31. ~Emilio~
31
~Emilio~
An infernal beeping jolted me awake.
My eyes snapped open, and I rapidly took in my surroundings.
All four of us were entwined in Caterina’s bed, her in a sexy turquoise night dress and the rest of us in our boxers. Julian was almost horizontal, his head on my lap and his legs twisted around Caterina’s. Her breasts were pressed up against me, her head half on my pillow and on her own, and Nico was wrapped around her from behind, his face buried in her neck.
And that buzzing continued on through it all.
I managed to reach out and snatch up my phone, seeing a blazing red light coming from the screen.
The moment I took it in, a wave of adrenaline tore through me.
The early-warning system had been tripped.
Just.
I’d woken up right away, thankfully, the second the alert had started going off.
I pushed out of bed and rounded it to Nico’s side, shaking him. “Nico, wake up. We have a situation.”
He groaned, but opened his eyes right away, then released Caterina and sat up, scrubbing his hand over his face. “What’s wrong?”
“The early-warning system has just been tripped.”
“What?” he rasped, blinking rapidly to get his bearings. “How long ago?”
“Less than two minutes.”
“You’re certain it’s not a wild animal again?”
“It’s been tripped in four places—and counting.”
He pushed off the bed and snatched up his pants, pulling them on swiftly. “All right. I need eyes out there ASAP. We need to know what we’re dealing with. Pull up the surveillance footage from the cameras you and Rocco planted in the vicinity of the sensors.”
“On it,” I assured him, rapidly bringing up the app on my phone and accessing the information, analyzing it as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, Nico pulled on his white tee, then tossed my tank to me, which I caught with my free hand. And then he was setting Julian’s jeans and gray V-neck tee on the bed beside him, and doing the same with Caterina’s yoga pants and tank.
I growl escaped me as I rapidly pieced together the situation.
“What?” Nico asked, as he went to wake up Caterina and Julian.
“It’s Leo.”
Our eyes locked.
“Here with Erebus operatives or his Marchetti soldiers?”
“These aren’t Erebus. They’re not moving in the uniform and highly trained way Erebus operatives do. There are no eerie masks either. Plus, these guys are all decked out in Leo’s signature black leather trench coats. Like some kind of Matrix reenactment.”
“Or Grim Reapers.”
“That too. That’s obviously their intention. They’re armed to the teeth. The system has even identified a couple of RPGs.”
“How many soldiers?”
“From what I can make out… all of them.” I shoved my hand through my hair. “From the moment the early-warning system is tripped, to the point of impact, is just enough time to evacuate. Us, our soldiers and all personnel, via the several evac paths we’ve laid out.”
“I’m aware. We’re not evacuating. We’re not letting the Manor fall. They won’t take our territory. Worse—our fucking home.”
“Understood. We fight.”
His eyes darkened. “We fight.”
“I’ll call in Cassio and his soldiers to back us up. And the Benzinos?”
“No. Inform them, but leave them out of it.”
“Nico—”
“I can’t risk more soldiers being put at risk than already will be with this attack as it is. The assault on the Erebus operational hub is within hours. Nothing can interfere with that. Leo pulling this tonight sure as fuck won’t.”
“Can you two keep your strategizing bullshit down?” Julian grumbled, turning over in his sleep and grabbing what had been my pillow and shoving it over the back of his head. “It’s the middle of the night. Jesus, guys.”
Nico ripped the pillow from his grip, then smacked him over the head with it. “Wake up, J. This strategizing bullshit is relevant to right here and now.”
“What?” he groaned, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “What are you talking about?” His eyes went to Caterina, and he reached out and stroked her hair as she slept.
“The early-warning system has been tripped. Leo and his soldiers are headed right for us,” Nico told him outright.
“Caterina, time to wake up,” he said, gently shaking her next, as Julian jumped out of bed and snatched up the clothes that had been tossed on there for him, and rapidly started dressing.
“What’s happened?” Caterina asked, her eyes opening, then darting frantically from Nico to around the rest of the room, as she shot upright.
“Leo’s coming for us. Right now,” Nico informed her. “With his own soldiers.”
She frowned. “No Erebus?”
“No.”
She snatched up her phone in the next second. “They must have moved very recently. Like, tonight, while we were asleep. With us destroying their communications network, their protocol when things go dark must have been to return to their operational hub for orders and debriefing, all of that. There’s no way they’d be on board with Leo doing this. He’s the last mafioso leader they have in their pocket to bring about their plan of settling here and taking control via the connections that being patrons to somebody like Leo brings. Not to mention him risking the last of his loyal followers by coming at us. At a fortified fucking location. There’s no doubt that they’ll sustain casualties.”
