Page 72 of All the Dangerous Things

Oh God. I covered my mouth with my hands as I watched the ruthlessness.

“Stop it!” I screamed, but my voice was drowned out by the sounds of fists meeting flesh, grunts of pain, and the harsh breathing of the three men I loved more than anything else locked in a battle.

My heart was racing, pounding in my chest with this achingly hard force. My own battle waged inside me between needing to protect Gio and not getting involved because I’d known this would be the outcome.

This is all my fault.

But I knew there was no stopping this, not unless I threw myself into the mix, and that wasn’t going to happen.

Gio fought back with a ferocity that matched my brothers, his eyes wild with fury. He landed a solid punch to Nikolai’s temple, causing my brother to stumble. But Dmitry was on Gio then, and he was relentless.

“Please, stop!” I cried, tears now streaming down my face.

My hand instinctively went to my belly, and I gently curled my fingers into the soft flesh.

Dmitry staggered back, wiping the blood from his mouth before he dove back in. For it being a two-on-one fight, Gio was holding his own. But I wasn’t surprised.

I screamed for them to stop, but it all fell on deaf ears.

The fight was inhuman, three alpha wolves battling to the death, and the tension in the room was so suffocating I gasped for air. All of the men momentarily stopped their fighting. Nikolai and Dmitry stood on either side of Gio, their eyes blazing with anger and something else… something twisted and ugly.

Dmitry took a step forward, his gaze never leaving Gio’s. “You think we wouldn’t find out?” His voice was low, dangerous. “Did you actually think we wouldn’t know that you’re the one who took out the bastard who assaulted our sister?”

Blood dripped from their faces. Dmitry’s knuckles were raw and bleeding, Nikolai’s eye was already swelling shut, and Gio’s lip was split open. All of them sported splatters of crimson.

The sight of their violence, the brutality of their rage, was too much for me.

Fuck. I shivered from the adrenaline rush and my sopping-wet clothes sticking to my body.

Gio's expression never changed from a mask of hardened determination. He said nothing, but his jaw worked as he ground his teeth.

“You thought you could keep that truth from us?” Nikolai’s voice was sharp. “You should have come to us right away. You should have told us what the fuck went down, so we could have reacted the way we fucking saw fit.”

“You would have rather I let that fucker hurt Tatiana?” Gio’s voice was icy cold and even. His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t do it foryouor to get your fucking approval,” he said, his tone rough. “I did it forherbecause the thought of her getting hurt twisted my gut into something ugly and painful.”

Something shifted in the atmosphere.

“And Maksim?” Dmitry asked through a clenched jaw. “Was that for her, too?” The sarcasm was thick and laced with venom.

I felt the room grow colder, heavy with the weight of what was about to be said.

Nikolai was the one to speak. “You must think we are fucking morons. You thought we wouldn’t hear about that either?”

Gio’s jaw tightened. “Maksim was a threat.” I could hear the strain in his voice. “He was working against you—against your entire family.”

The looks on my brothers’ faces told me they knew. But this wasn’t about that. Gio had come onto their turf and taken out one of their men—it didn’t matter that he was betraying them.

“And who are you to make that call?” Nikolai snapped. “He was Bratva, and that means he was ours to deal with.”

Gio didn’t back down. “I did what I had to. I didn’t sit around and wait for the next betrayal.”

For a moment, the room was deathly silent, and the space between all of us crackled with tension, as if the anger radiating off these three males was poisoning the air.

“You think taking out a traitor makes you an ally?” Nikolai sneered as he spat out the words.

“I’m not asking to be your ally. I did what had to be done.” Gio left it at that.

Nikolai and Dmitry let out twin harsh laughs.

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