11. ~Nico~
11
~Nico~
“I’ve got something.”
Milo spat out his mouthful of eggs and literally vaulted across the kitchen island and landed right beside me where I was standing working on the laptop while we’d been eating lunch.
“What is it?” he asked, his urgency not contained in the least.
He wasn’t the only one.
Since this had started, I’d been in a perpetual state of stress, my body coursing with so much adrenaline that my fucking limbs were shaking with it. That had only worsened when Caterina had thrown up and shown signs of sickness caused by it all.
And the fact that the Manor was now surrounded by security personnel. Marchetti soldiers of my father’s. He’d put that in place last night with Angelo still not being located, in a bid to protect Caterina from being taken again.
Or so he’d said.
Really, I believed it to be his attempt to appease me, so I didn’t lose my shit all over the place and fuck up his stupidly valued alliance with Santino. The fact that neither he nor Leo had shown up at my door bolstered my theory even more. They hadn’t wanted me antagonized, so he’d sent his soldiers without interfering in my marriage or my household in any other way. It also wasn’t really about protecting my wife. It was to make it difficult for me to make any moves on my own to hunt down Angelo directly, moves he definitely didn’t want me making.
I felt like all of it was boxing me in, like I couldn’t fucking breathe through it.
Something had to give.
And the worst part for all of us was that I already knew exactly what that needed to be.
“These three payments you’ve highlighted? Is that what you’re getting at?” Milo asked me.
“Yes. After not finding anything recent, I went back further. Two years further.”
“You went through two years’ worth of data in a matter of hours?” he asked, incredulous.
“I did.”
“Damn, you’ve outdone yourself this time.”
“Anyway, that was when I found these. In one month, Angelo made three large payments, each exceeding one hundred grand.”
“To three different entities, though, according to this,” he said, eyeing the data.
“So it seemed initially. These are shell corporations. They all belong to one individual.”
“He made a mistake. He should have funneled it through more, gone through another level.”
“He obviously got impatient.”
“And who is this individual?”
“Victoria Munsen.”
“That slumlord?”
I nodded. “The slumlord that Caterina hates with a vengeance.”
“She had a couple of run-ins with her, right?”
“Victoria crossed a handful of the women who frequent Caterina’s lounges, trying to intimidate them and tear them down so she didn’t have to entertain competition in the real estate sector. Caterina put a stop to it and even built a case against her that put her behind bars for eighteen months.”
“This sounds promising. Somebody who hates Caterina, just like Angelo. Victoria has a whole network of contacts through the underbelly of the city that even the three families haven’t been able to ID. She could be helping Angelo to stay hidden. And judging by these payments, he may have even bought property from her that he’s now using to hold Julian in.”
“That house where Angelo took Caterina was one of hers. I just confirmed it before bringing this to you.”
“Fuck, this is it then! Let’s go!” he pushed away from me, but I grasped his arm, yanking him back.
“Get a grip. Focus. There are a dozen soldiers outside. Also, we don’t know where Victoria is, nor where the property is.”
“I can help with that.”
We both looked to see Caterina now walking into the kitchen. “When did you untie me?”
“Five minutes after you fell asleep.”
“So it was just for show?”
“Just to get you to rest, yeah.”
“And the doctor? Did she come and check me out and find everything was fine, that I just needed some sleep like I said?”
“I decided to wait until you were awake before I brought her in. I didn’t want you to feel violated from being examined while you were unconscious.”
“Really? As insane as you were being about it?”
“Yes, really.”
She smiled.
And then she stared at me rather intensely.
Likely because of what I’d said earlier.
Or, more accurately, confessed.
Fuck, it had been the worst time for it.
While all of this was going on.
It had just… I’d put it out there in a bid to make her understand why I was doing the things I was, why I was being so extreme. I’d fucking weaponized it and I hated that I’d done that. I hated that nothing was sacred, that I couldn’t give her anything that wasn’t tainted by the world around us, by our mission, by all of it.
Even that.
I broke eye contact.
She looked a little dejected, but instead of speaking to it, thankfully, she snapped into action and came to us, moving in front of the laptop and getting to work.
In moments, she was inside Victoria’s phone. Actually, phones, plural.
Off our looks, she told us, “I’ve tapped into her shit before.”
She started bringing up more data, accessing files, deeds, legal documents. I watched her cross-referencing it with what I’d put together from Angelo’s accounts, the amounts, the dates, all of it.
