17. ~Caterina~
17
~Caterina~
Julian stared at me, openmouthed.
The shock of what I’d just confessed was like the wheels had suddenly stopped turning for him and he needed a few moments to get them moving again.
I pushed off the couch and started pacing, something that I’d clearly picked up from Nico.
Julian cleared his throat and then finally spoke for the first time in what had seemed like minutes. “Well, that’s… unexpected.”
“ Unexpected?” I scoffed. “Really? That’s toning it down in a huge way, don’t you think?”
“You’re on birth control, but you’ve also been on a couple of courses of antibiotics, so it must have interfered and—”
“Yeah, I get it. I’ve already done the math as to the how-the-hell of it all.”
“Okay, well, the most important thing is, how do you feel about it?”
“The most important thing? We’re at war and I’m pregnant, Julian!”
He grabbed his cane and rose to his feet, coming to me and taking my hand. “Take a deep breath. Or several.”
He gave my hand a squeeze, then stroked my fingers in a clear attempt to ease my skyrocketing panic.
Putting it out there, actually telling someone, had made it undeniably real all of a sudden. It’d had all the implications slamming into me all at once.
“You need to take all the rest out of the equation for now. The timing, the circumstances surrounding us. We can deal with that. We can always find a way. But, first and foremost, when it comes to this, you need to determine how you feel about it. Nothing else matters beyond that at this juncture.”
“Thank you,” I said, at him being so sweet and thoughtful.
“Of course, darlin’.”
I eased my hand from his, then we sat back down on the couch and I turned to face him as I told him, “This wasn’t in my plans. At least not this early on. But, I did one day envision making my own family. One built with support and unconditional love—well, as close to that as it’s actually possible to get. One surrounded by love.”
“Something you don’t have with your own.”
“Something none of the four of us have. And, yeah, it would be nice to have a little heir too. Someone I can pass my empire onto. But whenever I envisioned that, there was always something stopping me.”
“Let me guess, your father?”
“Him and the entire Leone Family organization. I would never want my child to be born into what I was, to have to hurt through that, to have to suffer and fight so hard for their independence and just to live their life as they saw fit. I never wanted a child of mine to be brought into all this darkness and danger.”
“That’s what we’re doing here, changing all of that, upending the system, taking back our freedom, Cat.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Things have… heated up recently. And with this… development, this is the worst time for it.”
“So there was a price for extracting me that night?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“I need you to tell me what that is. But, keeping to the current subject at hand, regardless of what it was, like I said, we’ll find a way through. If you want this baby and—”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“You haven’t said how you feel about it.”
“Because I want you to decide where you stand first.”
I laid my hand on his thigh. “I appreciate it. I really do. But I want to know.”
A broad smile spread over his face as he spoke about it with a light in his eyes that I hadn’t seen from him since before the kidnapping nightmare. “I think that this is a beacon, darlin’.”
“A beacon?”
“Through all the dark and pain we’ve been caught up in for way too long. I think it will change a lot in the best ways. Expanding the family the four of us have been forming together? That love and care? What could possibly be bad about that, huh?”
I smiled. How could I not from his beautiful words? “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Yeah?” he asked, tipping my chin up with his index finger to guide my gaze to his. “This is our chance, Cat. To have something innocent, something pure and positive in our lives. A bright spark through all of this. If that’s what you want, I’m on board all the way. But obviously you need to be sure. Just don’t let what’s going on around us impact that decision for you. Don’t let them take more than they’ve already taken from us.”
A knock sounded on the door, startling the both of us.
“Yes?” I answered.
“Security,” a familiar voice spoke. “Need a word.”
“Come in.”
A moment later, the door opened and Tony Amato walked on in.
I saw Julian’s surprise.
He’d thought that Rocco and his unit had still been watching the house because Nico had initially told him that when he’d been trying to reassure him that he was safe from that psychopath, bringing in some of his own soldiers to guard Charon Manor.
But with what Nico and Milo were immersed in today, Nico had switched that out to Tony for the time being.
Tony was a year younger than the boys, but he’d proven himself to be one of Nico’s top soldiers. Not as good as Rocco, but he was definitely getting up there and proving himself.
He gave Julian a polite chin lift, then shoved a hand through his short, curly blond hair as his gaze went to me. “Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got two surprise visitors at the gates wanting passage to meet with you. Leones. Dante Rivera and Matteo Ricca. Nico’s unreachable right now and he ordered us to defer command on security issues to you anyway while he’s not here.”
He shifted his weight in his navy denim jacket and black sweatpants as he awaited my response.
“They want a meet concerning what exactly?” I asked.
“They wouldn’t say. They insisted that they’d only relay that to you. But Dante told me to pass on a single word. Wharton?”
