15. ~Caterina~
15
~Caterina~
“I wouldn’t mind if you texted me once in a while.”
So, those words of mine to Nico when I’d finally given him an inch had led to him taking a mile, and over the last couple of days since I’d left them at breakfast, he’d been texting me non-stop. I’d counted over one hundred texts, in fact.
I’d let a few go by at first, because I’d been focused on meeting with my architect, Nova Henderson of NovaScene, to continue working on the designs for my expansion concerning the Brimbank Waterfront development.
But then his texts had grown in intensity, his worry coming through, thinking I was intentionally ignoring him and pulling away. I’d rectified it, making it known that it wasn’t the case. Because I wasn’t pulling away. I didn’t have any intention of doing that. At least, not anymore.
Honestly, it was the opposite.
That night at Nocturne had shifted things between us in a major way.
In an irreversible way.
Our text conversations had been almost verging on normal, just two people trying to get to know one another through some flirting and shooting the shit, taking an interest in each other’s days, that sort of thing.
It had actually been really nice.
But then, a couple of hours ago, the four of us had met at my storage facility and Nico had seemed off. He’d barely looked at me, barely said a word that hadn’t consisted of talk about our operation.
And now he was up front with Emilio several feet from me as the four of us walked through the dark forest together toward our target location.
The good news was that the boys hadn’t argued once when we’d geared up at my storage facility. They’d obviously taken my words to heart from the other day. And right now Emilio and Nico were talking back and forth pleasantly, no tension coming off them, no harshness at all. Emilio had even toned down his usual terseness with me and almost been pleasant toward me.
But Nico acting off and forgoing what had become his obsessive, possessive, and basically clingy thing with me was throwing me off. And that was coming through in a whole lot of frustration and agitation right now, when I should be clearheaded and completely focused on the hell we were about to barrel right on into.
It had the crunch of leaves, twigs, and whatever else on the forest floor behind me finally bothering me beyond the point of being able to continue to ignore it, and I spun around, demanding of Julian, “Are you still staring at my ass?”
He’d been walking beside me, but then he’d slowed a little to get his gear ready now we were only a couple of miles from the house where the hostages were being kept. Since then, he’d been walking behind me, instead of coming up on my side again.
He seemed to be playing some sort of infuriating game.
Just like Nico.
Me suddenly stopping had him pulling up short. He smirked as he ran his gaze over the sight of me in black tactical gear, two pistols strapped to either hip, with a few ballistic and tactical knives secured to my pants, too. “Well, I am an ass man, darlin’.”
“You’re shameless.”
“That I am.” He smirked as he caught me automatically checking him out in his dark motocross pants and top with the vest I’d procured for him strapped over the top, and his backpack hanging off him too. The other two were decked out in black jeans and heavy leather jackets with the vests beneath, but Julian had his own style and way of doing things that stood out from all the rest. It was something I liked about him, actually. He marched to the beat of his own drum, and that would always be respected by me, because I followed a similar path to that.
“And so were you the other night,” he said, making my gaze snap back to his hazel eyes shining with mirth. “It was a hell of a thing. I mean, Jesus Christ, you gave Nico Marchetti a run for his money. I had to stop you more than him, darlin’.”
Jeez. “He wanted the real me, so that’s what he got.”
“He certainly did. And just so you know, I’m here for it.” He winked. “Anytime, anywhere.”
“Brazen come-on noted.”
“That’s me. I don’t beat around the bush when it comes to something—or someone—that I want.”
He was certainly a hot piece, and his upbeat attitude was also something I could do with to balance out all the rest. Not to mention, the way he’d touched me had left its mark on my memory… and my body.
“I left the other morning and stayed away until tonight to give the three of you time to work things out, to figure out a way for my presence in your lives not to come between you, so I don’t think—”
“Nico is down with it.”
“What?”
“Only if you are. But, yeah, he doesn’t mind sharing amongst our brotherhood. We’re a package deal, as you’ve already realized. Even in this way. I know you were immersed in the intensity that night at my club, but it was Nico who encouraged my participation. And he most definitely enjoyed seeing you being pleasured by me.”
A tremble rolled through me at his words.
Before I could think more about it and try to fully wrap my mind around the possibility he was laying out, he said, “By the way, Nico’s not blowing you off, or retreating from you. He’s concerned about you seeing his fucked-up side tonight. It’s different from his sexually depraved side. His gift and thirst for violence is a whole lot more intense and very brutal. He’s worried it will put you off him after it took him so long to win you over even a little.”
