17. ~Julian~
17
~Julian~
There was a lot to celebrate.
We’d eradicated the safe zones that the foolish Marchetti-Leone alliance had provided for Erebus. That nasty woman, Victoria Munsen, was behind bars. With Carver Group’s resources, I was now in the process of assisting those tenants of hers who she’d victimized. All Leone Family soldiers had been disposed of in one way or the other. Elias had been killed. And Nico had managed to pull back from his feral state without assistance or being forced to by the might of Milo. Not to mention the power he’d demonstrated when he’d been in that zone during the operation at the warehouse had imbued another level of respect, pride, and trust for him in both his own soldiers and Carlo’s.
We were so close to ending all of this now.
Normally, we’d celebrate such major victories.
But it didn’t feel right doing that without Cat being here with us.
Carlo had tipped Nico off that Stover had reached out to him asking about our progress back here. He’d reported a whole lot of positivity. But we still hadn’t heard anything from either him or Cat herself.
We still didn’t know when she was coming home.
I mean, it was supposed to be when the hit had been eradicated and Angelo had been taken out. But, given that he’d been impossible to find, we’d hoped that taking out the safe zones and the Erebus operatives within, and thereby causing some major destabilization to their organization and their plans here, would have forced them to recalibrate, making the hit much less of a priority, or nullifying it altogether. It should have also shaken their faith in Angelo. He had no fucking power here now. None of the Leones did. They were gone. All that was left was Leo Marchetti, those soldiers at the mansion, and the Erebus operatives bolstering him.
I sighed as I leaned back on the patio lounger by the pool and tried to keep my mind focused on the task at hand.
I’d already posted some pool shots for my IG, and since then I’d been working on sorting out a celebratory surprise for whenever Cat returned home to us.
Milo and Nico were in a meeting with their soldiers, and Carlo and Remo. Meanwhile, Lev was finally getting some rest after ending up being awake for nearly forty-eight hours straight. Not being able to achieve the impossible when it came to tracking Angelo and Erebus had really been getting to him, and he’d dipped into an obsessive state. Fortunately, our victories and how instrumental he’d been in all of that had pulled him out of it enough where he’d finally been willing to take a break. And Nico getting his loves—Brianna, Mason, and Colton—on the phone to push him to chill had also helped out and clinched it.
As my mind started wondering to what Cat might be doing right now, I forced it back on track to my celebration plans I had in the works.
I was fully immersed in it again when a text notification flashed on my screen.
Blocked ID: Miss you.
Hope sprung, and a huge smile spread over my face.
Cat was contacting us again!
It had to be happening then, really soon. She had to be coming home if she was able to reach out in this way, instead of in the covert way she’d had to last time.
Although, why was she keeping her number blocked and hidden?
And last time she’d sent a message for all of us, not individual texts.
It had me frowning.
Julian: Cat?
That brief spark of hope died a sudden death when the response came in.
Blocked ID: No, tesoro.
I jolted, almost dropping my phone in the process from the shock of it.
A chill ran down my spine. That and a surge of adrenaline had me shuddering, my hands shaking.
It was him.
Blocked ID: Well? Does my pretty little bitch miss me, too?
When I just stared at the message and didn’t respond, he texted again.
Blocked ID: I know you do. You’ve been looking for me. Just like I intended, you’re being drawn back to me.
Blocked ID: I’ve been thinking. How about I let you fuck me next time? I’ve been fantasizing about what it will be like. That jewelry and your sexual know-how… fuck, it’ll be another level.
What was happening?
Blocked ID: Julian, I know you wanted it and wanted me. Your denial is bullshit. So this is my deal. You come to me agreeing to try again and build on this thing between us, agree to be mine, and I’ll call off the hit on Caterina. I’ll redirect my friends’ efforts to taking the city and recruiting more Leone soldiers to replace what Nico took from us, rather than bothering with the four of you.
I swallowed hard and finally responded.
Julian: Where do you want me to meet you?
Blocked ID: Ah, there you are. Fuck, I really have missed you.
Julian: Where and when?
Blocked ID: You agree to be mine? To stop your bullshit denial at long last?
I gritted my teeth,
Julian: Why would I be asking how you want to arrange this if I didn’t?
Blocked ID: I fucking knew it. Tomorrow night, as soon as the sun goes down, head north outside the city on the main highway. I’ll give you instructions when I deem it’s safe and that you’re actually alone.
He would be tracking me via the chip he believed had gone unnoticed and was, therefore, still buried in my fucking body.
Julian: I’m on it. See you tomorrow night.
Blocked ID: Can’t wait. You don’t even know how much I’ve been craving you.
As if that wasn’t enough to make me gag, he sent another message.
Blocked ID: XOXO.
Jesus Christ.
It was another level.
He was another level.
Demented beyond belief.
