Chapter 16

ALESSIO

I carried her to bed, tucking her in, lingering as she settled into sleep.

Fotto! She was a freakin’ beauty.

I was utterly obsessed.

I crouched by her side for a long time, lost in thought.

She was incredible and beautiful, and with each day spent in her presence, she was fast becoming the kind of woman I’d never realized I wanted but now knew I couldn’t breathe without.

I thought of the Italian phrase, ‘colpo di fulmine’ - a ‘strike of lightning.’

Cleo was my lightning bolt.

Her fire and fierce attitude were a red flag to my bullish soul.

I was drawn to her savage courage, wanting to scale her walls, to fuckin’ tear them down.

The thought that someone else breaking through and getting to her was enough to set off a tic in my jaw.

To even have her consider me, I’d need to jump the fucking hurdles of her distrust even as I flamed out the hell in her world.

My eyes stayed on her until my knees protested.

Only then did I rise and conduct a quick perimeter check outside.

I returned to the cabin and secured it.

It was close to midnight when I eased in next to her, vowing never to go another night without her in my arms.

I fell into dense slumber till a disturbance ripped through the night, yanking me back to consciousness.

I jolted upright, skin slick with sweat. Beside me, Cleo slept on, undisturbed.

I strained my ears, trying to pinpoint the noise source that had woken me.

A faint metallic clang sounded outside, like something striking against the fence. Every muscle in me went taut.

I checked the clock on the bedside table.

3 a.m.

I eased out of bed with care, wincing as my injured shoulder twinged in protest. I grabbed my boots and slipped them on, not bothering with the laces.

Then I reached for the gun I kept in the nightstand drawer. The weight of it was reassuring in my palm.

I glanced at Cleo, still lost to slumber, but chose not to wake her. Not until I was across what we were dealing with.

Silent as a ghost, I crept from the cabin and out into the night.

The air was crisp and cold, and the sky was a vast expanse of stars. I scanned the darkness, my every sense on high alert.

There - movement at the edge of the property.

A shadow where none should have been.

Gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulder, I palmed my gun and strode ahead. Whatever or whoever was lurking, they’d picked the wrong farm to mess with tonight.

Adrenaline surging through my veins, I advanced on the shadowy figure.

The rational part of my brain told me to stay back and assess the situation. But the primal, protective instinct that Cleo awakened in me propelled me forward.

As I drew closer, details emerged from the darkness.

It was a man hunched over something at the base of the fence—the dull gleam of metal in his hands.

Rage ignited in my gut.

I was only a few feet away now. The man was so intent on his subterfuge that he hadn’t discerned my approach.

I tagged the curve of his spine, the vulnerable nape of his neck. It would be so easy to end him here and now.

But first, I needed answers.

Stuffing my gun in my sweats, I closed the distance between us with a burst of speed and lunged, wrapping my good arm around his throat.

The man gave a startled yelp as I dragged him away from the barrier.

‘Who are you?’ I snarled, tightening my grip.

He thrashed against my hold, but I only squeezed harder, cutting off his air. ‘I suggest you start talking, fucker. Before I crush your windpipe.’

The man made a choked, gurgling sound, scrabbling at my hands with blunt nails. I eased up just enough for him to suck in a ragged breath.

‘Fabio.’

I curled my lip at the name. ‘Conti scum. What are you after?’

‘Fuck off,’ he wheezed.

I glanced at the fence and spotted for the first time a device wired to the generator housing that powered the surveillance network.

A crude bomb, my eye assessed.

Cold fury washed through me.

‘You were going to blow it up,’ I growled. ‘Disable the security system. Why?’

‘I had no choice!’ His voice was high and thin with panic. ‘He made me do it!’

‘Who did?’

‘My father. He sent the order from jail. We have to get the electric fence and network down so my brothers and I can retrieve his woman.’

I jolted. ‘What the fuck?’

Turning the man, I twisted his hands behind his back so I’d see his face in the weak moonlight.

I found him smirking at me, hatred shining in his eyes.

‘Don’t you know? Cleo is my father’s intended and soon-to-be wife.’

I lurched.

I wanted to roar, put my fist through something, and feel flesh and bone splinter beneath my knuckles. But I reined in the impulse, knowing I couldn’t afford to be ruled by anger.

But first, I had an intruder to break.

The man whimpered as I wrenched his arm higher behind his back, sending fresh shockwaves of agony through my injured shoulder. I gritted my teeth against the pain. I’d endure far worse to keep Cleo safe.

‘What the hell are you talking about? All he did was kidnap her over ten years ago. She was not then and has never been his fiancée.’

His lips curled. ‘Oh, but she is. Did she deny it?’

Another jolt went through me. ‘Context?’ I demanded.

‘If I tell you, will you leave me alone?’

‘I might.’

‘Are you a man of your word?’