I jolted, and I saw Julian register the recognition in my eyes.
“Send them in.”
He gave a nod. “Nico’s office?”
“No. Here,” Julian cut in.
I swung my head toward him. “It’ll be better if I receive them in Nico’s office. Alone.”
“Why?”
I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “Because this partially pertains to a certain someone I don’t want to bring up in front of you.”
“You said you’d keep me updated on your search for Angelo,” he said, shuddering with it. “And, yes, I can actually hear his name uttered.”
“You just shuddered as you spoke it.”
“And yet I’m still standing here just fine, aren’t I?”
“Shit, all right.” I signaled Tony. “Send them in here. Thanks.”
Tony looked at Julian, zoning in on his gauze pad and the cane he was clutching like a lifeline. When his gaze snapped back to mine, he spoke worriedly, “These are Leones, though. Allowing them in is one thing, but leaving them alone with you, especially while Julian is injured, concerns me.”
“I’ll handle them.”
Tony, although clearly being respectful of me at Nico’s behest, looked skeptical. He shifted his weight, obviously feeling awkward, as he went to push it.
Before he could, I stepped up to him and held out my hand. “Pass me your knife.”
“What’s that?”
“The tactical blade you have nestled in that ankle holster beneath your right pant leg.”
Tony’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“Just hand it over for a second.”
Perplexed and looking more than a little wary, he did just that, retrieving the blade and handing it over to me.
I spun it in the next second and lobbed it through the air.
It cut through it rapid-fire and plunged right through the center of the clock above the door, driving into the joined hands.
Tony whistled. “Message received. You can handle it all on your own.”
“That I can.”
He walked to the clock and pulled the knife out. “Got it,” he said, before giving me an impressed smile, then heading on out.
Julian chuckled. “Little does he know that you were actually holding back.”
“What?”
“Last time you needed to prove you had what it took, you put me down in that storage room.”
“Oh, right. Yes, fond memories.” I winked at him. “Kidding.”
“The hell you are.”
I laughed, and it had him joining me.
It felt good.
Really fucking good.
I watched Dante scrutinizing the room that was currently being used like Julian’s own personal suite. The Underboss of the Leone Family turned this way and that, his leather jacket pulling taut across his broad, muscular form, the same with his dark jeans tucked into a pair of steel-toe boots. He was a hell of a big guy, almost close to Milo’s size, actually. That intimidation factor had served him well as my guard. He frowned and brushed his shaggy salt-and-pepper hair off the back of his neck as he continued looking around, just like he had been since he’d stepped into the mansion.
Matteo had been the opposite, just rolling with everything and focused on whatever it was they were here for. As usual, nothing seemed to impact him. He was as unemotional as ever. The only sign that he had any personality at all were the bold blazers that he always wore with his dress pants. This time it was a deep maroon with gold buttons. It kind of clashed with his long, gray hair falling down past his shoulders. He was almost two decades older than Dante’s forty-five years and, with him, age really did mean wisdom. He’d seen a lot and been a part of a great deal during his tenure as Consigliere for my father over the last thirty years. And he’d been able to adapt to it all.
Until recent events had come to pass.
He’d been barred from attending my wedding because he’d shown his displeasure toward some of the business partners that my father and Marco had decided to get into bed with through their new alliance. He’d always been on my father’s side before, utterly loyal.
But the bough was breaking where that was concerned.
Dante’s eyes kept darting back and forth to me as well, taking in the healing scrapes on my arms from the crash, the marks on me from mine and Nico’s wild fucking on the stairs.
He was trying to figure things out, to understand what sort of environment this really was.
For me .
Just like he used to do when he was my guard.
“Why do you care?” I burst out with before I could reel it in.
Julian eyed me in surprise.
Yeah, usually I was much better at keeping my feelings locked down and focusing on the task at hand when this sort of business was involved. But I guess there were some unresolved issues with Dante that I hadn’t dealt with, or allowed myself to process, because too much had been going on.
Like the fact that he’d been there in the Leone Estate when my father had assaulted me and he hadn’t stepped in until Nico and the boys had manipulated the situation to force it.
Or the fact that the only time he’d contacted me in any way since I’d left the Family had been to warn me off going after a piece of land that my father had also had his eye on. That had been too little too late, considering I’d already bought it and it was now the land that Luster sat on.
“What do you mean?” Dante asked.
“You’re scanning the place like you’re actually concerned for me.”
“I am.”
I sneered. “Sure.”
“I didn’t attend your forced wedding out of protest,” he pointed out.
“Your heroics clearly know no bounds,” I responded, sarcasm dripping.