“Although, it does put us at a disadvantage that we can’t go for the kill,” I pointed out.
“Agreed. It’s much easier to kill than to merely temporarily incapacitate. It takes a lot more strategy and finesse,” she said.
“And it’ll slow us down,” Nico mused.
“Perhaps that’s what Leo is counting on,” Julian suggested.
Caterina scrolled on her phone for a few moments, then reported, “Yeah, Erebus is no longer at the Marchetti mansion. They moved out in small units throughout the night, using their usual difficult-to-detect ghost protocol.”
“All right,” Nico said. “Get dressed.” As she started doing that quickly, he snatched up his phone, telling us, “I’ll coordinate with Rocco and Tony, get everything in place before they hit.” He eyed me. “You’ve re-calibrated the Manor’s countermeasures to deliver non-lethal hits, yes?”
“Yeah. It’s good to go.”
“Set to activate when hostiles are within twenty yards?”
“Correct.”
“Good. We’ll—”
The bedroom door flew open and Stover barreled on in, fully suited up in heavy duty tactical gear with a sniper rifle in hand. “I’m gonna need your best snipers. Have them meet me on the roof. We’ll fan out, take different angles, covering the entirety of the perimeter and pick off the majority of these shits coming at us.”
“Wow, Joe,” Caterina uttered, thankfully having just finished dressing before he’d burst on in.
“I have a connection to the security alerts as well,” he told us.
Of course he did.
Without authorization.
To his credit, Nico moved past it, the urgency of the immediate situation taking precedence, and he merely told him, “The kill isn’t authorized. Just drop them.”
“Understood,” Joe said.
“Caterina and Julian, you’ll work with Tony and his soldiers, focusing on internal security. Milo and I will partner with Rocco and Stover to incapacitate and thin the herd before they’re able to hit the Manor directly.”
Yeah, this definitely called for both my wrecking ball approach and Nico unleashing his feral state.
“You’re sure you can let go without resorting to murder?” Caterina asked him.
“I’ve got it. But you’re not quite there yet, hence me keeping you out of this aspect. And partnering you with Julian. He brings a different energy to you than I do during the heat of battle.”
“Okay,” she said, accepting it easily, knowing well where she was at, and working with us, even though I knew she didn’t like being pushed onto the sidelines in any way. But she could see beyond that for the bigger picture. Just one of the things that made her perfect for us.
“Leo is mine,” I ground out.
“Taking him out ASAP is the best tactical move,” Stover spoke. “Whoever can get in a shot—”
“Leo is Milo’s,” Nico interjected in that non-negotiable tone of his.
“Thank you,” I told him.
He grasped my shoulder and smiled.
And then he turned to us all, and ordered, “Let’s move.”
I barreled through a half a dozen hostiles who’d just reached the courtyard, roaring out into the night as I took them down in a burst of power and strength.
As soon as they hit the ground with bone-rattling thuds, Tony was there, backing me up, and pistol whipping two of them into unconsciousness. A boot to the skull to the others from me put them out of the fight.
A familiar snarl caught my attention, and I looked to see Nico hauling a badly beaten opponent into the side of the house, the brutal impact knocking the fucker out.
Nico spun back, covered in blood that wasn’t his own.
But he hadn’t killed anyone or lost control in his unleashed state. It had been merciless and brutal, sure, but strategic.
He’d come a really long way. With that and so much else, too.
I turned back and Tony came up beside me, the two of us signaling our soldiers nearby to converge as we watched another couple of dozen of Leo’s soldiers sprinting into the fray, coming at the front side of the Manor, looking to breach it.
Before we could launch ourselves at them and put the fuckers down, a rumbling thunder sounded, shaking the ground beneath our feet.
I turned to see flames raging in the next moment, climbing into the night sky, debris flying every which way.
“RPG fired!” Nico called over. I saw him tapping his earpiece and communicating with the other team leaders. And then he was rushing over to me, kicking one of the hostiles in the face who was giving one of his soldiers some extra trouble.
He made it to me, telling me in harsh breaths, “It was fired by Leo. Caterina has eyes on him. While they were fighting off the approach through the tree line coming at the patio, he and a few of his soldiers were able to breach the Manor. She spotted him entering from the southwest doors.”
His words slammed into me, harder than I’d even expected them to.
This was it.
This was the chance I’d been waiting on for so goddamn long.
