Page 23 of Under His Watch

My father sighed heavily, stressed and bothered about this development of the Devil’s Brothers here and snooping on me. I was his son, the prince to his leadership. That position made me a target, so it was telling that they’d try to spy on me versus anyone else in the family.

“I hate this waiting around,” my father groused. “The stalling and preparing.”

“Better than rushing out and slaughtering them carelessly,” I said unnecessarily. He knew that. He’d been a leader for decades. Yet that was the simple reason we had to be patient. The Devil’s Brothers were new to the criminal scene, but they had many members. They, with Stefan Giovanni’s help, wouldn’t be easy to eradicate.

“Fuck,” Franco said as he hurried into the tall grass near the beginning of the brush.

We jogged with him, staying together as a team. My father was the next to swear. “Mother fuckers!”

Joseph lay in the grass. Blood spilled from a gash over his neck as well as a hole in his chest. Those bikers had killed him.

I locked down, letting my anger surge through me. Another man was down. Another brother had been killed.

Fury clouded my mind, severing any logic that could keep me in the moment.

We lived a dangerous life. We were men who were motivated to judge and serve with violence. Death was inevitable, but so soon after the loss of the three soldiers I’d supervised and led in the meeting with the now-defunct Domino Family, I hated the thought of failing again.

I’d asked Joseph to guard this property while I went to speak with my father and Franco about Elliot Hines. I’d stationed the man here, assuming nothing would come near Tessa at this house not many knew about.

Indirectly, I’d set him up to die. All the Constella men were trained and resourced with a means to kill, but two bikers sneaking up on one man didn’t present good odds.

Not again.

I rubbed my hand over my face, letting my fury sink in and spread through me more evenly.

Not fucking again.

It was ludicrous to ever think this would stop. As long as the Constella name reigned supreme in New York, all of us in the family would have limited mortality.

But it was simply too soon. I hadn’t yet gotten a decent grip on the survivor’s guilt from losing the trio of soldiers earlier this summer. And seeing Joseph killed on the job—the assignment I put him on—was like a punch to the gut, shattering my conscience again.

“Son of a bitch,” Franco said as he needlessly checked Joseph’s pulse. Just in case, on the rare chance that he hadn’t bled out.

“No more waiting,” my father vowed, looking down at the soldier who’d died for the family. “The wait is over. They came here, onto our territory, and killed one of ours.” He lifted his serious, angry gaze to meet mine, then Franco’s. “And now we will go after theirs.”

“We won’t stop until we’ve killed them all.” I knew that down to my bones, in the depth of my cold heart. It filled me with a renewed sense of urgency, of determination. Not guilt.

“Go,” Franco urged, already calling another man out to help handle Joseph’s body. “Go back to the women,” he told me, then my father. Franco was a capo, but just because we were the two top leaders of the organization didn’t mean that he would hesitate to instruct us.

My father was stuck staring at Joseph, livid that the bikers came here. I managed to look away, sending a silent thanks to the sacrifice he made in keeping Tessa safe until his last breath. Tessa, who still needed to be safe. Nina as well. Franco was right to tell us to go back to the house and be near them, but we’dheard the bikes roar off into the distance. I doubted more were around.

“I’ll have more of a crew come here to help with more adequate security,” Franco said, “now that the word is out about this property being your residence for the time being.”

My father frowned, holding up his hand. “But were they here for him?”

Huh? “Who else could they be here for?”

“The woman. Tessa.” He looked from me to Franco, waiting for a reply. When we didn’t speak up, he added, “Is there a chance they’re out here looking for her?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it. She was just a waitress, no ties to anyone of any organization until I ran into her.”

Franco gaped at me. “Wait. What the hell does that mean? One look at her and you’re… you’re claiming her as yours?”

That was way too far to predict right now. “I mean she’s connected to me—so far—because I took her under my direct protection. I tasked Andy with finding her rapists, and I killed them last night.”

My father rubbed his face. “That’s basically marking her as yours.”

I’d skimmed over the part about her being raped when I spoke with them earlier. I wanted to focus on this tie with Elliot Hines and why he sounded familiar. That conversation hadn’t been concluded, either, because as soon as Nina overheard his name and guessed that the Tessa I found was her best friend whom she’d lost contact with, we hurried over here.

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