“I also tried to get to Bianca before the unit of soldiers that Santino sent after her. Unfortunately, having to be so careful so that I wasn’t spotted slowed me down too much. She managed to get away during the chaos of the motorcycle club attack and somehow stay hidden even in these weeks after it, so thank Christ for that.”
“She’s more resourceful than Santino gave her credit for,” I told him.
“No. You’re more resourceful,” Matteo cut in.
“Excuse me?”
“We went over everything that happened that night.” He gestured at Dante. “The two of us examined it all, especially who was evacuated, who left when and where.”
“What? How? You weren’t even there,” Julian spoke.
“We weren’t supposed to be there. But we were watching.”
“Impossible. The surveillance system was cut really early on,” I told them.
“Human intelligence,” Matteo rebutted.
“You had control over some Leone security personnel,” I realized.
“Yes, but not just them.”
I frowned.
Dante stepped forward. “We’d developed a friendship with the Lone Gunners.”
Matteo actually smiled for once in his life. Although it was a sly smile. “Me and Dante have been working together for a while discreetly to counteract the damage that Santino has taken to doing to the Family—our reputation, our allies, our stability, and our operations in general. When the Lone Gunners received mysterious intel warning of an impending attack, we took advantage of it, Dante and I working with the president of the club. We gave them intel on the holes in security and the best approach to take the Leone Estate, while he agreed to try to take out Angelo and that maniac, Leo Marchetti, while keeping eyes on for us the entire time.”
“Jesus Christ,” Julian breathed. “That’s a hell of a thing.”
“It would have been if they’d actually managed to assassinate either of their targets,” I groused.
Matteo ignored that and went on, “A couple of the club members who retreated and received safe passage to do so thanks to us giving them a viable exit strategy, witnessed the two of you spiriting Bianca Leone away.”
“Human intelligence is fallible,” I pointed out.
“You don’t need to make excuses or cover it up. We’re glad she’s free, glad she’s safe and away from him,” Dante said.
“And we just admitted to orchestrating the attempted assassination of Angelo Simone and Leo Marchetti,” Matteo added.
Dante winced. “And Santino too actually.”
Matteo swung his head toward him. “I thought we agreed not to admit to that? At least not yet, until we’re certain about where she stands. And the Marchetti heir for that matter.”
“The time for pussyfooting around is past, Matteo. You know that as well as I do. We need to go all in here. No more holding things back. It hasn’t helped anything and it certainly won’t help us now,” Dante told him.
“Show her then. Show her what Santino did to you when you went against him, even in just the small way he actually knows about of refusing to attend the wedding.”
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose, his distress clear.
“Dante,” Matteo pushed.
“Okay,” he acquiesced.
He turned his back toward me and lifted up his leather jacket and the back of his shirt.
Julian cursed, and I choked as I found myself looking at deep and very severe lashes from what looked to be caused by a whip all over the expanse of his back.
As Dante fixed his shirt and jacket back into place, Julian asked Matteo, “And you? Did he punish you also? We understand that you were banned from the wedding.”
“I was. I didn’t outright challenge him, though. I laid out my concerns for certain business partnerships he was intending to enter into. He humiliated me by banning me from the wedding and making me look like I couldn’t do my job, painting me as an ill-equipped old man who’d lost the plot. And he also had one of his tech-savvy security personnel wipe out my life savings and funnel it into one of his hidden accounts.”
“So that’s why you’ve both come to me today? You know I’ve been abused by him too and you want to use that to join forces? To team-up? Is that it? And you’re offering me this Wharton lead on Angelo as an incentive to do that, to trust you with this?”
“This lead is more than just about Angelo,” Matteo informed me.
“What is Wharton?” Julian asked.
“Wharton Transportation Services,” I told Julian. “They fly under the radar using unmarked trucks and various other vehicles to move illicit goods for their clients.”
“Black market goods,” Dante added in. He eyed me pointedly as he said, “Including people.”
Always one to get down to the meat of business and push things along, Matteo said as bluntly as ever, “We know they’re the company that Angelo used the night he kidnapped the two of you. We’re also aware that you know.”
“That’s the intel you came to pass onto me? I’ve already tracked them to a specific owner. However, the guy is a ghost.” For now, at least.
“ You have?” Matteo questioned.
“What?”
“Well, we assumed it was a team effort and that Julian and Nico were combining their resources.”
Dante grinned at him. “We were right. Good. This is really good.”
I exchanged a discreet look with Julian.
“Good? How?” I asked, trying to hide my concern.
“Those around you here pulling on their resources was the only other explanation outside of the one we’d hoped for,” Dante said. “That you were behind it.”
“That you’d actually been behind more than that,” Matteo continued.