I took in the immediate situation, though, weighing it all up.
The roars of battle.
Yet more incoming soldiers about to descend.
The ongoing gunfire coming from the Manor’s countermeasures being put into effect.
Sniper fire from up on the massive expanse of the roof.
The Manor being breached.
Now a fucking explosion.
“Nico, I—”
“Go. We’ll deal with this.”
I hesitated.
Sticking close and protecting him was a massive part of me.
But I really needed to do this.
I needed to end that motherfucker.
My parents deserved their long-denied justice.
And the world needed to be rid of that demented shithead.
“Yeah,” I breathed, giving him a chin lift.
And then I was bursting back into the Manor, my gun at the ready as I went.
The closed door to the command center was being defended by six of our soldiers, who were beating back just as many, holding their own well.
I saw the site of the explosion several feet down. It had taken out a good portion of the corridor and blown a hole in Nico’s office, the space exposed now, with part of the wall being ripped away. I noticed another battle taking place around there as our soldiers fought against the trench coats.
And then I saw that motherfucker.
He was inside Nico’s office, the trench coats there covering him as he rifled through Nico’s stuff, then tried futilely to bypass security on Nico’s laptop to access his files.
I couldn’t get through the corridor while it was jampacked with numerous battles taking place.
I grunted, and made a beeline through the kitchen instead, finding the patio doors shattered, glass all over the tile.
As I pushed out, my boots crunching on the jagged glass, I caught sight of Julian and Caterina working together amongst our soldiers to beat back the trench coats who’d attacked from the tree line. Julian executed one of his fancy kicks that sent one of his opponents flying across the patio, and Caterina was there hauling a chair into the bastard and knocking him out cold. Then they exchanged a signal that had Caterina leaping toward Julian. He grasped the underside of one of her boots as she hit and tossed her into the air, where she then leapt into a spinning kick that downed two of their opponents in one go.
Impressive.
I took out two fuckers who tried to stop my sprint to Nico’s office from this roundabout route I’d been forced to take, firing off a bullet to the kneecap of each one. Shrieks filled my ears as they dropped hard.
Time seemed to stretch on painfully as I kept running and downing more on my way.
Rationally, I knew it was only seconds.
But every single one that went on by where I wasn’t already there in that piece of shit’s space was one too many, an urgency building within me that I’d never quite felt before. It sparked a rage that I wasn’t used to bringing into battle.
I was just a few feet out when I caught sight of Stover descending from the roof, then running over to back up Caterina and Julian, firing off non-lethal shots with his rifle as he went.
Part of the rear wall of Nico’s office was blown out. The easy access that it afforded in this situation was being made less so by the two trench coats standing guard and protecting their boss.
Not for long.
As they caught sight of me, reading my intention and registering the danger that I posed, they went for me.
I stopped them before they could even begin to do much of anything, snagging the closest one and slamming his back against my chest, trapping him in a bear hold, while I smashed my boot into the other, the force of it knocking him right onto his ass.
I spun with the first guy in my hold, basically dragging him with me, as I reached down and hauled the fallen one up with one hand, then smashed him back down onto the concrete, his head smacking painfully against it, the impact knocking him out.
I wrenched the other guy’s head back, speeding things up, as he struggling uselessly against me, his body weakening too quickly for him to really put up much of a fight. He went limp in my arms, and I tossed him away, then stepped over the debris and into Nico’s office.
Leo had his back to me.
He still thought he was protected.
The guys over by the door on the other side were engaged in a vicious battle in the corridor with our soldiers. Preoccupied to the max.
It was just him and me.
He was muttering to himself, then slamming his fists down on Nico’s desk and raging, “Marchetti Holdings was to be mine! Why did he give it to you? A fucking kid! A weak little shit!”
“He’s stronger than you can possibly imagine. Stronger than your ego will ever allow you to recognize,” I hissed through my teeth.
Leo jolted and spun around.
His gaze darted from me to the felled guys just outside. He’d been so consumed with his clear obsession with trying to regain Marchetti Holdings that he’d completely lost sight of his surroundings.
“What are you doing here? I want to see Nico face-to-face.”
“He’s done with you. You’re nothing to him.” I stepped forward. “But you are to me. You’re the man who murdered my parents, motherfucker.”
His eyes shot wide. “How do you—”
“Oh, it’s all come out, Leo. Every twisted little thing and detail.”
“It was my right! I had to take it!”
I smashed my fist into his face with a roar.
