Page 85 of Vicious Little Princess

I laid my hand on his arm, cutting into his tirade. His well-deserved tirade, of course. But one that wasn’t doing the situation any favors. “It’s all right. Thank you, though.”

Dante scrubbed his hand over his face as the emotion of having all of that thrown at him without any sort of filter clearly impacted him. “I couldn’t maintain contact once you left. The way Santino was about it… if I’d stayed close with you, Caterina, he would have used that against the both of us, it would have compromised us, and done nothing but brought a whole lot of hurt with it. But I did follow your accomplishments, your career. I still cared and that will never change.”

“Those are just words,” Julian rebutted, before I could absorb the weight of it all.

“Shawn Price,” Matteo spoke suddenly, cutting through all the rest.

“What?” Julian snapped. “Is that the guy who owns those trucks Angelo was using?”

“It is. But like we said, this isn’t just about Angelo. It’s bigger than that. It’s Santino’s third attempt at getting his human trafficking dream off the ground. Angelo had been searching out another partner for the last few weeks and he found Price. Me and Dante have been following them very closely, and we discovered that the three of them are working together, a lucrative partnership already in the works. They’re even mapping out transport routes in and around the city. Santino wants to use Marchetti Holdings to funnel a great deal of it through. Angelo isn’t on his own or ostracized from the Family after what he did to the two of you. Santino is protecting him. He was the one who got him out of that house that night. He sent him to Price to further the partnership and put things in place.”

“Even after everything he’s done, Santino is safeguarding him. And Angelo should be running, scared for his very life, but he can’t let go of his position in the Leone Family either. He’s refusing to go quietly, and he’s using his influence over this lucrative business partnership with Price to hold on to his place.”

“It’s not just about that. Not just about his place in the Family,” Julian told us. “Santino raped him. From the sounds of it, more than once. I’d be confident in saying it was a regular thing. And Angelo seems to have established some sort of trauma bond with him.”

I remembered hearing Angelo confess that to Julian on the surveillance footage we’d reviewed of what had been done to him. “Did you know?” I asked Matteo and Dante.

Matteo shook his head.

“No,” Dante said. “But Julian’s theory on the trauma bonding makes a lot of sense with the way things have played out, especially lately.”

“Regardless of why it’s happening, it is. And it can’t continue. That’s why we’re here. You need to take your place as the true heir to the Leone Family,” Matteo told me. “And, yes, we did come with intel as a gesture of trust, or good faith, or whatever you want to call it. Because we don’t want any doubts from you that we’re on your side. We’ll help you to take power. It’s not just us, there are a few Leone soldiers working with us covertly, hence why we were able to come here without Santino knowing, without implicating ourselves and risking our very lives. Well, any more than we already are risking our lives just by being in that unhinged megalomaniac’s orbit.” He stepped up to me, his urgency building, and it had Julian gluing himself right to my side in response. “Using our human intelligence routes, we’ve found the location of Price and his associates. And Angelo, by extension.” He stared at me intently. “So? Do you think we can work together now?”

Holy hell.

18

~Nico~

“That went well,” Milo commented as we stood in front of Warehouse MH14 watching yet another unit of my soldiers filter out in their vehicles and return to their respective tasks on my territory.

We’d been at it all day, meeting different units at differing locations throughout the city in order not to draw attention from either the Marchettis or the Leones.

It couldn’t look like I’d called a full meeting with every single soldier of mine.

It would be interpreted as a call to war, one that hadn’t been sanctioned by Leo or my father.

“Caterina’s intel had been dead-on where your loyal supporters were concerned. She really did her research well.”

She certainly had.

“It almost matched your instincts exactly.”

“I did doubt a dozen of them, but they turned out to be solid and on board with what needs to be done.”

“That was you playing devil’s advocate and treading carefully.”

“Something you’re usually all for, but judging by how tense you were in these meetings, barely even checking your aggression, it’s clear that’s changed. Since the kidnappings.”

He nodded. “The call you made to make the rescue of Julian about a show of force to the Marchettis and Leones has my full support, you know that. But I’m even all in for going beyond that now.”

I pulled out a smoke and fired it up with my Zippo. “Then it’s good timing and maybe that new attitude of yours toward these fucked-up circumstances will make what I’m about to tell you easier to absorb.”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the side of my Ferrari while I took a couple of harsh drags as I started to pace in front of it.

“Fuck, smokingandthat pacing of yours all at once is never a good thing.”

“I’m considering taking power over the Marchetti Syndicate.”

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