“Dodging Angelo’s surveillance on you over the years, even somehow reworking that tracking device he planted on you to send him on a wild goose chase. The same with his car’s GPS that time. Surveillance he’d been about to show your father on you being mysteriously wiped out. Even him trailing you once and the bridge over the river on the east side of the city being raised out of the blue and cutting him off in his tracks.”
Yeah, that bridge thing had been no small feat.
Ensuring there’d been no collateral damage with the timing had been the hardest part.
“Why is any of this important to you?” Julian asked them. “Why would you like it to be the truth so badly?”
“Because,” Matteo said, stepping up to me. “It’s known that Caterina possesses the business acumen, and she’s respected throughout the city for that, established now. But that wouldn’t have been enough. A harder edge is also required.”
“Required for what?” Julian demanded, getting to his feet with his cane.
“To take power.”
I stared between the two of them.
I couldn’t believe it.
That fucking suggestion was coming up again.
First from Carlo Benzino, of all people.
Then Nico seeming like he was actually getting on board with it.
Now this.
“If we take power, we’d be trapped in this life forever. In this fucked-up world.”
“The nature of it would be different with us at the helm.”
“What’s the full extent of the Wharton lead you came here today to discuss?” I asked them.
Matteo frowned. “You’re not going to even consider it?”
“How about you allow her to absorb the shock of it first?” Julian bit back. “And, as if she’s going to agree to this insanity without the two of you throwing some major trustworthiness her way.” He eyed Matteo. “You’ve barely shown her any care in her entire life.” He pointed at Dante accusingly. “And you basically abandoned her when she left the Family, even though she’s told us how close you were with her as her guard, almost like a second father.” He moved closer, the aggression from him ramping up in a very uncharacteristic way. “She was out on her own, fighting on her own, dealing with abuse from the Family recently too—a fuckload of abuse—and you did nothing to—”
I laid my hand on his arm, cutting into his tirade. His well-deserved tirade, of course. But one that wasn’t doing the situation any favors. “It’s all right. Thank you, though.”
Dante scrubbed his hand over his face as the emotion of having all of that thrown at him without any sort of filter clearly impacted him. “I couldn’t maintain contact once you left. The way Santino was about it… if I’d stayed close with you, Caterina, he would have used that against the both of us, it would have compromised us, and done nothing but brought a whole lot of hurt with it. But I did follow your accomplishments, your career. I still cared and that will never change.”
“Those are just words,” Julian rebutted, before I could absorb the weight of it all.
“Shawn Price,” Matteo spoke suddenly, cutting through all the rest.
“What?” Julian snapped. “Is that the guy who owns those trucks Angelo was using?”
“It is. But like we said, this isn’t just about Angelo. It’s bigger than that. It’s Santino’s third attempt at getting his human trafficking dream off the ground. Angelo had been searching out another partner for the last few weeks and he found Price. Me and Dante have been following them very closely, and we discovered that the three of them are working together, a lucrative partnership already in the works. They’re even mapping out transport routes in and around the city. Santino wants to use Marchetti Holdings to funnel a great deal of it through. Angelo isn’t on his own or ostracized from the Family after what he did to the two of you. Santino is protecting him. He was the one who got him out of that house that night. He sent him to Price to further the partnership and put things in place.”
“Even after everything he’s done, Santino is safeguarding him. And Angelo should be running, scared for his very life, but he can’t let go of his position in the Leone Family either. He’s refusing to go quietly, and he’s using his influence over this lucrative business partnership with Price to hold on to his place.”
“It’s not just about that. Not just about his place in the Family,” Julian told us. “Santino raped him. From the sounds of it, more than once. I’d be confident in saying it was a regular thing. And Angelo seems to have established some sort of trauma bond with him.”
I remembered hearing Angelo confess that to Julian on the surveillance footage we’d reviewed of what had been done to him. “Did you know?” I asked Matteo and Dante.
Matteo shook his head.
“No,” Dante said. “But Julian’s theory on the trauma bonding makes a lot of sense with the way things have played out, especially lately.”
“Regardless of why it’s happening, it is. And it can’t continue. That’s why we’re here. You need to take your place as the true heir to the Leone Family,” Matteo told me. “And, yes, we did come with intel as a gesture of trust, or good faith, or whatever you want to call it. Because we don’t want any doubts from you that we’re on your side. We’ll help you to take power. It’s not just us, there are a few Leone soldiers working with us covertly, hence why we were able to come here without Santino knowing, without implicating ourselves and risking our very lives. Well, any more than we already are risking our lives just by being in that unhinged megalomaniac’s orbit.” He stepped up to me, his urgency building, and it had Julian gluing himself right to my side in response. “Using our human intelligence routes, we’ve found the location of Price and his associates. And Angelo, by extension.” He stared at me intently. “So? Do you think we can work together now?”
Holy hell.