It sent him reeling back against Nico’s desk, slapping his hand to it to stop himself from landing on his fucking ass.
“None of it was yours!” I thundered. “But your ego fucked up everything! Your obsession for power that never belonged to you, that was too twisted in your hands! You injected poison into the Marchetti Syndicate and destroyed it in your greed and megalomania! You tore lives apart! You subjugated Nico! You took my parents from me! You fucked all over everything!”
I burst forward and snagged him by the throat, jerking him to me. “That all ends here.”
One of his guys broke from the battle over by the door and went to draw his gun.
A flash of movement rushed across my vision a moment before the guy was slammed into, a grunt escaping him as he jarred painfully against one of the still intact walls, his gun clattering to the floor in the process.
And then I saw Nico standing there, breathing heavily, obviously having sprinted over here like a madman.
All to back me up.
All to protect me this time.
He dropped the guy with a brutal blow to the side of the head, then spun toward me.
“You little shit!” Leo raged in my hold at Nico. “Think you can take everything from me and live through it?”
“I already have. Sending your soldiers here was your last foolish action, from the mind of a man with no strategic judgment whatsoever, a man obsessed only with power and enforcing said power with ridiculous bursts of violence and brutality. It takes more than that to rule. I warned you. I warned you repeatedly.”
“But all you did was discount him,” I growled, shoving him against the wall with my hand still to his throat.
“You know no honor. No loyalty. You have no true concept of the meaning of family either,” Nico told him. “You’re nothing but a danger. Scum who killed a man much greater than you in Enzo Bardi. And now you’ll be dealt with as traitors should be.” Nico gave me a chin lift, then stepped back, giving me some room as he watched justice about to be delivered.
Movement from Leo caught my attention just a split second before he drew a knife from the pocket of his coat.
I snagged his wrist, stopping him before he was able to drive it into my flesh.
He screamed as I did more than that, wrenching his hand up higher with a brutality that had a definitive snap sounding.
“An underhanded shit right to the end, huh?” I said, of his attempt to stab me like that. “Nothing but a coward hiding behind a whole lot of violence. You make us sick.” I yanked his knife free, then spun it in my hand. “Good fucking riddance,” I growled.
And then I drove the blade into the side of his throat.
Blood sprayed all over me.
He spluttered and wheezed, clawing at my arms in desperation.
In real fucking fear.
I shoved away from him, and Nico walked to me as we watched Leo sink to the floor and choke to death on his own blood.
As he finally got what he deserved.
The battle had worn down.
In fact, after Leo being taken out, many of his soldiers had just laid down their arms entirely, realizing they’d been fighting without cause at that point.
Now the massive job of the cleanup was underway.
I’d been drawn away from Leo’s dead fucking body by needing to check in with our soldiers. We had a dozen critically injured who’d now been transported to the ER, along with many other minor injuries sustained by others. But there’d actually been zero fatalities, thank fuck. A lot of that had been the way we’d all worked together in concert, having one another’s backs, like a true massive unit. It had made a huge difference. Another had been the way Nico had coordinated the response to Leo’s ill-fated home invasion.
I made my way back to Nico’s office because I needed to see that fucker dragged away. I just needed one last look.
But then I was pulled up short as I encountered Nico, Caterina, and Julian, all now gathered together discussing the cleanup details.
Thankfully, only minor injuries had befallen all of us, too. Except Julian’s cheek was concerning me. He’d merely dabbed the nasty gash with a piece of paper towel from the kitchen, but it was still bleeding down his face.
Before I could speak to it, I noticed that Nico looked stressed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I reached them. “Aside from the obvious of us being woken up by a home invasion, of course.”
“It’s Stover. He’s MIA,” he told me as he pulled out his phone and dialed rapidly.
It picked up quickly, as I’d expected, given that we were just coming off an emergency situation. “Rocco, eyes on Joseph Stover? What? No. Don’t try to pursue, I’ve got it.”
He hung up, then told us, “Stover took off. Rocco’s not sure when, because he and our soldiers were in the thick of it, but he was spotted disappearing into the forest shortly after word of Leo’s demise started to spread through the battlefield.”
“He’s obviously decided to take matters into his own hands, seeing this home invasion as things not going to plan,” I surmised.
“Foolish, considering we now know that Leo was acting independent of Erebus,” Nico muttered.
Caterina stepped up to him and stroked his bicep. “We prepared for him doing something like this, and going rogue. I have the means to track him. Let me do that.”
He nodded.
With that, she headed off to get to work.
I smiled to myself.
There’s our woman.