Page 52 of Vicious Little Princess

“No,” Milo rumbled. “We tend to Julian. The rest comes after.”

I stared out at him there in Milo’s arms.

So pained.

So beaten down.

So gaunt and near lifeless.

I swallowed hard, trying to choke back the emotion that threatened to get the best of me now.

“We’ve got him,” Milo told me, seeing my distress, even as he tried to hide his own.

I reached out and stroked Julian’s hair. “He’s coming home.”

That was what mattered.

Milo was right, the rest would come later.

13

~Emilio~

He’d almost fucking died.

That psychopath had been so fucking focused on breaking Julian that he hadn’t noticed the symptoms. He should have at least registered the progression of them.

The doctor had said that any longer and the damage would have been fatal.

Julian had been suffering from internal bleeding caused by a ruptured spleen. Trauma he’d sustained from the crash. The deep scrapes on his legs had been infected as well. He’d even suffered damage from Angelo’s repeated sexual assault.

The good news was it would all heal.

Hewouldbe okay.

At least physically.

Caterina had hacked into the surveillance system she’d found there and shown Nico and me the footage of what precisely had happened, what that sick fucker had done to Julian, and to say it had been horrific didn’t cover it.

It had made me sick to my stomach.

He’d already survived that sort of thing in his life before. For so many years. And now it had happened all over again. He’d been subjected to that disgusting torment yet again.

The urge to put every ounce of my focus and strength into hunting down that motherfucker and ripping him to shreds was a living, breathing thing inside me.

But I couldn’t… I couldn’t leave my Sunshine’s side.

Heneeded me more thanIneeded to avenge him right now.

That wasn’t to say that nothing was being done about it.

Caterina and Nico were using their specific skills to hunt the fuck.

They’d find him.

And then we’d destroy him.

The fact he’d slipped from our fingers had been nagging at me since the moment I’d watched the hospital staff rush Julian away into emergency surgery.

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