“That’s why he’s been glued to Emilio?”
“Yeah, he grounds him. Plus, the two of them buried the hatchet where you’re concerned.” He smiled at me. “Impressive what you did there, by the way.”
“I simply reminded you guys how fortunate you are to have this brotherhood of yours.”
“Nah, it was more than that. You could have used the division and tiffs between us to manipulate things in your favor.”
“I could have. But like I said, it’s to my advantage as much as yours to work together.”
“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it? You’ve taken a liking to us.”
“It turns out that the three of you aren’t that bad. Well, at least not to me.”
He chuckled. “Okay, we’ll leave it at that. It’s all you can admit to right now. I get it.”
“You know, you’re not the guy I took you for. You’re impressively insightful, you care so much about Emilio and Nico, and you have this bright spark that casts light when all there appears to be is darkness.”
“High praise. You’re pretty impressive yourself. Showing so much courage despite what plagues you and this life that haunts you.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. It really did haunt me, didn’t it?
“What’s going on?” Milo’s voice sounded, a harsh whisper managing to carry through the heavy foliage of the thick forest all around us, him and Nico pulling up short after realizing we’d stopped.
They jogged over to us, Nico eyeing us worriedly. “We’re ahead of schedule by six minutes, so if you need to rest, we can accommodate that.”
“Rest?” Julian questioned. “I’m pumped.” He started bouncing on the balls of his feet for effect, something that had me chuckling.
“Then why the stopping?” Emilio asked.
I looked at Nico, who was noticeably avoiding direct eye contact with me and focusing on Julian, which was easy to do with him putting on a show and offering up an upbeat air as usual, doing well to maintain morale.
I closed the distance between me and Nico and grasped his hand to get his attention. “ Bello , I’m not afraid or disgusted by your monstrous side.”
He jolted at my term of endearment. To be honest, it had done the same to me. It had just come out.
It looked like he was going to move to argue, but I cut in, revealing, “Five years ago at that sleazy club that I went to in order to blow off steam after my nightmare of an eighteenth birthday party turned into a business gathering for my father’s associates, I saw you.”
He tensed. “Saw me?”
“A couple of his prospective business associates followed me and tried to flirt with me. And they tried to do a whole lot more, even dropping a roofie into my drink when I went off to the dance floor. When I didn’t drink it because I’d left it unattended, and I ordered a new one instead, they took things to another level entirely.”
“You were up for grabs that night,” Emilio cut in. “Your father was fielding offers of marriage for you. Those two were working together to take your virtue, so the shame of it would ensure you could only be bound to one of them. They wanted to tie themselves to Santino Leone through marriage to you, to achieve more power and influence.”
“I know. I found that out later on when I looked into what had happened that night. I was drunk, so it was hard to make sense of it in the harsh light of day.”
“Is that why you don’t drink anymore?” Julian asked me.
I nodded.
“Caterina,” Nico said, moving to pull his hand away. “I don’t think reliving that night is going to do you any favors. Besides, we’re on-mission.”
“What’s coming is exactly why we need to relive it. You need to be on your game.”
“Exactly,” Emilio said, actually agreeing with me for once.
I went on to Nico, “And I don’t want you holding back because I’m here. So… you should know that I didn’t just see you at the club that night passing by or something. I saw you kill those guys, Nico. For me. I saw exactly what you did to them.”
He winced.
“No,” I said, squeezing his hand. “It was when I realized you were a monster. Like me. That we had that twisted and fucked-up side in common, something I’d thought I’d always be alone in until that moment in time. And, yeah, that realization told me some harsh truths about myself that I hadn’t been ready to deal with and I subsequently tried to bury. It was why I kept away from you afterward. But it was also why I participated in our war a couple of years later, when I was changing and evolving where the whole monster thing was concerned. As demented as it is, I like that about you. I like it even more that we share that. The thirst for violence, for domination of our enemies, for tasting that power.” I stretched onto my tiptoes and whispered in his ear in the way he was fond of doing with me, “In fact, you might say, it turns me on that you have that feral side of yourself.”
One of his sexy growls came from him, then he roughly grasped my ass and ground his very hard dick between my thighs, sending a shudder of pleasure through me.
I went to reach up to tug him down to me, but then an arm wrapped around my waist, yanking me back.
