Page 62 of Vicious Little Princess

“And now?”

“No more holding back. Now we really go to war,principessa.”

15

~Caterina~

I eyed Nico across the kitchen table as I munched on the sandwiches he’d ordered in when we’d arrived back at Charon Manor.

To none of Marco Marchetti’s security. They’d pulled them off the property before we’d made it back, just like Nico had basically ordered.

Clearly, it was the calm before the storm.

Nico had started something tonight that was going to come back on us all, something that couldn’t be undone.

But he’d needed to.

Angelo’s insane actions had highlighted a lot of things, namely, that we couldn’t continue on as we had been, that intending to systematically and covertly take down our enemies wouldn’t be enough. Not without us all enduring a whole lot more suffering. He’d told me that during his messaging with my father, the bastard had mentioned that he’d be sending some of his soldiers around in a couple of days to get aprogress reporton my condition, that being that I was suffering and being destroyed by Nico, that myhusbandwas fulfilling his duties as laid out in that despicable contract.

Nico was sick of it, sick of playing the game, just like I was.

It was more than even that, though.

I could see it all over him.

Making that stand tonight, shifting the tide the way he had, he’d done it to protect the three of us. He’d done itforus.

Out of love.

Love.

That was really what it had been.

And not only that, all of his actions lately.

“I fucking love you, Caterina. I’m undeniably, obsessively, and dangerously in love with you.”

I hadn’t had time to absorb his confession with everything that had been going on.

But now we had a moment, I was trying to do just that.

To figure out how it had landed for me, where I stood in relation to it. To him. And to Milo and Julian as well. To the whole thing that had developed between us.

“You’re back here, safe with us now. Where you belong.”

Those other startling words of his hung heavy for me too, because it meant that he didn’t just see me moving in here under the guise of doing what the families had demanded as being a temporary thing.

He wanted me here with him. They all did.

Permanently.

“You’re staring.”

I blinked out of my thoughts to see Nico’s brow furrowed as he looked up from my laptop that I’d set in front of him with all the intel concerning Joe that he needed in order to understand who he was to me.

“Can’t I stare at my husband, the apple of my eye?” I teased, looking him over in the black lounge pants and V-neck tee that he’d changed into when we’d arrived back, his sexy tattoos on display in all their glory. The sword down the length of his left inner forearm with the words,Si vis pacem, para bellum,certainly hit deep right now.If you want peace, prepare for war.

“Hilarious.” He shifted his weight. “But I know you. That’s the look you get when you’re trying to figure something out, something that’s got you stumped. Something about me.”

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