29. Romeo
29
ROMEO
“ C arlos said there’s three more Giovannis,” Franco said as he slammed to a stop in the parking lot.
The driver who’d brought Tessa and Nina to the store was shot, but he was alive to call us. I’d just met up with Franco to tell him about the meeting with Elliot when Carlos contacted us about Stefan trying to take Tessa and Nina.
Carlos was alive but unable to move his left arm to get out of the car. His neck was bleeding fast, he said. Yet he pressed the button to call on the dashboard. The Giovannis had left him and the other soldier, Yuri, as dead. Yuri was breathing, but unconscious in the passenger seat, according to Carlos.
Without either men able to help Tessa and Nina, it was an emergency.
Franco sped us over, and even though I knew my father would be furious that we didn’t contact him immediately, there wasn’t any time. This was a matter of life or death. I would never forgive myself if Tessa was wounded. And he would never forgive me if Nina was hurt.
I ran out into the fight, shooting at the Giovannis, so easy to make out with their suits in the darkness of the evening. Flashes of white were revealed when they ran, their suits flapping open and showing their button-downs.
Franco ran out with me, and behind us were more Constella soldiers alerted to the situation.
How the fuck Tess and Nina were out with only two men was ridiculous, but it was an error they’d need to address later.
“She’s back there!” Nina crouched low near another car in the lot. She must have run to safety. In the split second that I looked at her, I spotted no blood, but Franco found her and covered her as he rushed her to the car we’d arrived in.
I turned in the direction of where she’d pointed, and when I locked my gaze on Tess, I wanted to roar. A deep, fierce need to burn the world down rushed through me. Anger and rage braided into a tighter stranglehold on my soul.
Seeing any man with his hand on my woman was enough to send me into a tailspin.
I’d caught her like this before.
I saw her in this position over a month ago.
A man trying to wrestle her away, grabbing her arm and hauling her toward him.
The mere suggestion of anyone trying to capture her was unfathomable.
I ran closer, letting the soldiers with me cover my back and make sure I wasn’t hit.
All of these Giovannis would die. Every one of these fuckers would be killed by my hand or the crew who came with us.
No survivors would be allowed, but the man trying to drag Tess further away would be mine . His misery would come from my hands. His death would be the result of my wrath.
“Let her go.”
It felt too similar to how I’d found her. That night when the three men violated her, that was the mantra that filled my mind. The order for them to release her. To step back and stay away from her body. To remain out of reach and let her be.
This Giovanni bastard didn’t see me coming. He didn’t hear my yell to release her.
Tessa fought back valiantly. Kicking, punching, and lashing out, she wasn’t acting like a helpless victim. She didn’t make it easy. If I had the clarity to think straight, I would’ve realized that my insistence that she go through self-defense lessons and practice sparring had prepared her for this moment. I’d helped her get stronger and have the confidence and courage to fight back, and if I could stop and be rational for even a second, I would’ve been so fucking proud.
But I wasn’t rational. Not at all. A crimson tide of fury had descended on my conscience, and I was feral, ready to kill, impatient to torture and inflict the maximum amount of pain to make this asshole regret touching her at all.
“Let her go,” I repeated, growling it as I rushed between them. My interference broke them apart. Tess flew back, staggering so she wouldn’t fall. Her gun had fallen, no longer in her hand, and she scrambled over the pavement to pick it up and hold it at us. At him.
I barely took a moment to look at her. She was standing. She was breathing, panting furiously fast as she stared at me capturing the man in my arms.
Against me, he had a better, more level fight. We were the same size, but the difference between us lay in the raw fury that charged me to hit back harder and hold on to him tighter.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Except to meet his fate in the slowest, most pain-filled means possible.
“Go,” I ordered Tess. My voice was already hoarse, but I could swallow it down. Forcing my throat to work past the panic that clogged there, I tried again and again as I locked my gaze on her.
She’s alive. She’s free. She will be all right.
It didn’t matter how quickly or how many times I forced that thought through my head. It wasn’t easy to believe it.
She nodded, still gripping her gun with both hands. No marks showed on her skin from what I could see. If I spotted so much as a bruise, I would erupt from uncontrollable rage.
“Go.” I jerked my head toward Franco’s car. “Go home and wait for me.”
I’d need hours—days and nights—of reacclimating to the knowledge that she was mine and she was unharmed. Seeing another man’s hand on her had triggered such a darkness that I would need to dial down to be back to my normal capacity of sanity.
I wanted to hold her, to soothe her and caress her until all traces of distress faded from her being.
But I couldn’t. Not yet. Only after I removed this man from the face of the earth could I go back to that degree of calm.
Franco rushed closer, helping Tess retreat to the car. He caught my gaze and nodded once. I didn’t need to explain. He knew what I had to do. What I was impatient to do.
