28. ~Emilio~
28
~Emilio~
The last few hours had been the biggest load of bullshit I’d ever borne witness to.
The forced marriage.
All the humiliation forced upon Caterina, all in Santino’s clear, desperate bid to reel her in.
He was afraid of her.
That had to be it.
It wasn’t just about this alliance to him, he’d made it personal when it came to her.
I wanted to know why he was afraid. What was it specifically? It had to be more than her burgeoning success and doing everything on her own without him, more than the perceived shame it had brought to his family by her leaving and now being a public and renowned figure in the city.
It was a sensitive subject to her, so none of us had broached it directly, and we’d been concerned with getting through this nightmare first and foremost.
But once it was done, I wanted to know the answer.
I knocked back another glass of brandy as I stood in the corner keeping an eye on Nico as he held Caterina tight to him while making polite conversation with the new business associates that this revised alliance had brought with it, including an owner of a major brothel chain just outside the city. I figured that had been Santino’s idea, trying to make up for the human trafficking shit we’d destroyed of his.
They were trying to diversify and that would make our job a lot harder.
It would have been even more so if Caterina hadn’t already been on top of it, identifying and looking into all these new players coming onto the scene and desperate to work with the Marchetti-Leone alliance now that previous rules had been thrown out the window, now there were no limits basically with the Benzinos forced out.
I couldn’t wait until this reception was torn apart by the coming attack.
Unfortunately, that also meant that I had to be on the ball, so I had to limit myself to two glasses of liquor, nowhere near enough for me to take the edge off.
As I finished the last drop and placed it down on the makeshift bar, turning my nose up at the wine everywhere—I hated that shit—I caught sight of one of Angelo’s guys leading Julian away from the living room.
I tracked their movements and tensed as I saw him being guided upstairs.
I scanned the immediate area, rapidly taking everyone in, and that was when I was able to confirm that Angelo was no longer around schmoozing.
I was aware that he’d had a confrontation with Julian, something my Sunshine would consider nothing, but something that a fucker like Angelo would see as a much bigger issue.
It all indicated that Julian was being led into the lion’s den.
That bastard was likely intending to confront him here tonight.
Goddammit.
I discreetly slipped away and followed their path up the stairs.
There were dozens of rooms when I reached the landing, but fortunately, I caught sight of Julian’s gray tux—matching with Nico’s with him acting as his best man today. That was another thing I hated about this event—wearing a restrictive suit.
I picked up my pace now no one was around to notice my urgency, and headed for the room right at the far end of the long corridor.
I quickly dipped into another, the door fortunately already open—and the space empty—when I heard footsteps, and I discreetly watched as the guy who’d led Julian up here left back down the corridor, returning to the party. Party, my ass. It was more like a funeral combined with the world’s driest business meeting. No music, everyone merely talking business, no actual celebration of the wedding at all.
I dipped out of the room, then concealed myself as I peered inside the one Julian had disappeared into.
“Hmm, well, this clearly isn’t the bathroom,” he said, shoving his hands into his pants pockets as he regarded Angelo, just like I’d suspected. He was standing there in a broad stance, clad in a checkered black suit that was similar to Santino’s.
“No. I had one of my guys lead you this way so we could have words,” he told Julian.
Amusement sparked in Julian’s hazel eyes.
I winced.
That wouldn’t go down well with the likes of that shithead.
Neither would his mocking tone that followed as he responded, “And what could we possibly have to talk about?”
“The disrespect you threw my way at the Business Forum.”
“Disrespect? Hmm, no. I don’t recall anything of the sort. In fact, I distinctly remember you coming at me, wherein I then defended myself and you realized you’d bitten off more than you could chew.”
Goddammit, Sunshine.
“More than I could chew?” Angelo ground out, stalking up to him.
Julian met it head on and I saw his eyes darken.
It was very rare for him to get to that state, anywhere similar to that darkness that flowed through Nico and now also Caterina.
But there was one surefire thing that could bring it out in him.
And that was when his personal power was under threat. When somebody tried to intimidate and bully him. It was one of his trauma responses to what his father had done to him for too many years.
This sort of thing that Angelo was bringing to the table sparked his fight response in a major way.
I made a move to intervene, reminding myself that it couldn’t be physically given that Angelo was basically—if not actually by title—Santino’s second and as such couldn’t be touched with this new alliance in effect, but then a commotion coming from down the hall drew my attention.
A second later, I caught sight of Santino himself dragging none other than Bianca Leone down the corridor by her hair, with two of his guards following.
They’d come in through the back way out of sight of all the guests.
None of us had any idea that Caterina’s mother would be here today. She was supposed to be keeping away at her spa retreat vacation. Santino must have forced her back here. And the way it was looking, he’d done so to harm her, if not kill her.
God-fucking-dammit.
As the door slammed, I turned back to Julian and Angelo.
My boy was standing his ground as Angelo got up in his space. “I want you on your knees kissing the ring with a heartfelt apology,” Angelo hissed at him, stroking his goatee.
Julian’s lips twisted in a rare, nasty smirk. “If anyone is gonna be on their knees, it’s you. For me. And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Your closeted need for just that.”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Angelo roared in his face.
He raised his hand.
And that was it for Julian.
He’d never allow an overbearing male figure to strike him again.
He snapped, snatching Angelo’s wrist in mid-air, then clamping his other hand down around his throat, choking him out, the bastard’s face turning red in moments.
Julian spun and slammed him against the wall, making Angelo splutter at the impact.
“Not just the pretty boy business mogul you took me for, huh?”
Angelo clawed at him.
