6. ~Emilio~
6
~Emilio~
Carlo’s guys had been swift, efficient, and strategic.
A well-oiled machine.
Professionals, even.
Not just thugs with guns and raging tempers, which was pretty much what the Marchetti Syndicate and the Leone Family had become lately.
No, the Benzino soldiers that Carlo had shown up with at Angelo’s hideaway tonight had been streamlined, strategic, and detail-oriented. Really fucking on the ball.
I’d been impressed.
If only that hadn’t been tainted by the past.
Something I’d thought I’d made peace with.
As much as anybody could actually make peace with their parents being murdered in an all-out brutal mob war that had taken over the city a few years back.
It had been a tossup between the Benzinos and the Leones as to who had invaded my parents’ home the night they’d lost their lives. Everyone across the three families in a position of power had been a target during that tumultuous time. Fair game, basically. As Underboss at the time, that had obviously included my dad. The Leones had blamed the Benzinos for it, but the Benzinos had never actually denied it, so they’d been seen as the more likely culprits. Marco had struck back with one hell of a bloodied attack against both families for it, and the matter had then been considered settled. Brutal justice had been achieved. Shortly after that, the war had run its course and the three families alliance had been formed, so any further reprisals had been outlawed all around.
So I’d just had to accept it. To let it go. To take comfort in the fact that justice had been done, that my parents’ murderers had been ripped from this world.
Over time, I’d buried it down deep, the fact that we’d never identified who exactly had been responsible. Not the precise individual, nor who’d pulled the trigger on both my dad and my mom. We weren’t supposed to go after the families of our enemies, especially not women and children, yet the culprit had.
But burying it all… that had taken a hit lately.
First with having to step into the Leone Estate for the fake wedding, and with Caterina being thrust into my life who was Leone by blood, although nothing else, fortunately. And then tonight, first facing off with the Benzinos, then having to work with them on the cleanup.
Normally, I’d be able to keep a handle on it, but with Julian missing, it made me more emotionally vulnerable than I normally ever would be. As if it hadn’t already been bad enough with what Caterina had been through, or the fact of having them both taken in the first place. Now he was still being held captive somewhere by that fucking slimy psychopath.
“I want you on your knees kissing the ring with a heartfelt apology.”
Angelo Simone’s words to Julian the day of the wedding had been swirling through my mind, torturing me with the implications of what could be happening to my Sunshine in relation to that.
Worse, though, had been Julian’s observations of him, that which he’d called Angelo on that day.
“If anyone is gonna be on their knees, it’s you. For me. And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Your closeted need for just that.”
He’d read that sleazy bastard and determined that he had a hard-on for him. He wanted him. And from what I’d heard about Angelo and how he’d been with Caterina—someone he’d taken a liking to a while back—he didn’t react normally when attraction was in play. Nico’s obsession with Caterina looked completely wholesome in comparison to how Angelo was.
Yes, obviously, in a fight, Julian could hold his own.
But this situation was different.
He’d taken a hit from the crash, he’d been sedated too, so he was starting off in this battle from a major disadvantage.
And there was also the fact that he was susceptible to certain things. Susceptible to being triggered in a way that could make it very difficult for him to see straight or even hold on, let alone actually fight back. Because of what had happened with his father, a lot about Angelo when he was on one of his tears would… affect Julian.
He’d recognized that himself when Angelo had tried to come at him and I knew it was why he’d put him down so quickly and ended the confrontation right there and then, before it had been able to get its claws into him, before it had thrown open the door for him to be haunted by the ghosts of his past.
That door might be flying wide open right now, though.
And it really fucking worried me.
I rushed down the corridor carrying two more laptops and a bunch of cables for Caterina.
As I burst back into the living room where she was on the edge of the couch typing rapidly on her hardcore military-grade laptop like a machine, my gaze shot to Nico, who was pacing back and forth on the phone. It was the content of his conversation that caught me off guard.
“Your Capo dragged my wife from the outskirts of my property line, kidnapped her, then set up four men to rape her with the intent to then transport her to a buyer of fucking sex slaves! My wife! My charge, my property!” he was yelling heatedly.
