Page 74 of Under His Watch

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 bemine. 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.

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