not related to servicing my dick, for the record.” I sucked in a breath to calm myself after the sting of that insulting accusation, and went on, “Butwhat you did earlier to those guyswasn’tthat. It waspain.”

“Wh-what?”

“Not pain from their intentions, because that would have been dealt with by simply putting them down, hurting them enough to nullify the threat. But you went much further than that.Becauseof everything else that’s been building up.” Still holding her wrist, I pushed into her so she could feel me against her, and hopefully use it to ground herself to the moment with me,andfor some comfort at the same time. “What I hate, what Icondemn, is you getting to the point of needing to unload that much fucking agony.”

“It is what it is right now.”

“Caterina—”

“No. Why do you think I left the family, cut all those connections, even basically to my mom, too? Why do you think I was so intent on going out into the world alone with nothing to my name, starting from scratch, clawing my way up from the fucking dirt all alone? To escape that. To escape what they made me feel, what they did to me, what all that misogyny and control and abuse that zapped my power did to me.” She pushed me away, and I let her, because at least she was talking about it and not just trying to shut it all down again right away.

At least she was letting me in.

“Tonight, Angelo tried to take my power in one of the most heinous ways imaginable. I’ve put up with a lot of their shit since I was pulled back into all of this. Their verbal abuse, the threats, being hurt by my own father, having to stand back and not respond with a massive show of force when my mom was under threat and having to send her away instead, having to be demeaned as a forced mafia princess bride, being kept from what actually gives me purpose and a sense of control and power in my work, then having to move in here under the guise that I’m beingtrainedby you to be a submissive, broken wife with no agency of her own. But tonight… that went beyond all of that. Even just putting those assholes down wasn’t enough. I needed to rage, I needed to take back the power that’s been stolen from me, that I essentially even had to fucking give up to carry out this mission with the three of you.”

“I hear you. I hear every fucking word. And I’m glad you’re admitting that ithasimpacted you.”

“It’s more than that. And I guess I was trying to pretend it wasn’t true, to shove it down. But it is true. There’s no more denying it now.”

“What’s that?”

“This is who I am when I’m embroiled in this, when I’m immersed in my family again.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head vehemently. “You’re wrong.”

“Nico—”

“You accept that and you’re letting them win. This is what they want, remember? To break you? To make you inconsequential?”

“Even so—”

“Santino isn’t afraid of what you might know, what you might do, he’s afraid ofyou.”

She stilled. “What?”

“Your mom told me everything. He’s afraid you’ll oust him. He knows what you’re worth, and it scares the living shit out of him. Short of killing his own daughter, he’s trying to wipe you off the board in this way. And that fear, Caterina, that’s everything to us, something we can absolutely use to our advantage.” I went to her and took her hands in mine. “More to the point ofourconversation, it demonstrates that he’s actually well aware of your true worth, your capabilities, and skills. And you’re such a force to be reckoned with that he’s going to these insane lengths as a result.”

It took her several moments to take in the heaviness of my revelations.

Then she stared up at me. “You’re in a similar situation with them trying to leash you.”

I nodded. “And all this leads to something else that we need to discuss. But not yet. First, there’s Julian. It’s why I wanted us to talk this out, to make sure you were—”

“Mentally stable after what I just did?”

“Stable confidence-wise too, that your rationality had returned as well, yes. And that you still had hope, that all this shit that’s happened hasn’t undercut that. Because when it comes to finding someone who’s being hidden by the likes of Angelo, it can take nothing short of a fucking miracle and a whole lot of steadfast determination.”

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