24. ~Nico~
24
~Nico~
“I need to be involved in the hunt for him!” Julian yelled.
Yet again.
It had been virtually non-stop since he and Milo had walked back into the house.
I’d even heard him in the car as Milo had driven him back, Julian arguing the whole time as Milo had reported everything that had happened earlier tonight.
I’d taken some time to debrief with Tony and those of my soldiers who had been on mission tonight after they’d had their injuries seen to by my on-call doctor. Fortunately, all of them had been mild, especially considering what they’d walked into with all the surprises tonight that hadn’t been a part of the original plan. Fortunately, being able to pivot when things didn’t go to plan was something Milo and I had learned well over our years involved in this fucked-up life.
A fucked-up life I’d have to continue on with now that I’d committed to taking power over the Marchetti Syndicate. Unless I could overhaul things and take the organization completely legitimate like Caterina had made abundantly clear that she wanted.
My soldiers had been unsettled and morale had clearly taken a hit despite the fact that the mission had technically been a success. Because of them witnessing Julian breaking down. It wasn’t an easy thing to bear in the least. Fortunately, I’d managed to raise their spirits with commendations of how well they’d handled things tonight, bonuses I’d wired to their accounts for them and their families—with the help of Caterina moving money around within Santino’s accounts—and by laying out how things would play out once we were through this fight, to keep them focused on the endgame and the light and relief it would bring to us all.
But while I’d managed to keep my soldiers on track, Julian was another case entirely.
For one, he wasn’t a soldier of mine.
Nor did he possess that sort of mindset. Not close to Milo’s either.
Julian didn’t just fall in line because I commanded it, or because he recognized the sense in doing so, or implicitly trusted in me to the same depth that Milo did because we’d worked together under high pressure circumstances for so long. No, there was more of a disconnect there when it came to Julian. He questioned more; he pushed back more.
And, unfortunately, that was one of the worst things right now when he both needed to be reeled in and to recognize that it was the case.
“Can you avoid talking so animatedly for a few more moments?” Milo beseeched him as he stood before Julian, who was sitting up at the island as Milo tried to dress his battered knuckles. Self-inflicted fucking injuries.
Julian glared at him, then shot another fierce and challenging look my way as I leaned against the kitchen door, my arms folded across my chest as I regarded and studied him closely. “Well? Are you gonna answer me or just stand there with that disapproving look blazing my way?”
“The fact you showed up there without authorization is what led to the hunting part of the mission being unsuccessful.”
Milo swung his head my way, his espresso eyes wide with disbelief.
He’d wanted me to sugarcoat it. That much had been clear from the careful and dancing-around-the-severity-of-it way he’d reported everything to me on their drive back. Of course, I could read between the lines when it came to him.
“What he did tonight was beyond dangerous. It can’t be brushed aside as a mere mistake or a miscalculation,” I told Milo.
He blew out a breath and looked away, focusing back on wrapping the knuckles of Julian’s right hand, the left he’d already taken care of.
The doctor hadn’t been able to even approach Julian to take care of it, because Milo had blocked his path and insisted on tending to him personally.
He’d clearly jumped to the conclusion that Julian’s breakdown in the field would automatically mean him reverting back to being unable to be touched and he’d assumed that it would be easier for Julian to stomach it from him than somebody mostly unfamiliar in my doctor—he’d only been treated by him a couple of times over the years.
But that didn’t seem to be the case as I’d watched Julian tonight. He hadn’t shown any signs of being touch averse again.
Of course, it was possible that he was masking it.
Just like he’d obviously been masking his rage and obsessive need to exact vengeance on Angelo, something he’d played so well, he’d even managed to keep it off my radar.
“That wasn’t my fault!” Julian basically screamed back at me. “Stover could’ve taken him out, but he didn’t. He wanted him for fucking interrogation! Like we even need that! It was absolute bullshit!”
“It wasn’t Stover’s job to put Angelo down. It was our mission. The fact that you headed up there caused a shitstorm of complications that Milo and my men had to improvise to overcome on the fly.”
