8. ~Nico~
8
~Nico~
The freezing cold shower water beat down on my body the way I needed.
The way I deserved after what had happened at her apartment.
For three years I’d kept myself in check when it came to Caterina Leone, yet in one night, one bad fucking night, I’d completely fucked all over that.
I’d lost control.
Well, to an extent.
It hadn’t been an all-out loss of control, but it had been bad enough. I hadn’t been in full command of myself.
“Say it. Say you need me to fuck your dripping wet cunt.”
“Fuck me. Don’t… don’t hold back.”
I’d wanted to hear those words from her for so long.
And they’d sounded better than I’d even imagined. The way she’d panted them, the desperate need in her voice, the way she’d wanted me so fucking badly… I couldn’t get it out of my head.
But I needed to. Hence the two ice-cold showers every fucking day for the last week.
I couldn’t lose control like that again.
As much as she’d liked it, Julian had been right. I could have gone too far, I could have damaged her. It was the last thing I wanted. Finding someone like her who could even begin to meet me on my fucked-up level was such a rarity, and I knew how special it truly was. I couldn’t lose that, especially before I even truly had her.
“You’re just as sick and twisted as I am.”
I’d suspected it since that night in the restaurant and she’d proven it with what she’d revealed to us last week. She hadn’t spoken of what she’d done to those gang leaders with any sort of regret or remorse. In fact, she’d been verging on being proud of it.
Proud that she’d punished an enemy.
Proud that she’d hurt, maimed, and killed.
Proud that she’d utterly decimated a threat.
She’d effectively admitted that she was a monster.
Just. Like. Me.
Just like all three of us, actually.
Julian came off as upbeat and innocent in the ways of our life, but he was actually anything but. The whole sunshine thing was a facade, and Milo calling him that was a throwback to it, to us knowing the real him beneath it all.
Milo, while he didn’t particularly like violence, would carry out the most brutal of reckonings in the name of protecting me and our brotherhood.
Our brotherhood, not the Family.
Me. Emilio. Julian.
That brotherhood. The real people we could count on in this life.
We’d made a pact, one that had been forged in blood—literally—during our college days. One that trumped my loyalty to the Marchetti Syndicate.
One that trumped everything.
By doing so, pledging my loyalty to another force beyond the Family, I’d taken a major risk because it wasn’t something that would be tolerated. It wasn’t just frowned upon; it was completely outlawed.
But the way things had been, the way I’d been passed over and threatened into standing down on so many issues, not just these recent weapons deals on the table, had shifted things for me.
It had pushed me in another direction when I’d realized that I couldn’t trust my own blood anymore.
I sucked in a breath as I finished rinsing out my hair.
Things were in a precarious state all around and I needed to be at the top of my game, not lost to my carnal desires or my feral side.
After Leo had forced us to deliver that message to Carlo Benzino, nothing had come of it. Not a word, not a strike back, not calling a meeting between the three families, absolutely nothing. It meant he was gearing up for something big. Everyone was on high alert.
I also had eyes on Marco and Santino and I’d received confirmation that they’d been immersed in a meeting at the Leone Realty offices, Santino’s home base. Unlike my father, he didn’t use his home for that.
My father had also sent me some text messages to confirm the marriage directive that had come from Leo. Not even the decency of a call or a meeting. Just fucking texts.
And Leo, that fucker, had been liberal with the texts too, taunting me with images of a ball and chain, a cage, then a leash and a collar. Even his mocking was pedestrian. He was a pathetic, bitter man.
After realizing how exhausted Caterina had been that night, we’d decided to give her some time before we met to organize the op—the proof of trust that she needed from us before we went any further with the deal I wanted to make her and ensure we sealed before we were engaged.
I still couldn’t fucking believe it.
I hadn’t wanted it like this.
Julian had been right on, as he usually was with emotions—well, other people’s, not so much his own—I had wanted to have my thing with Caterina all to myself. I hadn’t wanted interference. I certainly hadn’t wanted to bind her to me in marriage against her will.
And now even that choice had been taken from me, just like everything else.
To say I was disillusioned with things didn’t even begin to cover it.
But it was just the status quo for now. It wouldn’t be like this forever.
I had to keep reminding myself of that, both to remain sane and to play the game.
The three families thought the tide was turning toward war between them all, but they were blind to the war that was gearing up from me and mine.
They’d never fucking survive it.
It was what they’d brought it to, what they’d wrought.
One positive thing had happened over the last few days of me enduring all this bullshit from my so-called family.
I had confirmation that Levi Knight was actively looking into Osiris and diving deep. It was likely that he’d have the pieces I was missing with my own intel. He just needed to be given a little more time. Then I’d swoop in and manipulate the situation in our favor.
Fortunately, that time needed gave me space to be able to get this op we’d agreed to assist Caterina with off our plates.
After far too long with pretty much every inch of my skin now wrinkled, I finally shut off the shower and stepped out, shuddering from the cold, but at least calmed.