Beyond all reason and logic.
Beyond all sanity.
I hurried off the lounger, and strode back into the house, rushing through the kitchen, scanning every which way, and hoping like hell that the guys were done with their meeting, and that Levi had almost finished his nap.
I made a sharp turn out of the kitchen, intending to head to Nico’s office, when I ended up smacking into Levi instead.
We both jolted to a stop at the impact.
He was the first to react, steadying me with a hand to my chest, before he then stepped back and regarded me, concern quickly sparking as he took me in. “You look majorly spooked. What’s happened?”
My fingers tightened around my phone at the question.
Of course, he noticed.
“Julian?” he pressed gently.
Pressing but carefully was his whole thing with me, particularly when we were sparring. It was because he was a tough and seasoned son of a bitch, but he also understood what it was like to be horrifically tormented and abused, to have your hope stolen and your power ripped to shreds at the hands of contemptible people.
We’d built an enjoyable and strong rapport since he’d been here. I liked having him here with us, and that was only undercut with the knowledge that he’d have to leave at some point soon and return to his own life, his own foursome.
I opened the most recent text conversation and handed him the phone. “This is what happened. Just now.” I knew I didn’t really need to add the just now part because he’d see the timestamps for himself, but I figured it was me needing to ensure no one thought I was keeping secrets like I had last time, which had led to me risking that entire Shawn Price operation by heading up there behind everybody’s backs.
Levi read over the messages, his eyes narrowing, and a growl escaping him. “Angelo Simone,” he seethed.
“Yeah.”
His eyes met mine and his expression shifted to fierce and resolute. “He may have just made a fatal mistake.”
“What are you—”
The next thing I knew, he was spinning and telling me, “Come with me.”
My phone was hooked up to what I’d come to term Levi’s hacking station. Well, it alternated between that and command center.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, as his fingers flew over his keyboard, reminding me so much of Cat when she was at work and deep in the hacking zone.
“What?” I asked.
“Unlike the other devices you guys retrieved the night of the takedowns, the one Angelo just used to send these messages wasn’t encrypted. It’s not Erebus tech or protected by their know-how. He’s using his own phone, independent of their supply. Perhaps he didn’t want them to know about his intention to reach out to you like this. It suggests that his obsession has been festering and is now getting in the way of his good sense.”
“Yet again,” I gritted out.
“Exactly.”
“So you can track him?”
“Let’s find out.”
“Even though it wasn’t an actual call?”
“Even with texts, the phone in question needs to connect to the nearest cell tower to route the communication, which basically registers its location with the network.”
“What if it’s a burner?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s still going to ping to the nearest cell tower. It’s gonna connect to a network.”
He saw me watching him pulling up this screen and that, moving rapid-fire between all of them before I could even begin to make heads or tails of what exactly was happening. He kept me abreast of the situation, explaining what he was actually doing. “Right now, I’m trying to intercept metadata to find the general location that the messages were sent from. And I’ll also compare pings from numerous cell towers to narrow down the location to a precise position—triangulation, essentially.”
“Whoa.”
He smiled out at me. “Yeah.”
As he continued working, he told me over his shoulder. “Sorry, I should have mentioned it before, but I was in a rush to get this done before he ditches the phone, or Erebus gets wind of this security breach, but I have access to everything inside your phone right now.”
I waved my hand. “I figured that much. It doesn’t bother me. I have nothing to hide.”
“No, you really don’t, do you?” he said, a smile in his voice.
“What?” I asked, amused.
“Just that you really are an open book. You don’t hold things back. What you see is what you get. There’s no pretense with you. You’re wide open.”
“You think it’s foolish, right? To put that much of myself out there? Not to wear a metaphorical mask? Especially with all the shit I’m caught up in here in our down and dirty world, the mafia of it all?”
He stared out at me for a moment before returning his resolute gaze to his screens.
But, being the insane multitasker that he was, he continued on with our conversation, telling me, “For most of the time that I was pursuing Lynch, I had to construct elaborate facades to keep my loved ones off the trail, to keep them from even knowing how much what had happened in that hellhole was still impacting my every fucking waking moment. It wasn’t just my actions that I had to do that with, it was me. The version of me that I showed them was a facade too. I created multifaceted smokescreens. I was as far from an open book as you can possibly get. I was basically in survival mode—and attack mode. It caused a hell of a lot of shit for those who cared about me, and for me as well. Now those smokescreens are no longer necessary, I can be open, I can let go.” He reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “So, seeing this from you, it gives me hope that it can be done. Honestly, I think it’s courageous, Julian. It’s fucking incredible.”
I grasped his hand on me. “Thank you.”
He smiled, then pulled away to give his full attention back to what he was doing.
A few moments passed, and then he thrust his fists in the air. “Got the motherfucker.”