“I didn’t know about the tracker surgically inserted into my fucking body, did I?”
“That’s beside the point. You went around us, Julian. The mission was dangerous enough as it was when we’d strategized everything down to the smallest detail. Yet, your interference screwed all that to hell. We’re fucking lucky that no one died tonight, that only a few of them walked away with only mild injuries.”
“I intervened with that RPG and saved—”
“With an RPG! A fucking rocket-propelled grenade! Exactly my point. The insanity of it all, J!”
Milo finished with his hand and in the very next moment, Julian smashed his bandaged fist down on the kitchen table, rattling Milo’s glass of brandy and Julian’s own bottle of expensive vodka. “Nothing less than absolutely anything it takes should be used to take that motherfucker out!”
“Not putting your life on the line. Not fucking up our overall mission. Which is what you nearly did tonight by running off half-cocked and behind our fucking backs!” I finally pushed off the wall. In a way, I’d been using it to ground me and to keep me at bay, while my rage at the entire situation was barely checked. I didn’t want to have to come down on him so hard, especially after the breakdown he’d had earlier, but with him continuing to push back, I had little choice. I needed to make him see reason. He fucking had to.
If he couldn’t, then he’d become a very real problem.
Worse. A threat to what we were trying to do here.
It was all on the line as it was and this… fractures within our foursome, within our core unit… they couldn’t be right now. They just fucking couldn’t.
“You left me no choice with doing it without me! I told you, I need to be there. I need to be the one to put him down, Nico!”
“You proved tonight that you’re not field-ready in any sense. You can’t be a part of the mission.”
“ But we can bring him to Julian when we apprehend him,” Milo offered up. “Let him end the sick fuck’s miserable life.”
Normally, yes, it would be considered obvious justice by doing it that way, having the wronged in Julian finish the one who’d done him such despicable wrong.
But this was a dicey situation, especially because of Julian’s history.
Milo’s judgment was compromised when it came to this.
I walked to Julian and stood before him.
He was seething, clenching his fists at his sides, which really wasn’t doing his damaged knuckles any favors, but he clearly couldn’t check it. At the same time, he was looking up at me with a whole lot of need sparking through that rage.
“Killing your father wasn’t a magical cure-all. In fact, it further complicated matters, if you remember.”
“Of course I remember,” he snapped. “In vivid fucking detail.”
“Then you understand what I’m concerned about here.”
“Yeah, you think it will push me over the edge, that I’m too fragile to handle it, and when I make the kill, all the trauma of what was done to me by Angelo will breach the proverbial floodgates and overwhelm the fuck out of me, because you believe I’m holding it all at bay, kidding myself into thinking that killing him will take it away like some kind of magic.”
“And?” I pushed.
“ And this isn’t the same. That was my father. Very fucking different. Things ran too deep there, obviously.” He shoved his bandaged hand through his hair. “Angelo succeeded in making me his little bitch , as he kept referring to it. I can’t live with that. I can’t have him out there, our last interaction being him dominating me, having power over me. And the only way to counter that is to end him, Nico.”
“You don’t feel like you can properly start the healing process until that’s achieved?” Milo asked.
“Exactly,” Julian confirmed.
Fuck.
“You stopped trying too quickly,” I told Julian.
“What?”
“Doctor Williams told me that you didn’t discuss anything about the kidnapping during your last session. She mentioned that you were solely focused on excitement about the future.”
“Excitement, right. Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?”
“It was an avoidance strategy and you know it. You’re not participating properly.”
“And you’re able to determine what participating properly involves when it comes to a therapy session?” He scoffed. “You can barely feel your own guilt, you’re the last person to be lecturing me about—”
“This isn’t helping,” Milo interjected. “And you’re being so defensive that you’re actually on the attack. Against Nico, Julian. Come on. Please.”
“If anything, he’s attacking me!”
“He’s airing his concerns. Very real concerns, Sunshine.”
Julian threw his hands in the air. “Of course you’re taking his side. When don’t you, huh? No matter what, right?”