Caterina lifted her head at the last part and growled at him, but then let it go immediately, knowing he was just playing up the role, before then returning her hyper-focused attention to her task at hand of filtering through a wealth of information in a bid to track down our boy.
When I’d returned home following the cleanup, I’d found her showered and back in clean clothes, her emerald eyes bright and focused. Back to herself and out of that monstrous state she had been in earlier. Her arms had been wrapped in gauze, Nico telling me that he’d treated her while I’d been gone. I’d double-checked that he’d done it properly and hadn’t forgotten anything like a whole lot of antiseptic or feeding her antibiotics. Nico was more for causing damage, rather than healing it. But he’d actually done a good job, and she’d heal well.
“You’re close, I know that,” I heard Nico continuing down the line. “You treat him like your lieutenant more so than your actual Underboss in Dante, but we had an agreement, an ironclad fucking agreement. This marriage is the cornerstone of our new alliance, Santino. The implications of this in relation to that are dire, to say the least. Especially when my father hears of it. If action isn’t taken here, I will mobilize my—what? Yes. Acting alone on this? How can I trust in that, given what you want to befall your own daughter? No, I’m gonna need more than that. Words aren’t enough or—yes. Exactly. Good, then I want to see it. Leash him and punish him. He came onto my fucking territory, took what belongs to me . Contacting you instead of pursuing action myself is to honor the alliance, but if you don’t reel him in and do what needs to be done, I’ll forgo all sense of courtesy. This won’t stand. Cut out the rot in Angelo before it infects us all.”
He hung up, then all that rage instantly disappeared, and he smirked out at Caterina, who lifted her head and grinned. “Nicely done.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, making my presence known as I strode over to Caterina and put the additional laptops down on the coffee table for her.
As she snapped into action, sorting them the way she wanted, setting up what she needed to, Nico explained, “While you were searching out supplies for Caterina, the two of us determined a way to get more boots on the ground with our search for Julian. Manipulate the Leones into searching for his captor in Angelo. Make him their target. Santino won’t give two shits about Julian being taken, but making it about Caterina being kidnapped violates a whole lot of shit, including the new alliance. It puts Santino in the position of being forced to act against Angelo and scour the fucking city for him, which will, in turn, cross off various possible locations that Caterina has identified so far.”
“That’s ingenuous. Risky, though. You basically challenged Santino.”
“With the alliance at my back. The risk was mitigated due to that.”
Not taken out of the equation altogether. But it would have to do as it was, because Julian needed us, and he needed us fucking quickly at that.
“What if they get to the correct location first?”
“It’s a possibility. The fact is, the three of us can’t head out to check all of them. The priority is finding Julian. Seeing to Angelo is second. But he will be seen to.”
“You don’t think Santino will bury him?”
“No. He’s his pet Capo. He’ll punish him to save face, but that will be the extent of it.”
“And how are we then going to get in there to murder the fucker when he’s back under Leone protection?”
“Off the top of my head,” Caterina spoke. “Long range sniper shot taken the moment he’s away from the mansion, which we then manipulate to look like the work of that buyer he was intending to send me to. You know, for him failing to follow through?”
“Damn, that’s vicious,” I said. “And fucking perfect.”
She lifted a shoulder, then went back to work.
“Any progress since I’ve been gone?” I asked her.
“You mean, in the three minutes it took you to grab those laptops for me?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sorry, I just—”
She grasped my hand. “It’s all right, I get it.” She gave it a squeeze, then patted the cushion next to her. “Come, sit for a few moments. I’ll explain exactly where we’re at and what I’m doing. Information is power, but it can also be comfort.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
“I’m gonna reach out to my father, take the chaotic energy up several notches,” Nico told us, before heading out of the room, dialing on the way. I heard that dangerous tone of his echoing down the corridor as he went.
Good. He was piling on the pressure on that end of things.
I sat down beside Caterina and the first thing I noticed as I stared at the laptop she was currently on, while two more were now churning and cycling through a ton of data, was the insane facial recognition software she had up and running. It was analyzing gait and body language, not just facial features. “Where the hell did you get that?” I asked her. She had some mad skills, but I wasn’t aware that they included software development.
