11. ~Julian~
11
~Julian~
I poured myself another glass of vodka as Milo continued to drive me crazy—and not in a good way.
He was pacing up and down my office at Nocturne , close to tearing a hole in the lush zebra-patterned carpet. Every now and then, he’d look at my laptop that was facing out toward the room at his request. It had one of the concealed security cameras up on the screen.
I rarely ever activated them. They were only there for extreme circumstances.
That basically meant whenever the Marchetti Syndicate demanded footage of a high-ranking official or politician that they wanted to blackmail. It was distasteful to me, especially because confidentiality was a key factor for a club like this. But I couldn’t refuse without major reprisal and also putting Nico and Milo in a bad position, given our known friendship.
At least they only thought it was a friendship and nothing more. They didn’t know we were bound to one another and had pledged our loyalty to each other above the family.
This time, though, I’d activated the camera in one of the viewing rooms. The one I’d set aside for Nico tonight.
Milo had wanted to make sure that Nico was taking the edge off and relaxing, so he’d be ready for the upcoming mission. He was worried that Nico’s head wasn’t clear because of the mind-fuck he’d endured from Marco, Leo, and Caterina.
Not only wasn’t he relaxing and playing voyeur as people got it on in the space opposite, he was smoking up a storm. When he finished a smoke, he’d bring his Zippo back out and start flicking it on and off rapid-fire, one of his stress reactions.
“This is bad,” Milo muttered, still pacing like crazy.
“I’m sure it didn’t help with you coming down so hard on him.”
He stilled, then swung his head toward me. “What?”
“Well, he’s got enough people doing that to him at the moment.”
“I was protecting him. Warning him.”
“Yeah, giving him warnings he’s already well aware of. Worse than that, warnings he’s clearly tormented by.”
“Fuck you, it’s not me who’s causing this, it’s her. The fucking Leone princess.”
“Treating her like a threat isn’t going to help anything, Milo.”
“It’s already bad enough that we’re being pulled into this fucking job with her. That’s already a threat to us.”
“It will also be a massive blow to Santino Leone, which fits in with our overarching goal of weakening the three families and upending the current status quo that’s fucking us all over. Nico didn’t do this for Caterina. There’s a larger strategy here.” I frowned. “You must recognize that, so why is all the blame on her for you?”
“Because!” he cried, tugging at his sexy spiky silver hair.
“ Because?”
“She’s… she’s in his head.”
“She has been for three years.”
“That was different. Now she’s in his vicinity and she’s going to be for good once this wedding happens.”
Hmm. It didn’t take much to put the pieces together now he’d thrown that out there. “You’re afraid of losing him.”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
Bullshit.
“Worse. You think she’ll take your place?”
“She’s his weakness. That’s what this is about.”
More bullshit.
“She’s a threat to him and to us all, Julian. Why am I the only one who sees that?”
I sipped at my vodka, then crossed to my white leather couch and relaxed back with my glass in hand, crossing my legs on the coffee table. I patted the cushion beside me. “Come sit with me.”
“I don’t feel like sitting right now.”
“Look, I agree that we need to tread carefully with her. She needs to prove herself to us, just like we do to her when it comes to trust. But she’s also going to be Nico’s wife. As fucked-up as it is of how that’s going to come about, it’s happening. She’s being forced into it just as much as Nico is. She’s probably scared, Milo. She won’t be in total control of the situation and from what I’ve observed recently and heard from Nico over the years, she’s a control freak. I really doubt she’s going to be making moves against him or us closest to him when it would make much better sense to seek support instead, to work with us.”
“You forget that she’s Santino’s daughter.”
“Like Nico is Marco’s son?”
“That’s different.”
“And maybe it is with her.”
He shook his head angrily. “You’re just thinking with your dick. You want a piece of her.”
“I thought we weren’t using the piece of thing anymore.”
“Well, you’ve said it so much that it’s obviously stuck in my fucking head.”
I took another sip of my drink. “I’m not thinking with my beautiful dick. I’m just looking at the whole picture. The bottom line is, yes, do your due diligence when it comes to her, but stop making your paranoia and disdain toward her so obvious, or it’s gonna come between you and Nico. Christ, the way things are going, it’s going to come between all of us. We have an operation to carry out, all four of us together. We need to be on the same page. There’s your danger right there if we’re not, Milo.”
My words finally hit home, and he sucked in a breath and slowed his pacing. “Right, the mission… on the same page,” he started murmuring to himself. He mussed up his hair with another rough shove of his fingers through it. “Nico’s on edge. Going into this operation with him like that, it’s far from ideal. It’s—”
“Dangerous. Yeah, I’ve got it, big boy.”
“You didn’t get the job done earlier.”
“Acting as their pimp, you mean?”
“That’s not what it is.”
I grinned. “I know. I’m just messing with you.”
“And you think now is a good time to do that?”