Nico snarled and started toward me, but Emilio slammed his hand into his chest with all that hulk-like power, knocking him back several steps.
“No,” he told Nico. “We’re on-mission.”
“Love the wiggling,” Julian spoke at my ear, before releasing me abruptly when Emilio glared at him. He held up his hands. “Got it, on-mission, big boy.”
Nico’s sapphire eyes were smoldering as he told me, “We’re picking this up again later .”
“I’d expect nothing less,” I returned, evenly, grinning slyly.
He smirked, then blinked hard and sucked in a breath to re-center himself. Then he told us, all business again, “Let’s get to it.”
As he turned with Julian following beside him, bouncing along and getting excited by a whole load of things—the mission, the sexuality in the air—Emilio fell into step next to me. “Thank you,” he spoke, surprising me.
I arched an eyebrow. “What for?”
“He won’t hold back now. In fact, now you’ve told him all of that, he’ll go all-out. Our enemy targets don’t stand a chance.”
“Glad I could help. Not just dangerous to him after all, am I?”
“What he did that night wasn’t sanctioned. He put himself in a very dangerous situation by putting down those sick fuckers. And it was all for you. You compromise his rational thought and good judgment.”
“I’m sure you and Julian do the same to him once in a while, too.”
He flinched.
“Something to chew on, no?” I pressed, highlighting the fact, because the obvious truth was that this was about me being an outsider and the negative effects of that to him, the negative being the only thing he could see about it.
Honestly, that was how I’d seen things at first too, as an infringement on me and my way of life.
But the last few days had altered that, along with Nico’s rationale, and the other sides of himself that he’d begun to show me, that he’d risked showing me. There was a big picture element to it far beyond the immediate that had needed to be considered, and that big picture part would be beneficial to us all, namely, through weakening the hold the current status quo of the three families’ arrangement had upon us all.
Not just weakening it, but upending the entire system if we played our cards right.
Before Emilio could get another word out, I walked away and joined Nico and Julian.
No more talking or heavy words being had.
This immediate mission was what mattered right now.
The time had come to decimate my father’s human trafficking operation.
Before he was able to cement it and turn it into a major and far-reaching enterprise.
A despicable enterprise.
God, he made me sick.
I watched from the edge of the tree line as Julian appeared on the roof at the rear of the house. He’d disappeared mere moments ago around the back and already managed to scale it and take position. He was damned good.
I could feel Emilio’s overbearing watchful gaze on me as he stood just a few feet to the side from Nico and me who had our guns trained in firing position, silencers attached, awaiting any movement from the house in anticipation of Julian’s movements being detected.
I eyed the four guards we’d dropped a couple of minutes ago with a fatal headshot each from Nico and me working in tandem.
Moments passed, and nothing happened.
We were clear.
“Move in,” I commanded.
“ Wrecking ball in effect,” Emilio said, breaking from the tree line and moving in ahead as Nico and I followed him at a distance on either side.
Keeping low and sticking to the shadows, we cleared the twenty-foot distance easily, without alerting our targets to our presence.
Once we neared the door, Nico and I flattened ourselves on either side of the wall beside it as Emilio readied himself.
I tapped my earpiece to communicate with Julian and whispered down the line, “Breach on three.”
“Received, Cat.”
I flinched, thinking that had been a one-off when he’d called me that before. Clearly not.
I focused and gestured for Nico to make his move.
He gave a nod, then fired at the lock, blowing it to shit.
And then Emilio barreled in, ripping the door off its hinges in the process.
Nico and I rushed in after him.
Several hostiles had been gathered around two ugly beige couches and an armchair watching TV, and they all jumped to their feet and spun.
They didn’t get enough of a warning before Emilio slammed into them like a human wrecking ball, downing three in one go with all that powerhouse muscle of his.
As a couple moved to pull their pieces, Nico and me were there covering.
I got off a headshot, dropping one of them like a creepy rag doll back on the couch he’d just risen from, while Nico tore a hole right through the carotid artery of another. The guy choked terribly and clutched at his spurting throat, staggering into a column inside the house.
Nico was there in the next moment, driving his hand into the guy’s wound and smashing his head against the hard surface over and over, succumbing to the brutal violence of it. As the guy crumpled in his hold, Nico was done with that, just as three guys barreled into the room from the kitchen.
