Page 52 of Princess's Revenge

“It wasn’t a fuckingincident!He murdered my entire family! He was standing right in front of me and you held me back!”

“Don’t be stupid, Andrea! Even the Don himself wouldn’t get away with assassinating someone in a room with hundreds of witnesses.”

Fine…he’s right. I take a breath to calm myself down.

“Now, when thatthinghappened, a lot of the other guys weren’t happy with Don Cassaduchi and the way it all played out. They still hold it against him. We need the families to know that de Soto screwed up the first time and now it’s come back to bite him in the ass.”

“How?”

“Look,” Christopher turns to me with a raised brow, “the rules inour thingstate that they’ve got to make this right somehow. What they do depends on how greedy they are.”

“Okay?”

“Either they’ll offer compensation or they’ll go to war. Compensation means everyone’s pockets in that family is going to get lighter or—”

“What do you mean?” I cut him off, “Like they’re going topayus as asorryfor killing my family?”

“Exactly. And it has to be a number you’ll agree to.”

“There’s no number,” I say firmly.

“Well, they’re definitely going to bounce the idea around. The other thing they can do is offer us de Soto and the Don.”

Now we’re talking.

“Do you think that’ll happen?”

“It might happen. See, what we want is for these guys to lose faith in the leadership. At the most, we can hope for the Don to offer us de Soto on a silver platter. It’s one way for him to save his ass. If he doesn’t, it’s because he’s making too much money out of de Soto’s drugs.”

“At the least?”

“The guys in their family who disagree with the Don and de Soto will step back and say—Do what you gotta do.”

Hmm…“That’s what Anthony said.”

“Yup. If we just go in there and kill de Soto and the Don, they’ll have to retaliate as a matter of pride because there’sbound to be collateral damage, but if they warm to the idea first, it’ll smooth things out.”

I sit quietly for the rest of the drive, contemplating my next move…swallowing my rage.Josh fucking de Soto.He was right there!

I had never seen his face before. He wasn’t in my dreams, but he definitely looked like the kind of asshole who could wipe out an entire family.Fucking Murderer…killing innocent women and children.

Something about all this isn’t sitting right with me…butI just can’t put my finger on it.

When we arrive at the house, Charles is there at the door and both Christopher and I know what’s coming next.

Christopher says, “I assume he’s waiting for us?”

“Indeed,” answers Charles, “in a mood more sour than the last. Your brothers are with him.”

I take the stairs ahead of Christopher, hurrying to confront Vincenzo.

“Hey! Slow down!” Christopher calls from behind me.

“FUCK YOU!” Is my answer.

I get to the top of the stairs and hear shouting coming from inside Don Vincenzo’s office…and that’s when the itch in my brain becomes unbearable.

I storm into the office and break up the three-way shouting match when I grab Anthony by the collar, “You fucking lied to me!”

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