Page 92 of Vicious Little Princess

But when it came to both Carlo and Nico, they needed to have it that way, wanting to gauge each other, read each other face-to-face over every little thing. Plus, there was certain business that shouldn’t be done over the phone.

I’d take care of sorting out the precautions for the meet on Nico and Caterina’s end of things and, knowing what I did about how well Carlo’s men operated, I now had no doubt that he’d do the same on his end.

And that was what I was holding onto in order to look beyond my personal distaste for working with the Benzinos in the first fucking place with the bad history there.

As in tune with me as he was, Nico eyed me and said, “I can’t have you there during the meet.”

“I’ll be fine. I’vebeenfine with it every time his name has come up, haven’t I?”

“Because you’re taking a dangerous leaf out of my book and compartmentalizing it all.”

“Nico—”

“It’s not the only reason I can’t have you there. I need you on something else.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

His gaze darted to Julian, before he told me, “I want you to move on the location that Dante and Matteo gave Caterina.”

“To take out Angelo?”

“Yes. But the operation will also involve eradicating Shawn Price and his entire base of operations. We can’t risk Santino and my father gaining more power or more dangerous allies to back them.” He eyed Caterina. “So long as you’ve confirmed the intel beyond a shadow of a doubt?”

“I have,” she said. “Matteo and Dante were correct. The information is solid. The location they gave us of a string of warehouses two hundred miles outside the city function as Price’s home base. I’ve since tapped into the security there and confirmed Angelo’s presence.”

I looked over at Julian, who was standing there staring into space, while now clutching his cane in a death grip. “Sunshine, are you okay?”

He blinked and looked out at the three of us. “Yeah, sure. All good.”

“You understand that you can’t be a part of the operation, yes?” Nico put to him. “You’re not field-ready.”

In more ways than one there.

“Yeah, of course. That’s fine,” he answered all too easily. He flinched when he saw our reactions and added, “So long as you get the bastard and put him the fuck down, I can make peace with not being an active part of the takedown.”

“He will be put down,” Nico assured him.

A growl left me as I said, “There will be no fucking mercy. I guarantee you that.”

“I know there won’t be.”

“Principessa,”Nico spoke, reaching out and stroking Caterina’s arm. “We need to discuss what we called you about on the way home.”

“You mean, Marco and Santino wanting to use Camlann Corporation as their front for their despicable activities? Yeah, that’s not happening. Not under any circumstances.”

“I agree, but I’m concerned about what they might do to force that upon you.”

“We’ll keep our ears to the ground.”

“We need more than that.”

She pulled from his touch and folded her arms across her chest. “I know what you’re getting at. You want me to join you in taking power. To rework our strategy not just to destroy, but to go about it in another way that ensures Leone assets and business ventures will remain intact so that the empire can become mine, instead of us merely burying it.”

“Along those lines, yes.”

“I don’t want the Leone Family to be my legacy, Nico.”

“I understand that wasn’t how you saw things going or—”

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