‘No. Still, you need to speak lest you lose your tongue. I mean, in a literal sense. I’ll fuckin’ chop it off.’

Fabio swallowed hard. ‘He wants her back. Cleo. She’s his property. He says she’s his to marry.’

The words spilling from the man’s mouth sent chills racing down my spine.

‘Cleo was born into our Conti clan,’ he mumbled. ‘Her mother is a distant cousin. Everyone always said she was destined for amazing things. My father, Franco, also our leader, took a shine to her early on and started grooming her to be his perfect little wife from ten.’

Nausea hit, making me want to throw up.

The thought of a grown man preying on a child was enough to make my blood rage and boil. But I could ill afford to lose my damn head, not now.

‘So what happened?’ I demanded.

Fabio cursed. ‘They were engaged within the cult. Father planned to have a fuckin’ wedding ceremony, but she reported him to the cops, and Dad was arrested. He went to court, and they jailed him for minor endangerment. It was short-lived, and he returned when she was eighteen. Next, she ran off in the middle of the night and to Italy. Father was furious. He went after her after finding out she’d tried to return to Naples to her grandfather’s people, who were meant to shelter her. He tracked her down, but somehow, she escaped him, and he went to jail. This time for a longer sentence, he served first in the old country, then Australia.’

I could only imagine the kind of fearlessness it had taken for Cleo when, little more than a kid, she’d dug deep to save herself despite being hunted down.

More so, she’d found the courage to break free of her captor twice.

The irony of my obsession with her didn’t escape me, and I sucked my teeth, hoping I was nothing like the monster she’d escaped.

‘She belongs to no one,’ I snarled, seeing crimson.

My grip tightened on Fabio’s arm, drawing a moan of pain from him. ‘Cleo is her person, not some object to be owned.’

Revulsion churned through me as Franco’s weak-assed son spilled out the details of his father’s scheme.

‘Cazzo! He hopes to claim his bride once and for all. His queen to rule at his side. He’s been planning it for years, preparing everything for when he gets out of jail in a few months.’

I’d last seen Franco in Napoli years ago. Then and now, the idea of that sick fuck laying a single finger on Cleo made me want to tear him apart with my bare hands.

I tightened my grip on Fabio’s shirt, hauling him in close. ‘You listen to me,’ I growled. ‘Cleo will never be his, you understand? I don’t care what kind of twisted plans Conti has. I’ll shed blood before I let him lay a hand on her.’

Fabio’s eyes were limpid and frightened in the moonlight. ‘ You don’t know what he’s capable of,’ he stammered. ‘The things he’ll do to get what he wants.’

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ I snarled. ‘He’s never getting close to her again. And if you’ve got any sense in that thick skull, you’ll pray I never spot your fuckin’ face near her residence ever again.’

I had to get back to Cleo, but first, I needed to send Fabio home with a stern message.

I dragged the man to the storehouse on the edge of Cleo’s front yard.

I located a rope hanging on the external wall.

Shoving the younger man to the ground, I ignored his yelp of pain as I pulled a length of cord down. In seconds, I had his hands and feet trussed up tight, the knots digging into his skin. He squirmed against the dirt but found zero give in his bonds.

‘You can’t do this to me,’ he whined, his utterance high and thin.

I crouched down beside him, my voice deadly calm. ‘I can, and I am. This was a foregone conclusion the second you decided to attack Cleo. You didn’t count on me being here.’

‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with,’ he spat, trembling. ‘My father, the family, they’ll never let her go. She belongs to us.’

Rage surged through my veins, white-hot and all-consuming.

I lunged forward and threw a lightning-fast fist into his face.

He screamed, but it was a dry, high-pitched wail, which I muted by wadding a cleaning cloth from a nearby bucket into his mouth .

He tried to fight back but was no match for my infuriated strength.

I laid into him, and he slumped, in shock from the beat down I meted.

When convinced he was suitably chastened, I nabbed a flashlight from the barn and pushed him outside.

I made the man stumble before me and herded him across the valley toward his family’s homestead.

While he staggered on, groaning, my mind raced with the implications of what he’d revealed.

The thought of what Cleo had endured elicited a stomach churn.

I reached the base of the hill, where the Conti farm lay sprawled ahead.

With grim satisfaction, I stripped Fabio naked and bound him to a fence post on the Conti side, leaving him exposed for all to witness.

‘Tell your fuckin’ brothers and your jackass father that if they ever attempt what you tried tonight or worse, this hound of Hades will rip apart all your throats if your try to hurt Cleo. Let them know that I will stop at nothing to protect her.’

I left him mewling against the makeshift stake and strode back towards the cabin, my heart aching for my woman.

She had been through so much and had endured horrors I could scarcely imagine.

The nightmare in my head powered my energy, and in no time, I was taking the steps into the dim-lit interior, the floorboards creaking beneath my boots.