Page 19 of Vicious Little Princess

A well-oiled machine.

Professionals, even.

Not just thugs with guns and raging tempers, which was pretty much what the Marchetti Syndicate and the Leone Family had become lately.

No, the Benzino soldiers that Carlo had shown up with at Angelo’s hideaway tonight had been streamlined, strategic, and detail-oriented. Really fucking on the ball.

I’d been impressed.

If only that hadn’t been tainted by the past.

Something I’d thought I’d made peace with.

As much as anybody could actually make peace with their parents being murdered in an all-out brutal mob war that had taken over the city a few years back.

It had been a tossup between the Benzinos and the Leones as to who had invaded my parents’ home the night they’d lost their lives. Everyone across the three families in a position of power had been a target during that tumultuous time. Fair game, basically. As Underboss at the time, that had obviously included my dad. The Leones had blamed the Benzinos for it, but the Benzinos had never actually denied it, so they’d been seen as the more likely culprits. Marco had struck back with one hell of a bloodied attack against both families for it, and the matter had then been considered settled. Brutal justice had been achieved. Shortly after that, the war had run its course and the three families alliance had been formed, so any further reprisals had been outlawed all around.

So I’d just had to accept it. To let it go. To take comfort in the fact that justice had been done, that my parents’ murderers had been ripped from this world.

Over time, I’d buried it down deep, the fact that we’d never identified who exactly had been responsible. Not the precise individual, nor who’d pulled the trigger on both my dad and my mom. We weren’t supposed to go after the families of our enemies, especially not women and children, yet the culprit had.

But burying it all… that had taken a hit lately.

First with having to step into the Leone Estate for the fake wedding, and with Caterina being thrust into my life who was Leone by blood, although nothing else, fortunately. And then tonight, first facing off with the Benzinos, then having to work with them on the cleanup.

Normally, I’d be able to keep a handle on it, but with Julian missing, it made me more emotionally vulnerable than I normally ever would be. As if it hadn’t already been bad enough with what Caterina had been through, or the fact of having them both taken in the first place. Now he was still being held captive somewhere by that fucking slimy psychopath.

“I want you on your knees kissing the ring with a heartfelt apology.”

Angelo Simone’s words to Julian the day of the wedding had been swirling through my mind, torturing me with the implications of what could be happening to my Sunshine in relation to that.

Worse, though, had been Julian’s observations of him, that which he’d called Angelo on that day.

“If anyone is gonna be on their knees, it’s you. For me. And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Your closeted need for just that.”

He’d read that sleazy bastard and determined that he had a hard-on for him. He wanted him. And from what I’d heard about Angeloandhow he’d been with Caterina—someone he’d taken a liking to a while back—he didn’t reactnormallywhen attraction was in play. Nico’s obsession with Caterina looked completely wholesome in comparison to how Angelo was.

Yes, obviously, in a fight, Julian could hold his own.

But this situation was different.

He’d taken a hit from the crash, he’d been sedated too, so he was starting off in this battle from a major disadvantage.

And there was also the fact that he was susceptible to certain things. Susceptible to beingtriggeredin a way that could make it very difficult for him to see straight or even hold on, let alone actually fight back. Because of what had happened with his father, a lot about Angelo when he was on one of his tears would…affectJulian.

He’d recognized that himself when Angelo had tried to come at him and I knew it was why he’d put him down so quickly and ended the confrontation right there and then, before it had been able to get its claws into him, before it had thrown open the door for him to be haunted by the ghosts of his past.

That door might be flying wide open right now, though.

And it really fucking worried me.

I rushed down the corridor carrying two more laptops and a bunch of cables for Caterina.

As I burst back into the living room where she was on the edge of the couch typing rapidly on her hardcore military-grade laptop like a machine, my gaze shot to Nico, who was pacing back and forth on the phone. It was the content of his conversation that caught me off guard.

“Your Capo dragged my wife from the outskirts of my property line, kidnapped her, then set up four men to rape her with the intent to then transport her to a buyer of fucking sex slaves!Mywife! My charge, my property!” he was yelling heatedly.

Caterina lifted her head at the last part and growled at him, but then let it go immediately, knowing he was just playing up the role, before then returning her hyper-focused attention to her task at hand of filtering through a wealth of information in a bid to track down our boy.

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