Page 81 of Midnight Salvation

I hit the accelerator and moved faster, the need to get to Lucrezia burning deep in my chest. He was a sadistic bastard who would stop at nothing to get his own way. My entire life he had showed me time and time again what resided deep inside him where other people had souls. All he had was a darkness that craved pain and power.

I didn’t even bother to turn the engine off when I arrived at the townhouse. His men were around the outside of the property, but I never once stopped as I moved directly toward the front door. We always kept guns in our cars, so I was well armed, picking off targets as I continued to move closer to my wife. One man who’d been hiding close to the front door jumped out at me and tried to struggle me away. The heel of my hand collided with his chin to force his head back before I aimed directly at his heart. There was no time for finesse tonight.

The house was eerily quiet, the lights out. When I flicked the switch nothing happened. Typical Dad, carrying out his deeds in the darkness. The sweet scent of blood permeated the air and clung to the furnishings as I walked down the hall. One of Karl’s men was dead at the bottom of the stairs, another in the hall.

Dad had been a coward who hid behind others, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a trained killer. He just preferred his victims to be helpless when he struck. Catarina lay close to the kitchen, her pulse strong under my fingers when I crouched beside her.

The scene in the kitchen would live inside my memory and haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. Lucrezia sat on the floor with a knife dangling from her fingers, her face covered in blood. She glanced up, her face illuminated by the light at the end of my gun. Tears poured down her face and her lips trembled.

On the floor in front of her, lying on his back, was Dad. His dick had been stabbed several times and was shredded hanging out of his trousers. Blood pooled around him on the floor, leaking from the multiple stab wounds on his body.

“I’m sorry,” Lucrezia mumbled, her teeth chattering together. “He wouldn’t stop.”

I stuck my gun into the back of my trousers and physically lifted her under the arms straight up in the air, removing the knife from her trembling fingers and dropping it on the floor. Lucrezia wrapped herself around me like a boa constrictor, her tears running down my throat as she burrowed herself into me.

My family had done this to her. I didn’t deserve this woman.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

I walked away because the only person who needed me was my wife. Nothing else mattered anymore. I could barely breathe with the stranglehold she had on me, her legs straddling my waist as she snuggled as close as possible into my heat. I stroked her hair until her body stopped quaking and she collapsed on top of me.

“Catarina.” She sat upright.

“Is unconscious and breathing in the hall. My guess is he darted her with something.”

“I…” Lucrezia stared right into my miserable soul. “I’m sorry. He was your dad.”

He’d been a dead man walking for a while. My hands cupped her face. She was covered in blood, but right now she was the most beautiful woman in the world since she had survived. “What did he do?”

Her eyes darted to the side. “He tried to…” Her voice broke. “He hit me and tried to…”

“Then he deserved to die.” It was as complicated and as simple as that.

The time for explanations had passed. I knew he was pissed and ready to lash out, I was stupid not to anticipate he would bring the fight to me since the Council hadn’t backed him.

Lucrezia collapsed on top of me again, her head tucked under my chin. Dad had darted the guards out the back since they were the first to rouse and stumble into the house. Karl looked confused and disorientated as the first light started to peek over the horizon.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked, trailing his fingers through his hair.

“Long story and we need a clean-up crew.”

Xavier was the first to arrive after my text. He carried Catarina to bed and came in to sit on a chair opposite me. Lucrezia was asleep after her adventure. He shook his head. “I would never have left them if I suspected for one minute—”

I cut him over with a wave of my hand. “None of us could have predicted this. Dad had always used others to do his dirty work, I never guessed he would launch an attack.”

“Matteus has a lot of wounds,” Xavier said in a low voice.

“He should have kept his hands to himself,” I muttered. “Lucrezia was useless with a gun, but it never occurred to me to train her with a knife.”

Xavier’s eyebrows flew up. “She did all that herself?”

I nodded slowly. “Adrenalin is a powerful motivator. The bastard was going to rape her.”

Lucas arrived next, his eyes wide as he surveyed his home.

“Who the fuck made Matteus into sushi?” Jordan called from the kitchen.

“Maybe you should all go until we get this mess cleaned. Lucrezia needs some time to sort this out in her head.”

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