14. ~Nico~
14
~Nico~
Rocco was right on time as usual.
As Caterina and I stepped out into the hospital parking lot on the southeast side of the building, there he was striding along with two more of my soldiers at his back, the two of them blending well into the night in their black leather jackets and jeans.
Rocco stood out a little more and not just because he was a decade older than Vin and Mike who were in their early twenties, but also with his light gray jeans, the flashy motocross jacket, and mostly, the numerous piercings in his face and ears that glinted in the dark from the hospital lights and those of the lot. Hell, his ears were more metal than flesh, really.
He shoved a hand through his overgrown dark crew cut as he caught sight of me and jogged the rest of the way to us.
“How’s he doing?” he asked me right away.
“Stabilized. He’ll make a full recovery.”
“Good. Really good.” He shook his head in disbelief. “That shit, Angelo, we all knew he had some screws loose, but this is another thing altogether. I’m sorry this happened to Julian.” He eyed Caterina. “To you too, Caterina.” His gaze darted to our joined hands, her fingers currently stroking the back of my hand because she was well-attuned to just how on edge I was. After seeing Julian like that, viewing that disgusting footage of what had been done to him, having the location she’d been headed to turning out to be the location where he’d been held wherein she’d then been set upon by Angelo and his men… fuck.
He looked back at me and the moment our gazes met I saw him register the truth I was giving him concerning Caterina.
Mine.
He smiled as he looked between the two of us. “Understood, Boss.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “And just so you know, I’ll be here running protective detail on Julian until you tell me the job is done. No one else.” His eyes flashed. “Do you understand me where that’s concerned?”
I smiled. “Absolutely.”
“I’m glad, because that’s where my loyalty lies.” He thumbed Vin and Mike and they each gave me a respectful chin lift. “Them too. Many of us, actually. With you , Nico. Nobody else.”
I nodded. “We’ll talk. Soon.”
“We look forward to it.”
With that, he gave me a chin lift, smiled at Caterina, then led the guys into the hospital.
“Let’s go,” I told Caterina, giving her hand a squeeze, then leading her back to my car that I’d left at the far end of the lot.
“Do you trust him? Rocco?”
“There are different levels of trust. Especially in our world.”
“There are, yes.”
“We’ve been working together for years.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Of course.” I eyed her. “My obsession wasn’t one-sided, hmm?”
“Know your enemies.”
I slapped my hand to my heart. “Ouch. You’re really going to leave me hanging like this?”
“Maybe it wasn’t just an enemies thing. Although, it was easier to make myself believe that.” She pressed her hand to mine over my chest and smiled up at me. “Or so I thought.” She stroked my hand, then stepped back, moving into her business mode, as she told me, “I said I’d look into your soldiers so we could try to determine where they stood with you versus the Marchetti Syndicate as a whole, and I have been. With what happened with the kidnappings and then focusing all our energy on searching for Julian, I haven’t completed that research or obtained all the intel that we need, but I have turned up some interesting things on Rocco Barone. All pointing toward a positive outcome and his claim that his loyalty lies with you only being solid.”
“Such as?”
“He’s looking into a backup for his family. Searching out schools for his two toddler-aged kids miles outside the city, having his wife send out resumes in and around these areas for another Executive Assistant job. And he’s also altered his life insurance, signed the house over to her alone, and he’s had a will drawn up.” She grimaced. “He thinks he’s going to die.”
“Because he’s intending to go against the Marchetti Syndicate.”
“For you.”
“If you already knew all of this, why did you ask me if I trusted him?”
“I wanted to make sure you were trusting your instincts. That you weren’t second-guessing them because the stakes are so high.”
“I see.”
When I fell quiet as we reached my Ferrari, she rounded on me. “We can get into that in more detail later, but right now, we need to do damage control to manage the fallout of what happened tonight. You had to call in your father’s men to clean up the bloodied mess, the massacre, really, in that house that we extracted Julian from. Doing that also alerted the Marchetti Syndicate to the fact that we snuck out around the security watching the Manor and carried out that op unsanctioned. A lot of lines were crossed. I have some ideas of how we can spin it to—”
“There won’t be any spinning it.”
“What?”
“What happened over the last few days, what you were subjected to even before that… the people I love are suffering because I’ve been treading so carefully, because we’re still capitulating to the Marchettis and Leones. Doing so hasn’t protected any of us.” I blew out a breath. “As despicable as it was that Angelo did what he did, it has provided an opportunity.”
“You’re framing it as a show of force, as a demonstration of what you’re capable of. A warning to Marco and Santino.”
“Yes.”
“You want them to fear you.”
“To fear us.”
“If they challenge that, if they come at us while we’re lacking resources—”
“We won’t be.”