“Hell, yes,” Julian uttered. “Give me that bite of pain. You’re just making me hard, fucker. ”
Angelo went to reach for his gun, but Julian was in another state now, a heightened and very fucked-up state, and he registered the movement immediately. In two rapid-fire moves, he pulled the handgun from the bastard’s holster, then shoved him back so hard that Angelo landed in a heap.
Then he stalked over there before he could get to his feet, fisted his hand in his hair and shoved the barrel of the gun down his throat.
“You really wanted to be swallowing a cock, but all you get is this. I’m off the menu. Accept that and let it the fuck go.” He shoved the gun deeper, making Angelo retch and claw at the floor. “Come at me or mine again and this will look like nothing.”
Then he ripped it out, and Angelo vomited all over the fancy carpet.
Julian pulled out a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket, wiped the barrel of the gun, then dislodged the magazine and pocketed it, before tossing the empty and now useless weapon across the room.
He stalked out of the room and pulled up short when he saw me standing there in the shadows.
“I couldn’t just suck that up and play the game.”
“I know, brother.” I gestured at the room a few doors down. “We have another situation that needs to take priority over discussing that shithead for right now. Santino and two guards just dragged Caterina’s mom in there.”
“What? At the fucking wedding reception? Aren’t you mafia guys supposed to be all about honor?”
“Clearly that doesn’t extend to him,” I bit back. It barely actually was with Marco Marchetti either, since he’d lost his wife and then my dad before that as his second. “Just like neither does the Marchetti code of honor when it comes to protecting and respecting the women in the family.”
“The mother of his child and he’s doing this to her… it makes me sick,” Julian groused, a moment before he started toward the room in question.
I snagged his arm, using my overpowering strength to yank him back.
“We can’t go in hot. The political ramifications will be insane.”
It was bad enough he’d put Angelo down, but at least where that was concerned, the embarrassment of how easy it had occurred would keep him from reporting it. He portrayed himself as a hard man, and being put down on his own turf by what the public believed to be a playboy businessman would have that rep taking a massive hit, one it might not recover from if he made it known.
“What then?” Julian asked me, then concentrated on the door that I’d seen Bianca Leone dragged into. “I can’t hear a thing. The room must be soundproof.”
“A lot of the rooms in this mansion are.”
“For Santino to freely fuck his whores all over the place?”
“That and whatever other deplorable activities he gets up to.” I thought quickly, then told Julian, “I need you to bring the playboy mogul to the forefront.”
He nodded, getting it right away, because my Sunshine was wonderfully in sync with me. “Stumble in there drunk looking for one of the wedding guests I’m supposed to hook up with. My rep should make that believable.”
I nodded. “Meanwhile, I’ll reach out to Nico and Caterina.”
He’d just started down the corridor when I heard groaning from Angelo in the room where he’d been put in his place by Julian. Goddammit. We didn’t have much time.
Or so I thought until a rolling thunder reverberated through the mansion, followed by gunshots, screams, yelling, and glass shattering.
Seconds later, an alarm started blaring, the same time that I heard automatic fire ripping into the house downstairs.
The Leone Estate had been breached.
The Lone Gunners were here.
In the next second, Santino’s two guards burst from the room in question, flanking Santino himself, tight to him. Covering him, they led him down the corridor, then around the corner, where I knew there to be a secret exit out of the mansion.
Angelo staggered out behind us, glared at Julian, then made his way back down the stairs toward the reception locale, calling his guys as he went and uttering orders to his soldiers to take this position and that to deal with the attack. “Put those fuckers down! No mercy!” he was yelling as he disappeared down the staircase.
Julian and I burst into the room that Bianca had been forced into.
“Jesus,” Julian choked as we took in the sight of her on the floor on her knees, her hair matted, her face bloodied, with a black eye, her bottom lip bruised severely.
“Mom!” a familiar cry sounded, a moment before Caterina was there, rushing by us and skidding to her knees beside her mom. “Oh my God. That piece of shit. How… how are you here? I thought we agreed—”
“He had his soldiers force me back here,” Bianca rasped, trying to stand and wavering.
Julian was there in the next second, helping her to her feet and taking her weight on his shoulder.
I turned to Nico, who was at the threshold, his gun at the ready, looking urgently from the corridor to us inside. “We need to move quickly. The chaos downstairs won’t give us complete cover, so we need to be careful. Julian, change of plans. You’re gonna get Bianca out and Caterina will cover you.” He pulled his other Sig, then handed it to Caterina. “Just don’t let any of the key members of either family see you. Anyone else, you shoot to kill. No witnesses.”
She nodded her understanding and cocked the gun.
Dazed, Bianca stared at him with a whole lot of confusion. She’d clearly been told Santino’s version of what this arranged marriage would mean for her daughter.
“Go,” Nico urged. He looked at me. “We need to put on a show.”
“Where’s Marco?”
“I saw him being evacuated by his guards. Leo’s still here.”
“Yeah, he’d never miss a firefight.”
“We’ll go out through my childhood bedroom,” Caterina was telling Julian then. “I used to sneak out when I was a teenager. There’s a way through that nobody knows about.”
“Sounds good,” Julian said.
And then the three of them were passing by us.
“Be careful,” Caterina told us.
“You’d better fucking be,” Julian added.
“Always, Sunshine.”
He gave me a withering look, knowing that hadn’t always been the case before, especially not where Nico’s safety had been concerned. “Just remember what we talked about, all right?”
“I will.” I eyed Nico. “ We will.”
He sucked in a breath, then they headed on out.
As soon as they were clear, Nico and I headed down to the battleground.