While she was working on that, all of our phones buzzed.
I pulled mine out quickly to see that it was one of the alerts that she’d set up.
“Damn, you did it,” Milo told her.
She sure had. Her search had just picked up the one guy who’d survived her massacre, the guy who’d been involved in Angelo’s kidnapping.
“We’ve got the location of one of Angelo’s accomplices,” I told her.
“Where?” she asked distractedly as she focused on what she was doing.
“Tolhurst General,” I informed her.
She started, then told us, “Hold on.”
I watched as she hacked into the security system at the hospital within moments.
“Damn,” Milo exclaimed.
“Got him,” she said. “There.”
We both looked to see the guy still wearing that fucking balaclava and baggy clothing bursting into a supply area deep down the corridors of the hospital, grabbing medication and supplies.
“What’s he taking?” I asked Milo, who was much more familiar with that sort of thing.
“It’s hard to see. The footage isn’t exactly high-res.”
“I can try to scan the barcodes, but it will take time,” Caterina offered. “Especially if I just get pieces of them from the grainy footage.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s got to be for Julian. He would’ve been hurt coming off his bike like that,” I said.
“If Angelo’s risking sending his guy into a fucking hospital, it must be really fucking bad. He must be getting worse,” Milo choked.
“And Angelo cares about that?” Caterina questioned, and rightly so.
“It’s Julian. Charismatic and majorly popular. Angelo must have taken a real liking to him,” Milo said.
Caterina and I exchanged a look. That wasn’t actually a good thing. Not where Angelo Simone was concerned.
“He’ll want to keep him, won’t he?” Milo asked, unfortunately realizing what we were. “He could be planning to move him out of the city. This guy he’s got doing his bidding works for that sex slave buyer, a son of a bitch who knows how to hide and how to make others disappear into the ozone. Fuck, if we don’t get him now, it’s gonna be too late. We’ll never get Julian back.”
Caterina brought up the Victoria-related data again, frantically working to determine the location we needed.
After a few moments, she was cursing. “I’ve got two properties. Bought at the same time. Both hers. Both are outside the city at either end. We need to cover both. We don’t know how much time we have. Interrogating Victoria might be fruitless. She won’t be easy to break and she might not even know which one Angelo is at currently, anyway. It could just waste away time that we don’t have.”
“Simple. We tail the guy back to Angelo,” Milo said.
“What if they aren’t slated to meet at the location where Angelo is holding Julian?” I pointed out.
“Torturing the true location out of Angelo will be impossible, believe me,” Caterina informed us.
“Goddammit!” Milo roared, slamming his fist into the counter and making one hell of a dent in the process.
“What about using your father here?” Caterina asked me.
“I can’t trust his intentions.”
“Agreed,” Milo grunted. “We can’t trust anyone with this but the three of us. Everyone else has their own agendas.” He eyed me. “Yes, including Carlo.”
“Carlo? What does he have to do with it?” Caterina asked.
I glared at Milo. But I left it at that, knowing what a state he was in and that it couldn’t be helped currently. “Once we bring Julian back, I’ll explain it,” I told Caterina.
Fortunately, she accepted that, recognized that we needed to prioritize. Fuck, she was amazing. Truly fucking amazing. I knew how much she hated being kept in the dark, but here she was willing to suck that up so we could focus on this.
It was why, as much as it was against my protective instincts when it came to her, I asked her, “How are you feeling? Are you combat-ready now you’ve had some much-needed rest?”
“Yes.”
“Swear it to me.”
“I swear it,” she said, slapping her hand to her heart. “I feel wide awake and much better. There’s no nausea or even dizziness.” She looked out at both of us. “I wouldn’t risk Julian by going into this situation if I didn’t feel up to it.”
“Fine,” I said. I pushed back from the laptop. “Milo, you tail Angelo’s guy. Caterina and I will split between the two locations. We’ll go in with COMMs under continuous contact. No one break from that, am I clear?”
“Rules of engagement?” Milo asked.
I stared out at them both.
I was done with this.
I was fucking done playing the game, toeing the line.
Hiding what we were truly capable of.
Toning everything down to the max.
Look what it had cost us.
Look what we’d almost lost—and still stood to lose all the while Julian was being held captive.
I sucked in a breath, then uttered a command that I knew would shift everything. “Decimate.”