I blew out a breath. “I’m trying to cool you down, Milo.” I downed the rest of my vodka, then placed it on my circular end table. “Besides, we were talking shop earlier. It got in the way. But we did get them to partner together on the op. Although, judging by the state of Nico, it’s clear that something needs to give beforehand.” Movement on the laptop screen caught my eye, and I jolted in surprise as I saw the door to the viewing room open and Caterina walk on in. “What the hell?”
“What’s wrong?” Milo asked.
I gestured at the laptop. “Nico has a visitor.”
He spun toward the laptop, his eyes wide when he took her in.
There she was, locking the door behind her, Nico’s head shooting up from where he was sitting in one of the crimson armchairs smoking away.
She was clad in a black three-quarter length wool coat done up all the way with a pair of studded high-heeled boots. Her hair was pulled up in a sexy, messy, high ponytail.
Milo turned the volume up.
I went to protest, to tell him that he was infringing too much and verging on going crazy with this whole thing, but the voices reverberating through the room pulled me up short.
“What are you doing here? Did something happen? Did Santino—”
“No. Everything is fine.”
“Then what—”
“I can’t trust you.”
“Okay?”
“I mean, yet. I can’t trust you yet. But I’m willing to try. This op… it’s not just me needing assistance or trying to trap the three of you and force your loyalty. It’s actually me trying to give some trust, to make a compromise, I guess, so this upcoming marriage isn’t a complete nightmare for all four of us.”
“If it helps, you’re not the only one with intense trust issues. Milo really doesn’t trust you.” He smirked at her. “Yet.”
I glared out at Milo, who just lifted a shoulder.
“It’s his job not to. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“That’s very magnanimous of you.”
“Well, I can bring that once in a while. Although, if he continues being so openly hostile, I may need to take action.”
Nico chuckled. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t already.”
“I was trying to play nice. Besides, I didn’t want another three-year war on my hands.”
He actually laughed again, a full-on, hearty laugh.
Milo and I exchanged an incredulous look. We hardly ever heard anything like that from him.
We watched her saunter closer to him as he took another drag of his smoke.
“The truth is, the war wasn’t all bad.”
“It wasn’t, hmm?”
“No.”
“Tell me why you’re here, Caterina.”
She was upon him then and she snatched his smoke from his hand and took a long drag, before handing it back to him, and savoring it.
“I thought you gave up smoking a year ago.”
“Crazy times and all.”
He stubbed the smoke out and it looked like he was going to push her on why she’d come here, but then she opened her coat and shrugged it off her shoulders, catching him off guard.
I choked as it revealed a turquoise lace chemise underneath, the thing barely covering her ass or her very full and perky breasts.
I whistled and literally moved to the edge of my seat.
I saw Nico shift on his chair too.
“Like I said, I can’t give you my trust yet. But I also can’t get you out of my head. The way you touched me, the way you reveled in the vicious side of me, the feel of you on me, all over me.”
“This is the first time you’ve been honest with me about wanting me.”
“One step at a time, right?”
She turned from him then and walked to the one-way glass, taking in the threesome going on over on the other side. A woman was sprawled out on a golden chaise on her back as one of the guys straddled her face and fucked her throat like a beast, while the other guy held her thighs spread wide as he twisted a spiraled dildo in her ass while fucking her cunt with his big cock. It was hard, fast, and rough as all hell. Usually right up Nico’s alley. But he'd barely paid any attention to them, or the couple who’d come before—pun intended—performing the same sort of rough and brutal fucking.
Caterina pressed the button on the underside of the shelf beneath the window and the sound activated, the woman’s choking screams and the grunts and dirty talk from the guys filtering into the room.
She stared, taking it in for a few moments, before turning the sound off and looking over at Nico.
But he was already coming up behind her.
She gasped as he snatched her hips and slammed her ass against his cock.
I heard a rumble of a growl from him.
A dangerous fucking growl.
Milo eyed me, concern blazing at me. “Go.”
“Let’s give him at least a few more—”
“We can’t risk it. Go now.” He gestured at my sleek charcoal suit jacket. “Got the Taser in there?”
“I always do when he comes by the club to blow off some steam.” Even though Nico hadn’t fucked anyone for four years, it was still always a possibility, something he could break at any time.
Just like now.
The Taser thing was a last-resort and one I’d only had to use twice, but still. Always best to be prepared where Nico and his feral side were concerned.
“Go,” Milo pushed.
“Fine, but take this,” I said, reaching into my other pocket and pulling out a packet of lube. I tossed it to him. “Kneel on the couch with your ass up. Get it nice and slippery and play with it until I get back. But do not come.” I winked at him. “I’m gonna need you when I get back from supervising .”
With that, I turned and hurried out of my office, kicking myself on the way that I’d set aside a viewing room that was two floors down and over on the other side of the club.
It wasn’t like I’d expected I’d need to head in there when he was just sitting there alone watching others fucking.
I certainly hadn’t expected Caterina to show up.
None of us had.
This was a hell of an interesting development, though.
Depending on how Nico reacted to it, how his feral side reacted to it, would determine whether it was actually a good thing, or one hell of a mistake on her part.