“You’re talking about Rocco and your soldiers? Well, I can certainly get back to investigating all of them now that Julian is safe, and—”
“I do need you to do that, yes. I need a list as soon as possible. Verified beyond a shadow of a doubt. But I was referring to other resources as well.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
I leaned against the hood of my Ferrari and told her quietly, “The attack that Milo and I were called to the night you and Julian were taken wasn’t really an attack. It was Carlo Benzino’s way of luring me to him for a meet.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Because we had our hands full with trying to locate Julian. This requires full focus.”
“What was the content of this strange meet?”
“Before I tell you, I need you to do some hard thinking on the drive home.”
“About what?”
“Whether you’re really all in. Especially now things are about to heat up. Majorly so.”
“Of course I am. How can you even ask me that?”
“Because of Joseph Stover.”
She started.
“He’s not a part of this.”
“He needs to be, Caterina. Like I said, hard thinking. You told us you weren’t ready beforehand to reveal all your secrets. It’s time to open up more where that’s concerned. Where he’s concerned.”
I opened the passenger door for her, but before she could sink inside, the screeching of tires caught our attention, and I looked to see an irritatingly familiar gray BMW speeding into the area. It shot down a couple of rows of the parking lot before zeroing in on my Ferrari, then coming to a rough stop just a few feet from it, wherein Leo then bolted out.
His ponytail swung from side to side as he stormed toward us.
That seemed about right.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” he demanded, stopping just shy of my personal space.
I instinctively pushed Caterina away at the clear aggressive threat coming off Leo.
His gaze darted to her and to the gesture itself. “I see that was all bullshit, too. You’re not doing your duty where she’s concerned. Not training her like Santino wanted.”
“The fact you all thought that was possible where she’s concerned is laughable. And fucking pathetic.”
He got up in my face, growling, “You need to get back in line. Now. Calling in Marco to clean up that fucking massacre at Angelo’s place for one of your friends because you knew it left us with no choice or the Leones would find out what you’d done, which would have been considered a show of force against them, something that wasn’t sanctioned, was fucking unacceptable. Despite what he’s done, Angelo Simone is one of his own, not ours. It falls under Leone jurisdiction, not ours. You damn well knew that, and you used it to force our hands. All for that fucking playboy.”
“That playboy is a Marchetti Syndicate asset. My earnings reports prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
“Don’t give me a fucking party line.”
“That attack was also justice for a Leone Family member kidnapping my wife and intending to do a whole lot worse than even that.”
“You were ordered to stand down. It was being handled.”
“It wasn’t. You were trying to manage me.”
“You’re so far off your leash, you think you’re damn near free. Let me tell you something, you aren’t. You’re fucking lucky your father chalked this insanity tonight up to your reaction to the kidnapping, to the insult of somebody taking your property.” He looked at Caterina. “Her.”
I growled low in my throat. “She’s not my property. She’s fucking mine.”
He scoffed. “So you’re pussy whipped now?”
“Nothing but a neanderthal, are you?” Caterina said.
He sneered at her. “You’re fucking lucky too, lucky that Marco’s got his eye on you for lucrative business purposes.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it. I’m just that good.”
I smiled, then told Leo, “If you’d all recognized that sooner, none of us would be in this position right now.”
“And what position is that?”
“Being Santino’s bitches,” Caterina answered. “My father is using you.”
“You’re misinformed. This alliance is beneficial to both parties. It’s going to bring back the glory days and put the Marchetti Syndicate on the map in a way that’s never been seen before.”
“I’m never misinformed,” Caterina told him.
“She really isn’t.”
Leo stared between us for several moments, trying to understand what we were alluding to, looking unsure. Good. Doubt had been planted.
But then he did what he always did when he felt ill-equipped—he fell back on extreme reactions and aggression. He fisted his hand in my leather jacket and hissed in my face, “Fall back in line. Stay in your fucking lane, boy. You come off your leash again and you won’t like the consequences. I will—”
I dislodged his grip, snagged his arm, then used it to haul him around and slam him down over the hood of my car. He grunted, then struggled, until I shoved his arm up his back, forcing his submission. “We’re done with that. There’s no more leash. So come at me. I fucking dare you. Because you strike at me and mine in any way and I will destroy you. You’ve been pushing me over and over. Big fucking mistake. Because this is the result of that. You brought it here, now you’ll face what you fear in me.”
I released him roughly, and he pushed off the hood and scrambled back, trying but failing to hide his very real fear at what I was really capable of. “And while we’re at it, I want Marco’s security off my territory by the time I get home in twenty minutes. If it’s not done, I’ll see to it myself. Believe me, you won’t like that.”
“Do you realize what you’re doing here? Challenging the Family?”
“I’m well aware.”
“This won’t end well for you.”
“We’ll see.”
He hissed at me, then turned and strode back to his car.
I kept watching, kept staring after him, until he drove out of the area and disappeared into the city streets.
“Well, that certainly put him in his place. He was scared. It was all over him.”
I turned back to her. “I’m what he’s always feared.”
“What they all have.”
“Alongside you.”
“And now?”
“No more holding back. Now we really go to war, principessa.”