“You know that’s not the case. Not when it comes to the way things operate between the four of us. I’ve been in your corner many times. Caterina’s too.”
“When push comes to shove, though—”
“This is about you. Your actions,” I cut in. “You’re trying to redirect to—”
“To what, Nico? To convince you guys that I should get the justice I deserve?”
I slammed my fist down on the countertop. “You’ll get justice! That isn’t in question! Your methods are! Fucking recognize that! We’re in the fight of our lives. The chances of us all making it out of things alive and in one fucking piece is slim as it is without this , without you going rogue! Do you understand that? Do you fucking understand what’s gonna happen the moment what we did earlier gets back to my father, to Caterina’s? Something that will only be compounded by our assaults slated for tomorrow night? It’s treason! It’s an epic fucking betrayal! This isn’t just rebelling. Taking this stand, taking them on, coming for everything they have… there’s no going back from this. And if we don’t tread very fucking carefully with every move we make, we won’t survive the coming onslaught.”
A shadow fell over the door in my peripheral vision and I turned to see Caterina walking in.
“He’s saying that he needs you, Julian,” she said in a soft, calm voice that was the direct opposite to what had been firing back and forth between Julian and I over the last few minutes.
It was such a striking oppositional force to it, that it actually managed to cut through it in a very powerful way, sedating my worked up state and soothing Julian’s desperation noticeably too.
He actually softened, stepped back from me and started drawing in slow, deep breaths in a clear effort to recenter himself.
“We all need you.” She added rather pointedly. “ I need you.”
There was a melancholic air to her words and her very demeanor that I sensed wasn’t only about Julian and the whole situation there.
But before I could get a word out, she reported stoically to us all, “I connected with one of Roman Knight’s colleagues concerning the tracking chip. It wasn’t made to be a long-term thing, meaning that it will disintegrate within a few weeks without any harm being caused. It’s also safe to be removed with a simple procedure. We could easily do it here and get it out now.”
“Or we could use it to our advantage against Angelo,” Julian proposed.
“After what we just heatedly discussed—putting it mildly—I won’t let you come face-to-face with your tormentor until we have him incapacitated and utterly at your mercy,” I said.
“Will it still be in working order if it’s removed?” Milo asked her astutely.
She nodded. “As long as it’s removed carefully. So we can use it as bait without putting Julian in his crosshairs.”
“All right,” Julian agreed.
Relief rolled through me.
That was something, at least.
A big something for him right now, I had to admit.
“As for the flash drive that Joe handed over, I’ve decrypted it.”
Frowning and tensing at the same time at the unsettled look in her eyes—and all over her, in fact—I stepped forward and asked, “What was on it?”
“Intel. Concerning you and me, Nico.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
“Our marriage.”
“How so?”
“Remember that stand-in priest that married us because the other one had fallen ill and all of that?”
“Of course.”
“It was all a setup. Joe poisoned the guy who was to marry us and his colleagues. I guess he drew the line at actually killing men of God—well, what they were supposed to be, considering their affiliations with my father—because they all survived, albeit some ended up in the hospital for a few days. He did all of that so he could put his guy there that day.”
“Hold up,” Julian said. “You’re telling us that Stover was actually able to infiltrate a mafia wedding, plant one of his own guys there and make everyone believe he was an actual priest who they all would have vetted to hell and back, and have no one none the wiser?”
She nodded. “Not even me.”
“Why?” Milo asked. “To make sure you weren’t really married in the eyes of God, or something, at least?”
“He’s not religious, so no. That wouldn’t have even crossed his mind. It was so he had somebody in a position to do what came next.” She shook out her hair and revealed, “Somebody skilled enough to basically switch out our marriage documentation—the license, all of that, right under everyone’s noses, without any of us noticing.”
I scrubbed my hand over my roughened jaw. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying that our marriage wasn’t just bullshit to us, it is legally, too. Joe ensured it and he actually went to great and dangerous lengths to make it so. We never signed a real marriage license that day. Our marriage isn’t legal, Nico.”
