Page 97 of Vicious Little Princess

I ignored all the chatter and raised my glass. “A noi!”

They joined me, the four of us clinking glasses and making the toast.

To us!

That was what mattered through all of this.

It was everything.

20

~Julian~

Doing business in the dead of night.

That was certainly the mob way.

Or at least what I had experienced from being in the thick of it with Nico and Milo over the many long years of our friendship.

And even when this was done, things like this would still occur with Nico now intent on taking power over the Marchetti Syndicate.

Unless he could turn things completely legitimate.

Although Cat wanted that, it definitely would be a tall order to achieve in reality.

But it could technically be done.

I’d been looking into the entire thing over the last few hours since we’d wrapped up dinner, and there were ways to accomplish that. But Nico would require both mine and Cat’s assistance. And it would also take time.

Given that Cat, herself, was used to operating in the dark and delving deep into illegality too, seemingly without having much of a problem with it so long as the ends justified the means, I figured that this turnabout for her had something to do with the pregnancy. It was shifting things for her. More so, it’d had her realizing that things needed to shift. It wouldn’t be a leap to assume that she believed legitimizing all operations and Marchetti businesses was the key to making damn sure the baby would be brought into a safe life devoid of the darkness and brutality that existed now.

Sure, us bringing down Marco and Santino would achieve that to a massive degree, but if the Marchetti Syndicate, even under new leadership in Nico, continued to be entrenched in illegal operations, it would still invite that darkness and danger.

I shoved a hand through my hair as I stood outside Nico’s office, listening in to the meeting that was taking place with him, Milo, and twenty of his soldiers.

They were strategizing the assault against Shawn Price, slated to take place twenty-four hours before Marco Marchetti planned to launch those strikes against the Benzinos.

Nico was intending to upset those plans of Marco’s with this mission.

We also weren’t going to cover up our involvement in it.

There was no holding back now.

We were going all in.

And I was honestly here for it.

Even Milo, who was usually more cautious and all about protection and defense, was on board with us escalating things and throwing ourselves into the thick of it.

I wanted this shit done with more than I ever had before.

It wasn’t just about the Angelo of it all either.

No. What Cat had confessed to me had shifted things for me, too.

This pregnancy changed things.

There was an innocent to protect now, a baby that couldn’t be brought into a war zone.

---