Page 20 of Vicious Little Princess

When I’d returned home following the cleanup, I’d found her showered and back in clean clothes, her emerald eyes bright and focused. Back to herself and out of that monstrous state she had been in earlier. Her arms had been wrapped in gauze, Nico telling me that he’d treated her while I’d been gone. I’d double-checked that he’d done it properly and hadn’t forgotten anything like a whole lot of antiseptic or feeding her antibiotics. Nico was more for causing damage, rather than healing it. But he’d actually done a good job, and she’d heal well.

“You’re close, I know that,” I heard Nico continuing down the line. “You treat him like your lieutenant more so than your actual Underboss in Dante, but we had an agreement, an ironclad fucking agreement. This marriage is the cornerstone of our new alliance, Santino. The implications of this in relation to that are dire, to say the least. Especially when my father hears of it. If action isn’t taken here, I will mobilize my—what? Yes. Acting alone on this? How can I trust in that, given what you want to befall your own daughter? No, I’m gonna need more than that. Words aren’t enough or—yes. Exactly. Good, then I want to see it. Leash him and punish him. He came ontomyfucking territory, took what belongs tome. Contacting you instead of pursuing action myself is to honor the alliance, but if you don’t reel him in and do what needs to be done, I’ll forgo all sense of courtesy. This won’t stand. Cut out the rot in Angelo before it infects us all.”

He hung up, then all that rage instantly disappeared, and he smirked out at Caterina, who lifted her head and grinned. “Nicely done.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, making my presence known as I strode over to Caterina and put the additional laptops down on the coffee table for her.

As she snapped into action, sorting them the way she wanted, setting up what she needed to, Nico explained, “While you were searching out supplies for Caterina, the two of us determined a way to get more boots on the ground with our search for Julian. Manipulate the Leones into searching for his captor in Angelo. Make him their target. Santino won’t give two shits about Julian being taken, but making it about Caterina being kidnapped violates a whole lot of shit, including the new alliance. It puts Santino in the position of being forced to act against Angelo and scour the fucking city for him, which will, in turn, cross off various possible locations that Caterina has identified so far.”

“That’s ingenuous. Risky, though. You basically challenged Santino.”

“With the alliance at my back. The risk was mitigated due to that.”

Not taken out of the equation altogether. But it would have to do as it was, because Julian needed us, and he needed us fucking quickly at that.

“What if they get to the correct location first?”

“It’s a possibility. The fact is, the three of us can’t head out to check all of them. The priority is finding Julian. Seeing to Angelo is second. But hewillbe seen to.”

“You don’t think Santino will bury him?”

“No. He’s his pet Capo. He’ll punish him to save face, but that will be the extent of it.”

“And how are we then going to get in there to murder the fucker when he’s back under Leone protection?”

“Off the top of my head,” Caterina spoke. “Long range sniper shot taken the moment he’s away from the mansion, which we then manipulate to look like the work of that buyer he was intending to send me to. You know, for him failing to follow through?”

“Damn, that’s vicious,” I said. “And fucking perfect.”

She lifted a shoulder, then went back to work.

“Any progress since I’ve been gone?” I asked her.

“You mean, in the three minutes it took you to grab those laptops for me?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sorry, I just—”

She grasped my hand. “It’s all right, I get it.” She gave it a squeeze, then patted the cushion next to her. “Come, sit for a few moments. I’ll explain exactly where we’re at and what I’m doing. Informationispower, but it can also be comfort.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

“I’m gonna reach out to my father, take the chaotic energy up several notches,” Nico told us, before heading out of the room, dialing on the way. I heard that dangerous tone of his echoing down the corridor as he went.

Good.He was piling on the pressure on that end of things.

I sat down beside Caterina and the first thing I noticed as I stared at the laptop she was currently on, while two more were now churning and cycling through a ton of data, was the insane facial recognition software she had up and running. It was analyzing gait and body language, not just facial features. “Where the hell did you get that?” I asked her. She had some mad skills, but I wasn’t aware that they included software development.

She shot a look out the door, clearly making sure Nico wasn’t near. Then, satisfied that he wasn’t, she revealed, “It was a gift from Levi.”

Good call not bringing that up right now while things were tense as hell. While Nico might have come around on it more than any of us had thought possible for him, all for Caterina’s benefit, it was still sore subject matter and something that could come to the surface for him when a whole lot of intensity was in play.

“It’s a hell of a gift.”

She merely nodded, then got down to business, pointing at the laptop she was currently working on right next to me, “I’m tapped into surveillance around the city—news outlets, police, government, and even those of security companies that cover individual homes too so we can have eyes through locations not in built-up areas. The facial recognition software is running on all facets of that surveillance, searching for both Angelo and Julian. I’ve also written a program that’s scouring social media posts. Julian’s a public and very beloved figure. Any sightings of him are a big deal, even in passing. And even a glimpse of him could help us.”

“Okay, what about Angelo’s car? That Audi of his? He brought it to the crash site where he took you both.”

“I found it, but it was abandoned on the outskirts of the city. And not by him. One of those guys he was using tonight.”

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