Page 44 of Love & Power

“Beauty, brains, and brutality, that’s my little girl,” Armond boasted.

We all turned as Hound returned to the room, his laptop open with his fingers flying over the keys. “I found the prison and the transmission for their video feed, but they aren’t going to make this easy.”

“What do you mean they let her walk away, Thad?” Ryker snapped. “Don’t they have audio or something?”

“Ryker, I can tell you right now they don’t,” Hound answered. “We’re lucky they have video that’s not in a closed loop with the prison being underground. Shit’s hard to transmit through rock that thick.”

Frediano sat back calmly sipping his wine, watching the rest of us, unconcerned. “Gentleman, surely this isn’t the first time Astin has done something like this? For Christ’s sake, she was a thief herself for years and managed to stay out of jail.”

“What do you know about that?” Hound demanded, pausing in his work.

The older man didn’t respond, just took another sip of his drink, clearly disapproving of our need to protect Astin.

“I’m in…” Hound cheered only to have his face fall, “… and now they’re leaving. All that work for nothing.”

“Nothing, my ass,” Ryker muttered, looking over Hound’s shoulder. “I want to watch her walk out of that prison and onto the jet. Only then will I be able to keep from shooting Thad the second I see him.”

“Whoa, Ryker, you can’t kill Thad for following orders,” Jace reasoned. “I’m betting he was ordered to stay behind, right?”

“Doesn’t matter. He never should have let her do something so stupid.” He snarled.

“Son, you realize acting like that is only going to drive her away from you,” Armond commented. “The tighter you try to keep a hold on someone, the more they attempt to get away from you. Look, I understand wanting to keep the woman you love safe, but Astin Caprioni isn’t just any woman. I know I’ve only just met her, but I’m telling you if you want to keep her from doing things like this, don’t jump down her throat or even mention you know what happened today when you see her next.”

Ryker scoffed, looking up from the screen to meet Armond’s gaze. “How’s that working out for your daughter?”

Armond’s face darkened. “Watch your mouth when you speak about my family. You’re not the only one who is overprotective of the people they love.”

Up until now, the Don of the Zuccaro Family had been rather easygoing which surprised me, but it was now abundantly clear it was because he considered us friends.

“I’m telling you this because I’ve experienced the fallout of holding too tightly to someone firsthand. It’s my fault Von turned into the wild animal she is now,” Armond explained. “Watching Von learn alongside her brothers made me proud until I realized what a mistake it had been to give her so much freedom and training. So I tried to correct my choice and reeled her back in, setting strict rules and monitoring her interactions. Guess what? All it did was bite me in the ass when she ran away from home at fourteen. The next time I saw her, Von was eighteen and in charge of the biggest weapons smuggling business in the Western Hemisphere. I lost four years of my baby girl’s life when I didn’t have to. What made it worse was the daughter who came back to me had lost any trace of innocence and mercy.”

Pausing, Armond grabbed his wine and guzzled what was left in the glass before continuing, “They call her The Wolf due to how feral she’s become. That and lengths she’ll go to track down her prey, even an underground prison, to exact her revenge. So yeah, I know what I’m fucking talking about. The real question is, are you man enough to take advice from an old man and learn from it?”

We all waited for Ryker to answer, but the answer never came as Hound shouted, “No.”

“What’s going on?” Braxton demanded since the rest of us couldn’t see the computer screen.

Hound just clutched his heart, eyes locked on the screen forcing Luca to grab the laptop and see what was going on. “Armond, does your daughter have a friend or lover who looks like one scary sonofabitch?”

“Oh, that’s Bear,” Lazzaro shared. “I guess you could call him her bodyguard, but that’s like saying Cerberus is just a dog.”

Metteo nodded as he finished the bite he’d just eaten. “That crazy motherfucker is obsessed with our sister. You guys think you’re overprotective, just wait… you ain’t seen nothing yet. I have no idea how she managed to keep him from following her into the jail because he hates when she’s out of his sight.”

“So this means they’re out of the prison, correct?” Atticus questioned.

“Yeah, but damn near gave me a heart attack,” Hound muttered. “It looked like that fuckhead was going to attack them, but he just made a beeline to Von. Astin almost shot him too, but Ivy stepped in to block the shot.”

“Thank fuck,” Armond sighed, dropping his head into his hands. “If Astin managed to kill Bear, there would be no saving her from Von. Everything would have gone to hell.”

His comment had me worried. If Armond believed his daughter would be that much of a threat, why in the hell would anyone want her included in this fight?

“I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but what good are you to us as an ally if your daughter’s bodyguard dying would have you turning against us?” I challenged.

“Von might bear the last name Zuccaro, but she has nothing to do with our Family business. When she became The Wolf, an arms smuggler, Von was cut off from inheriting anything tied to the criminal nature of the family business. Conflict of interest, if you will,” Armond said, breaking down the situation. “However, she is my daughter and an ally you need if you want to win this fight. There isn’t anything related to weapons she can’t find or procure, but Von won’t work with just anyone. You have to pass the test.”

“What test?” Jace pressed.

The three Zuccaro men just shrugged.