Page 13 of Under His Watch

I had no clue whether she belonged to anyone. She said she lived with her parents and was afraid about something with a man named Elliot.

But she would be there, and I wanted to be the man to comfort her and see to her recovery.

“No.”

Andy nodded and backed up. Before I walked in, I did a double-take at the short dagger hanging on a hook. I grabbed it, and inside the room where the three rapists were tied up, I took my time carving out lethal lessons as to why they shouldn’t have ever tried to hurt her.

I didn’t hurry because I wanted to give Danicia and Tessa more than enough time and privacy, and also because I relished in the satisfaction of torturing these rapists until they begged for death. On that point alone, I was tempted to let them bleed on slowly and suffer.

Andy was still posted outside the room. He was a spy, but I knew he’d handle helping me out with this too.

“Dispose of them when they’re dead.”

Andy leaned to see past me as I tugged off the gloves. “Want me to kill them and get them out of here quicker?”

I glanced back at the bloody, messy room. “No. They’ve earned every second of agony.”

“Yes, sir.”

It felt good to kill the men who’d raped Tessa, but as I drove back to her in that shambles of a home, I realized that this was quickly becoming more than an ordinary night of being a Mafia prince and a ruthless killer on the streets.

Tessa deserved this act of revenge because she was an innocent, preyed upon and brutally violated.

But a sneaky alternative entered my mind.

I cared. A lot. I wanted to pay back those men personally, even though Andy or any other soldier could’ve handled it for me.

And it was because Tessa, whoever she was, was already getting under my skin in a way no other woman ever had.

6

TESSA

Danicia put me at ease. Her eyes were kind and her smile wasn’t one of pity, but of sympathy.

“I know exactly how this feels,” she said after Romeo introduced us.

I was glad he left the room, but I was nervous to see him go. Since he’d stopped those three men from continuing their attack and halted them from raping me any further, I considered him a source of security. With Danicia, though, I instinctively knew that I would be safe under her watchful care, and in a different way from what Romeo could offer.

He’d cleaned up my hands and knees from when I fell on the pavement, but I wanted the peace of mind of medical assistance for the rest of my injuries. “You do?” I asked her, shocked that this tall, fit Black woman could’ve ever been raped.

Romeo had to have told her about my situation when he was changing out the bloody water, but I wasn’t offended. I wasn’t worried that he’d spoken about me with a stranger. Not when she seemed so calm and confident.

“I was. Many times.” She sighed as she sat on the edge of the bed, not touching me and giving me space.

I appreciated her respect for distance. Still, the topic that we spoke about cut through my soul.

I was raped. Each time I reminded myself of the cruel fate that my mind wanted to dismiss and ignore, an involuntary defense mechanism, I shivered and fought tears all over again.

“If not for Romeo and his people, I would’ve endured worse.”

The long scar along her jawline suggested that she’d already suffered something gruesome. I supposed in a small way, I was fortunate that those three men hadn’t tried to hurt me sadistically with a knife or gun.

“It just seems so…” Wrong. Horrible. Shameful. “Surreal,” I said at last. “You always hear about statistics and know that this sort of thing is possible, but it seemed like a remote and faraway thing that wouldn’t touch me.”

She nodded. “I agree.”

I didn’t want to talk about it. She’d listen. I knew she would. Romeo said she was an ER doctor, not a shrink. But I wanted so badly to tamp down the thought of what happened to me. I wanted to smush it down and ignore it all for as long as I could.

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