For now, at least.
We were seeing Caterina soon. It would be a whole other ask, managing to remain in this cooled down state in her actual presence.
I snatched my soft black towel that matched the marble floor off the rail adjacent to the glass shower—what Julian called my porn shower and what he’d used before to fuck Milo in when I’d been away on assignment for the Marchetti Syndicate once. He wasn’t the best with boundaries.
I secured it around my waist, shoved a hand through my hair to dispel some of the moisture, then threw open the door and stepped back into my modern minimalist designed bedroom—only to smack right into Milo who was standing there arms folded across his tank and shaking his head at me.
“Fuck. What are you doing in my bedroom?”
“You took longer in the shower than you usually do. I was concerned.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” I groused, brushing past him to head to my closet.
“Am I?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Goddammit, Nico, you know I’m right on the money here. You lost yourself to your feral side the other night, more intensely, and for longer than you ever have. And I get it, there’s a load of pressure bearing down on you and you were triggered majorly by this marriage directive ripping power and your agency and Caterina’s right out from under you.”
I stopped just shy of my walk-in closet and spun around. “I don’t need a recap of recent events. I know what happened. I did lose control, yes. But I’m fine now.”
He took a seat on the foot of my bed, sitting in his rigid way. “Julian has taken a liking to her. You noticed too, right?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Did you ?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, did you?”
“That’s one way to redirect, Nico.”
“Pot. Kettle.”
He blew out a breath. “I wouldn’t go there, or even think to go there with Caterina, unless you gave the go-ahead there.”
“You haven’t opened yourself to the possibility at all?”
“Correct.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I’d be fine with it.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Really? So you’re fine with Julian’s obvious interest in her?”
“He’s one of us.”
“So, if he did more than just supervise whenever you get around to fucking her, you’d be able to handle that and accept it?”
My cock jumped at the suggestion.
Mmm. Message received.
“We’ve shared people before.”
“Not someone you’ve been insanely fixated on for so long.”
“Just talking about it is turning me on after all that time spent calming down in the shower, so, yes, I’d clearly be interested in exploring that dynamic.” I shifted my towel. “It’s her decision, though.”
He blew out a breath of major relief.
“What?”
“Just that Julian’s been blowing up my phone about this for days on end, realizing he’s interested in her and freaking because of you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I wanted to make sure you were calm.”
“I am.”
He ran his hand over his spiky hair. “This entire situation is dangerous. She’s dangerous. To you, especially. And that makes it so for all of us.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face, trying to contain my agitation. I was known for being a great deal better at it, but everything he was saying was getting under my skin more than it normally ever would because of the fucked-up circumstances.
I felt like I was losing power—and I was, thanks to Leo. That meant a loss of control too and in our world, that could be fatal. I’d spent years getting to a place where everything was aligned and organized down to every little detail. But with everything happening, that was starting to crumble and it would take almost superhuman effort to hold things together.
“These are the facts, Milo. First, this marriage is happening whether any of us like it or not. There’s no escaping it. That means I have to bring her into our lives.”
“I get that, but you don’t need to be so accommodating about it and let her run right over you. You need to set rules and boundaries.”
“You want me to cage her?”
“If that’s what it takes to contain her, yes.”
“You don’t know Caterina. She won’t accept that. Not only will she not take well to it, she’ll make our lives a living hell. It will cause more trouble and damage than doing this in the peaceful and accommodating way as I intend to.”
“Nico—”
“ Secondly, she’s also an asset. You heard her, saw proof of her skills. She’s had her ear to the ground this entire time, impacting operations, deals, and protecting this and that.”
“She’s a puppet master. That’s what she fucking is.”
“Something that’s an extreme benefit with what we’re up against and what we’re looking to do. She’s a major player that no one knows about. No one but us. That gives us a huge advantage.”
“This is all based on the assumption that you can control her, that she’ll work with us, instead of doing the opposite and fucking us all over.”
“You’re looking for trust when you need to be looking at endgames aligning. Which ours do with her. That’s what’s needed to form an effective alliance, especially in our world, where trust can be a fleeting thing.”
“It’s not fleeting between you, me, and Julian. That’s unquestionably solid. And pulling her into it, especially at this stage, it’s a dangerous move. The wrong one.”
“We’re not pulling her into it. At this stage, I agree, it’s a risk. We take it one step at a time. One careful step at a time.”
“Fine,” he grunted. “One careful step at a time. We’ll start with the operation she wants our help with and evaluate from there. But if things do go a bad way with her, you need to drop the hammer, Nico. You give her a free pass or favor her in ways you never would others just because you’ve got an intense thing for her, and it could destroy us all. Keep that in mind, all right? Keep it in fucking mind.”
Before I could get another word out, he spun and stormed out of the room, slamming the door closed for good measure, the force of it reverberating through the space.
Message received.
Fuck.
Things were this tense already and the worrying thing was that they were just getting started.