As another two rushed up from the basement stairs, I launched myself at them, delivering a sweeping kick to the one closest that ripped his legs out from under him. As he went down hard, the other tried to grab hold of me, and I jerked back, then snagged his arm and used the hold to haul him around and slam him into the wall.
While he jarred against it, Nico was suddenly there before I could finish it myself, wailing on him with fists of fury, making the guy’s face a bloodied mess within moments. I didn’t even get to deal with the guy I’d knocked to the ground who was getting to his feet, because Nico thrust his boot into his face, blowing him right back down.
I swung my head toward the stairs over to the far right just before the kitchen at a thunderous rumble to see a dead target crashing down them.
Julian followed a moment later, battling another guy down the stairs and roundhousing him onto the bottom landing. “Motherfucker, this is how we do it!” he cried. He leapt up and followed it through with an impressive spinning kick that knocked the guy out cold, dropping him hard.
The moment the guy hit the ground, I fired off a kill shot.
No survivors.
My father’s men couldn’t know of our involvement in this.
As another target went for Julian and I saw he had it handled, I spun back to Emilio, who was taking on four at once.
With Nico now battling another two and bringing a knife into play and literally carving a guy open until his guts spilled out, while he fired a bullet into his other opponent’s kneecap, I deflected a blow from an opponent coming at me, then snagged their arm and used the hold and momentum to haul them into one of the guys attacking Emilio.
It downed the two of them and enabled Emilio to break from the circle of them that had been surrounding him. He smashed his fist into the gut of one of them and as the guy doubled over, he hauled him right off his feet and tossed him into two others.
But while he was doing that, another moved so quickly, it was hard to catch.
Fortunately, I was there just as I saw the glint of a blade as he drew it from his belt.
I launched myself forward just as he went to bring the blade down to literally stab Emilio in the back, but I was kicked from behind by another opponent.
It knocked me right into the path of the blade and I hissed as I felt it bury in my right side, piercing through my tactical jacket and right through into my flesh.
The target yanked it out with a self-satisfied smirk and it was a bitch of a thing to swallow down a scream.
And then a fist slammed into his face so brutally that it snapped his head to the side, and he was knocked out cold.
As he dropped, Emilio was there in front of me, kicking the guy out of the way, then eyeing my side. “I saw what you did,” he told me. He reached out to me and I instinctively jerked back. “No. It’s okay. Come here.”
Instead, I stumbled as a wave of dizziness assaulted me.
I tried to blink it away, but he was suddenly there stabilizing me and also pressing his hand to the site of the wound, compressing it.
“I’m fine,” I grunted. “It’s not my first time.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier. And every wound is different.”
“Let go. We’re in the middle of battle,” I said, gesturing at the chaos all around us.
But as I took it in, I saw that the boys had already adjusted to the new situation.
Julian was covering Emilio, beating back targets trying to come at us.
And Nico was in a complete fury, his fiery eyes darting over to me every few seconds, while he somehow still battled the enemy.
I watched him catch one of them, yank them down by their shoulder, then shove his gun into their mouth and pull the trigger, making one hell of a macabre display.
He and Julian then worked in tandem to down the remaining few.
When the last one fell, a look was exchanged between Emilio and Nico and then Nico was jumping on the guy who’d stabbed me, and literally tearing into him with a knife, opening him up until he was a writhing mass of damage, blood, guts, tissue, and hell knew what else.
A bullet ripped into his skull, jarring Nico, and we all looked to see Julian standing there with his gun still in firing position.
“It’s over,” he told Nico, gesturing around at every single enemy target now lining the floor, dead to the world. “We need to evacuate the hostages. My contact just texted. He’s waiting with the trucks.”
Nico looked at me, shaking his head, then telling Emilio, “You go with Julian. That was the plan.”
“Plan’s just changed,” Julian pointed out.
“I’m compressing her wound,” Emilio added.
Nico started over to us. “I’ll take over.”
“I’m the medic. Part and parcel of being your guard. You know it has to be me.”
“Milo—”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll see to it.”
In the next second, Nico was ripping off his vest, then doing the same with his black tee. He balled it up, then handed it to Emilio. “Use this.”
Emilio nodded and took it, then I felt him removing his hand and using the fabric instead to compress my wound, making me hiss.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I heard myself telling Nico, telling them all.
But my voice sounded so far away, even to myself, and then I was wavering.
The last thing I was aware of was Emilio laying me down on the couch.
And then everything slipped away.