Page 61 of Vicious Little Princess

“Don’t give me a fucking party line.”

“That attack was also justice for a Leone Family member kidnapping my wife and intending to do a whole lot worse than even that.”

“You were ordered to stand down. It was being handled.”

“It wasn’t. You were trying to manage me.”

“You’re so far off your leash, you think you’re damn near free. Let me tell you something, you aren’t. You’re fucking lucky your father chalked this insanity tonight up to your reaction to the kidnapping, to the insult of somebody taking your property.” He looked at Caterina. “Her.”

I growled low in my throat. “She’s not my property. She’s fuckingmine.”

He scoffed. “So you’re pussy whipped now?”

“Nothing but a neanderthal, are you?” Caterina said.

He sneered at her. “You’re fucking lucky too, lucky that Marco’s got his eye on you for lucrative business purposes.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it. I’m just that good.”

I smiled, then told Leo, “If you’d all recognized that sooner, none of us would be in this position right now.”

“And what position is that?”

“Being Santino’s bitches,” Caterina answered. “My father is using you.”

“You’re misinformed. This alliance is beneficial to both parties. It’s going to bring back the glory days and put the Marchetti Syndicate on the map in a way that’s never been seen before.”

“I’m never misinformed,” Caterina told him.

“She really isn’t.”

Leo stared between us for several moments, trying to understand what we were alluding to, looking unsure.Good.Doubt had been planted.

But then he did what he always did when he felt ill-equipped—he fell back on extreme reactions and aggression. He fisted his hand in my leather jacket and hissed in my face, “Fall back in line. Stay in your fucking lane, boy. You come off your leash again and you won’t like the consequences. I will—”

I dislodged his grip, snagged his arm, then used it to haul him around and slam him down over the hood of my car. He grunted, then struggled, until I shoved his arm up his back, forcing his submission. “We’re done with that. There’s no more leash. So come at me. I fucking dare you. Because you strike at me and mine in any way and I will destroy you. You’ve been pushing me over and over. Big fucking mistake. Because this is the result of that. You brought it here, now you’ll face what you fear in me.”

I released him roughly, and he pushed off the hood and scrambled back, trying but failing to hide his very real fear at what I was really capable of. “And while we’re at it, I want Marco’s security off my territory by the time I get home in twenty minutes. If it’s not done, I’ll see to it myself. Believe me, you won’t like that.”

“Do you realize what you’re doing here? Challenging the Family?”

“I’m well aware.”

“This won’t end well for you.”

“We’ll see.”

He hissed at me, then turned and strode back to his car.

I kept watching, kept staring after him, until he drove out of the area and disappeared into the city streets.

“Well, that certainly put him in his place. He was scared. It was all over him.”

I turned back to her. “I’m what he’s always feared.”

“What they all have.”

“Alongsideyou.”

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