Page 59 of Vicious Little Princess

“Good. Really good.” He shook his head in disbelief. “That shit, Angelo, we all knew he had some screws loose, but this is another thing altogether. I’m sorry this happened to Julian.” He eyed Caterina. “To you too, Caterina.” His gaze darted to our joined hands, her fingers currently stroking the back of my hand because she was well-attuned to just how on edge I was. After seeing Julian like that, viewing that disgusting footage of what had been done to him, having the location she’d been headed to turning out to bethelocation where he’d been held wherein she’d then been set upon by Angelo and his men…fuck.

He looked back at me and the moment our gazes met I saw him register the truth I was giving him concerning Caterina.

Mine.

He smiled as he looked between the two of us. “Understood, Boss.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “And just so you know, I’ll be here running protective detail on Julian untilyoutell me the job is done. No one else.” His eyes flashed. “Doyouunderstandmewhere that’s concerned?”

I smiled. “Absolutely.”

“I’m glad, because that’s where my loyalty lies.” He thumbed Vin and Mike and they each gave me a respectful chin lift. “Them too. Many of us, actually. Withyou, Nico. Nobody else.”

I nodded. “We’ll talk.Soon.”

“We look forward to it.”

With that, he gave me a chin lift, smiled at Caterina, then led the guys into the hospital.

“Let’s go,” I told Caterina, giving her hand a squeeze, then leading her back to my car that I’d left at the far end of the lot.

“Do you trust him? Rocco?”

“There are different levels of trust. Especially in our world.”

“There are, yes.”

“We’ve been working together for years.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Of course.” I eyed her. “My obsession wasn’t one-sided, hmm?”

“Know your enemies.”

I slapped my hand to my heart. “Ouch. You’re really going to leave me hanging like this?”

“Maybe it wasn’t just an enemies thing. Although, it was easier to make myself believe that.” She pressed her hand to mine over my chest and smiled up at me. “Or so I thought.” She stroked my hand, then stepped back, moving into her business mode, as she told me, “I said I’d look into your soldiers so we could try to determine where they stood with you versus the Marchetti Syndicate as a whole, and I have been. With what happened with the kidnappings and then focusing all our energy on searching for Julian, I haven’t completed that research or obtained all the intel that we need, but I have turned up some interesting things on Rocco Barone. All pointing toward a positive outcome and his claim that his loyalty lies with you only being solid.”

“Such as?”

“He’s looking into a backup for his family. Searching out schools for his two toddler-aged kids miles outside the city, having his wife send out resumes in and around these areas for another Executive Assistant job. And he’s also altered his life insurance, signed the house over to her alone, and he’s had a will drawn up.” She grimaced. “He thinks he’s going to die.”

“Because he’s intending to go against the Marchetti Syndicate.”

“For you.”

“If you already knew all of this, why did you ask me if I trusted him?”

“I wanted to make sure you were trusting your instincts. That you weren’t second-guessing them because the stakes are so high.”

“I see.”

When I fell quiet as we reached my Ferrari, she rounded on me. “We can get into that in more detail later, but right now, we need to do damage control to manage the fallout of what happened tonight. You had to call in your father’s men to clean up the bloodied mess, the massacre, really, in that house that we extracted Julian from. Doing that also alerted the Marchetti Syndicate to the fact that we snuck out around the security watching the Manor and carried out that op unsanctioned. A lot of lines were crossed. I have some ideas of how we can spin it to—”

“There won’t be anyspinningit.”

“What?”

“What happened over the last few days, what you were subjected to even before that… the people I love are sufferingbecauseI’ve been treading so carefully, because we’re still capitulating to the Marchettis and Leones. Doing so hasn’t protected any of us.” I blew out a breath. “As despicable as it was that Angelo did what he did, it has provided an opportunity.”

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