Page 64 of Brutal Queen

“Get me an update on the girl from Doc Em,” Aurora adds. The end of the line goes quiet, which sets off Aurora’s bullshit detector. “Is there something I need to know, Tiero?”

“There’s no need to last name me, boss.”

“Explain,” Aurora says, brooking no more stalling.

“The girl isn’t at the hospital. She was released yesterday into the care of… Luc Romano.”

“That sounds like a piece of information I should have been made aware of, Stefano.”

“I agree, which is why I’ve just spent the last ten minutes arguing with Katerina as to why she didn’t tell us yesterday.”

I struggle to hold in my laugh when I catch Doc Em’s loud and angry response to Stefano’s words. I don’t catch everything but there’s a ‘she’s a grown ass woman’, ‘she was fit to be discharged’ and ‘she’s safer with him than on her own’.

“Hand the phone to Doctor Mancini.Now,” Aurora orders.

There are some muffled voices before a rather contrite-sounding, “Don Bianchi.”

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on over there, nor do I care, but when I entrust the safety of a patient into your care, I expect the courtesy of an update when there are changes. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“Yes, Don Bianchi. I should have called you yesterday. It was my mistake. I assumed you’d tasked Luc with her safety and that was my error and I still should have reported back to you.”

“Thank you. Can you hand the phone back to Stefano?”

There are more muffled noises before Stefano comes back on the line. “Sorry, boss.”

“It’s fine. Just get everyone here, including you.”

“On it,” he says. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. You and the doc aren’t fooling anyone.” Aurora smiles and ends the call before he can say another word.

“You going to fill us in on the plan?” I ask.

“I don’t have a plan… I have a vague idea of a plan that refuses to solidify into a tangible thought. I think we need everyone to be able to hash this out. It’s foolish not to utilise the talents of the people I trust, not when the stakes are so high.”

She’s met with a sea of heads nodding in agreement because she’s not wrong. It will take more than just us to successfully annihilate Max De Luca.

“Everyone, pipe down,”Aurora says as she rises from her chair at the conference room table. “You’ve all had some great ideas so far, but we need to nail down the details.” She takes the notepad from Enzo’s hands, giving it a quick once over. “Right, the plan is to hit The Knight’s most strategic locations simultaneously. Leandro’s men will take the warehouse. Luc, you’ll take the Knight leader’s compound. I want the warehouse destroyed, but Gabriella’s intel has an estimate of twenty to thirty women currently being held there. I need their safety to be one of your top priorities, Leandro. Vittoria, it will be your job to get them to safety. Use any of our safe houses for as long as you need them for.”

There’s not a shadow of doubt in the faces before her. Luc is quick to agree, but he still has a face like thunder. When he arrived, the first thing he did before the meeting started was request a private audience with Aurora. It seems they’ve made peace about Luc’s heavy-handed approach with the woman we rescued and she’s granted him permission for Miss Willow Hunter to remain in his care. I need to ask Aurora later what’s going on there.

“Gabriella will coordinate with all teams to assign additional resources where needed. That will be Dante and Dom’s men. You’ll split your men into roaming teams that can be deployed as necessary to back us up. Myself and my team will be going after Max. It’s likely that as soon as he’s alerted to our attacks, he’ll deploy his men to the warehouse first, but he’ll hang back so we need something to draw him out. And that’s me.” Aurora lays out her plan with unwavering conviction.

The dipping heads stop in one collective snap of focus to the end of the table. There’s a brief moment of silence before every one of them starts strenuously objecting. Voices are clambering over each other, getting louder and louder until she holds up a hand and they all fall silent.

“Shut the fuck up, the lot of you. I’ll take Enzo, Nico, and Benny to one of the drug dens to draw Max out. We need to stagger it. He needs to think we’re throwing everything at The Knights' locations and that I’m easy pickings.”

“Even if we target the smallest of his labs, that’s not enough manpower to take it down. He’ll know it’s a trap.”

“Whether he does or doesn’t, it won’t matter. The temptation will be too great. He’ll risk it. And that’s where Stefano’s men will come in.”

Everyone around the table turns to Stefano. “My men will stand back until Max is on site. His team will be stretched thin if you’re all doing your jobs at the other locations. The Knights are his highest stream of revenue. He’d be a fool not to send the bulk of his men to protect it.”

“He’s not exactly the most reasonable of men,” Vittoria snorts derisively. “We’ve all seen the pictures from the pig farm. The volume of bone fragments we’ve found already in the pigsty is a testament to that.”

I catch the shadow that passes over both Aurora and Enzo’s faces at her outburst and I take it upon myself to respond to her before she finds herself on the receiving end of both of their wrath. “DonBianchi is fully aware of Max De Luca’s state of mind. I think you’ll find it’s her call, not yours. Unless you have anything else you would like to add to the conversation?”

Vittoria blanches and recognising her mistake instantly. Flicking her gaze down to the table in deference to Aurora, she speaks in a hushed tone, “Apologies, Don Bianchi. I meant no offence.”

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