She shot a look out the door, clearly making sure Nico wasn’t near. Then, satisfied that he wasn’t, she revealed, “It was a gift from Levi.”
Good call not bringing that up right now while things were tense as hell. While Nico might have come around on it more than any of us had thought possible for him, all for Caterina’s benefit, it was still sore subject matter and something that could come to the surface for him when a whole lot of intensity was in play.
“It’s a hell of a gift.”
She merely nodded, then got down to business, pointing at the laptop she was currently working on right next to me, “I’m tapped into surveillance around the city—news outlets, police, government, and even those of security companies that cover individual homes too so we can have eyes through locations not in built-up areas. The facial recognition software is running on all facets of that surveillance, searching for both Angelo and Julian. I’ve also written a program that’s scouring social media posts. Julian’s a public and very beloved figure. Any sightings of him are a big deal, even in passing. And even a glimpse of him could help us.”
“Okay, what about Angelo’s car? That Audi of his? He brought it to the crash site where he took you both.”
“I found it, but it was abandoned on the outskirts of the city. And not by him. One of those guys he was using tonight.”
“One you killed?”
“No. This one is still alive. I’m working on tracking him.” She pulled up another tab, showing me a photo she’d captured of a guy wearing a balaclava, his eyes highlighted by the facial recognition software.
“And Angelo’s phone? Can’t you ping it to a cell tower near him? At least we’d have something to go on then to mobilize and search out an area.”
“His phone is completely offline.”
I cursed under my breath.
“We’ll find him. There’s just a lot of ground to cover, so it’ll take some time.”
“Too much time,” I muttered.
“This isn’t all that I’m doing, Milo.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
She moved down to her next laptop and pulled up a map of the city, turquoise dots marking several locations. “As you know, I was watching Angelo for several days when I was trying to locate the house where the Leones were holding those human trafficking hostages. During that time, I identified these areas as those that he frequented when off-duty. I’ve managed to rule a bunch of these out from tapping into the surveillance at bars, strip clubs, even his home surveillance. Now Nico has basically activated the Leones, they’ll check the rest for us.” She moved to the third laptop, and I took in everything on there too, as she told me, “Meanwhile, I’m also following the money. I’ve accessed all of Angelo’s accounts—yes, again. It’s just a matter of untangling things.”
“A whole lot of money laundering going on?”
“Pretty much. As much as it pains me to say it, he’s smart. Where this is concerned, anyway.”
“Coming after you and Julian definitely is the exception. Then again, when he sets his sights on someone in a twisted affectionate way, all bets are off.”
She grimaced. “They are, yes.”
I tugged at my hair, trying not to go down a dark path with my thoughts again of what that could mean for Julian. “We know he wouldn’t take him to any venue connected with the Leone Family. Nor would he risk taking him to anywhere belonging to their allies or places under their protection. So, it’s gotta be somewhere he owns.”
“Hence me looking into his accounts, trying to determine any purchases he’s made over the last few years with siphoned Leone funds that he’s taken as his own.”
“All right,” I murmured, taking it all in. “You’ve got a whole lot covered here, but I need to do something as well. I can’t just sit here and—”
“Milo, I know, and I can’t cover everything. I’m aware of your skills, so I need you to use those and access both Leone and Marchetti mansion security so we can keep an eye on how they’re handling this situation, exactly where they’re sending their soldiers at any given time, so we can check those off as they go. I’m also going to get you into Santino’s phone, so we can monitor him directly. He can’t be trusted with this. He may just do the minimal to appease Nico.”
I rose to my feet. “My laptop’s in Nico’s office. I’ll be right back. Then we can do this and coordinate together.”
“Milo,” she called out to me as I reached the door.
“Yeah?”
“We’ll bring him back to us.”
“I know we will.”
We had to, because the truth was, I couldn’t live with it any other way.
The problem wasn’t if we’d bring him back; it was when.
And what fucking damage he would have sustained in that time from that demented psychopath.
Please hold on, Sunshine.