“Get him to the warehouse,” I told the soldier nearest to us.
Handing the Giovanni to him was the only surrender I could allow. On the drive over to the warehouse where we took our enemies—one old brick building among many that served this morbid purpose—I thought ahead to the twisted glee and pleasure that would come from torturing this idiot who'd dared to try to capture Tess.
By the time I strode into the warehouse and found the man tied to the wall, I was prepared. I let the darkness stream through me, firing up my nerves. Soaking in the sweet anticipation of unleashing my anger and fury, I stalked closer and grabbed a knife from the table where different tools and blades waited.
I could take hours and hours, carving out pieces of him, but I doubted I had the stamina to last that long. This brutal wave of intense malice would burn out, and I would be left weaker and spent.
Until that moment, I doled out my fury on this soldier. Looking at him bleeding out and begging for mercy, I saw the rapists in him. My mind flashed back to the vision of his hand on Tessa’s arm. Trapping her. Holding her against her will. Intending to drag her off and do something she didn’t want.
I had yet to learn what happened in the parking lot. Carlos and the other soldier in the car would tell us more. Tess could too.
I didn’t want to know what this fuck planned to do with my woman. The very notion of him trying to exert power over her and hurt her in any fashion was a crime enough.
“Just kill me,” the Giovanni begged. “You sadistic freak. Just fucking kill me.”
I stalked back away from him, not rising to the bait. Killing him too soon would cheapen this effect. Ending his life would be surrendering and giving in too easily.
“You deserve every second of pain.”
The man groaned as I punched his bloody face.
“You earned each moment of agony.”
He fell to his busted kneecap that I sliced at then hit with a hammer.
The man was a bloody pulp, but he was still alive. How he hadn’t passed out yet was behind my understanding, but I didn’t care one way or another.
He closed his eyes, dragging in labored breaths. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and I relished the triumph of reducing this man to a shred of who he once was.
He wasn’t strong and powerful. He wasn’t complete and fit to hurt Tessa ever again. He was losing valuable parts of his body that would render him a sack of flesh and bones—not a man.
And only with that knowledge did I feel ready to kill him.
A swift stab of my knife into his heart ended him. My soul felt lighter and his life ended, but inside my mind, a turmoil of anger lingered.
Without a look back, I trudged away from the macabre mess. The men stationed here would handle it. I couldn’t look at any one of them, still locked in this wild energy that killing him had unleashed.
I’d tortured him. Killed him. And yet, I was on edge. That was how fierce my fury was, how hot my anger coursed through me.
“Let me drive,” a man said outside the warehouse.
“No.” Another shook his head at me. “Change first, Romeo.”
These men were under my orders. They didn’t tell me what to do. But this was a brotherhood, too. All I could do, numb under this pressure to inflict pain, was nod and follow along.
The second man guided me to the all-steel room where I stripped and cleaned the blood off me. After, still as numb and on autopilot with this madness gathering in me, I dressed and got into the car.
They didn’t ask where to go. No one would be stupid enough to inquire how I was feeling and what I might need. My head wasn’t on right. My soul felt freer for killing that man, but in my heart, I knew I needed to see Tess, to feel her goodness and know that she was pure and right. A shining beacon of positive energy. To be the Yin to my Yang and let me get back to a balance.
My phone rang and buzzed on the drive, but nothing could make me answer. A nonchalant glance at the screen showed texts and calls from my father. From Franco. Even from Nina. But the only one that I locked in on was the text from Tessa.
I’m here for you.
She would be. And I could bank on that. I could depend on that soothing message and count on her presence to calm me down.
I didn’t rush inside the penthouse, but I allowed no detours or distractions as I rode the elevator straight to our floor.
Our floor. Into this place that we were trying to fit into as our house.
Tessa and I belonged together, as a unit. Partners. And I prayed that she would be willing to accept me at my darkest.
In our room, she waited for me. In nothing but a robe, her hair still damp from a shower, she lay on the bed. She might have been close to dozing off, but she jumped up as soon as I opened the door.
“Romeo.” She stood, cautious about rushing toward me, and she was wise to stall.
I shook my head. “I’m not… I need…”
She sighed, opening her arms and dropping the robe in one motion.
“I need you,” I said as I took in her luscious, bare body.
“Then take me. Have me. I’m yours, Romeo. Always.”
Again, I shook my head and gritted my teeth. “I can’t be gentle. I’m not right up here after that.” I tapped my temple. “Not after seeing that man trying to pull you away.”
She stepped closer and gripped my chin lightly, prompting me to look her in the eye. “Use me, Romeo. I’m yours to do with as you please. Vent through me. Indulge yourself in me because I won’t ever go anywhere.”
I closed my eyes at her reassuring words.
“I will always be yours.”
I gripped her neck and held her close to kiss her, letting the dams burst on my pent-up anger and need.