“I don’t… no… that… it can’t—”
“All the proof of it is on that flash drive. You can see it for yourself anytime you want.”
I looked back and forth from her to Milo and Julian, trying to get a handle on one hell of a revelation from her.
“Why didn’t he clue you in?” Milo asked. “He knows you. He would’ve realized how much you reviled being forced into that, pulled back into the family. Knowing Stover was doing that would have taken some major weight off for you.”
“From what I can determine, he wanted me here with the three of you. Safe here. If the marriage hadn’t appeared to go ahead, that wouldn’t have happened.”
“He wanted a force at your back,” Milo realized aloud.
“That means he somehow knew that you were safe with us all along,” I pointed out.
“It does, yes. It didn’t come from me. And it couldn’t have come from my mom either, because she didn’t even know until after the ceremony, after we’d signed. By the way, that awful contract? That was also taken that night and destroyed by Joe’s guy.”
“Fuck me,” I breathed. “Why wouldn’t he tell you any of this? Especially about that twisted contract?”
“Because we’re all fucking puppets to him, aren’t we?” she burst out with, that stoic and calm facade being breached now with it all obviously compounding for her. “Just like the rest of them. Yes, this was in my best interests, but the way he went about it, the underhandedness of it, him determining when and what we were made aware of regarding our own lives… it’s still manipulation of the highest level.” She shoved her hand through her beautiful hair. “And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it all. Especially all the secrecy.”
Julian tensed noticeably as she stepped forward.
I even saw him give her an attempted covert nod of encouragement.
It hit me then.
She must’ve told him.
About the intel I had for Milo that I hadn’t wanted to reveal until after tomorrow’s assaults, so it wouldn’t impact his focus. We were on extremely dangerous ground right now, and what Julian had done tonight had already been enough of a risk.
I really didn’t want to entertain more.
But Caterina’s words, about the puppet mastery, the secrets being kept that impacted other people’s lives… it hit me beyond the rational, beyond the mission.
And I couldn’t let her reveal it.
It had to be me.
I owed Milo that much. Hell, I owed him a fuck of a lot.
“You’re right,” I said, coming up on her side.
She eyed me in confusion. “About the secrets?”
I nodded.
“Right, so, in the name of that—”
I stroked her arm. “No. It has to be me.”
“What are you—”
“Carlo handed me information that concerns you, Milo.”
The room fell silent, and I pushed from Caterina and walked to Milo, pulling my phone out as I went.
“Me?” Milo asked, as I stopped in front of him.
“It’s about your parents.” I grimaced as his face fell. “Specifically, the night of their murder.”
“That’s what he wouldn’t let me lip read that night? He was offering you intel about that?”
“Yes. With everything that happened that night, then our search for Julian, it put it on the back burner, but a few days ago, he sent it through.”
“He knows what happened, who was really responsible?”
“He’s known for a while. Under the terms of the alliance, he had to keep it buried.”
“Which he’s obviously no longer bound by,” Julian commented.
“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?” Milo put to me.
“Yes.”
“He offered it up now to reinforce that he’s with us. That means it can’t have been collateral damage caused by the Benzinos.”
“Correct.”
His eyes darted between me and Caterina. “So their murders were either Leone or Marchetti kills.”
Honestly, it would be easier if it had been the former.
But there was nothing fucking easy about the world we currently found ourselves in.
It was always a whole lot more brutal than that.
I pulled up the intel on my phone and handed it to him.
He hesitated for a moment, clearly overcome, but then he took it and started poring over it, scanning and taking in everything rapidly.
I saw the moment he realized what it all meant, who it pointed to without a shadow of a doubt.
His eyes darkened in a way that was very uncharacteristic of Emilio Bardi.
A growl escaped him.
And then his gaze snapped to mine, grief and rage swirling.
“ Leo ,” he ground out. “Leo murdered my parents.”
I heard a choked sound from Julian.
But before I could get a word out, before any of us could, Milo tossed my phone back to me, then strode out of the room.
Fuck.