Page 93 of Ruthless Guardian

I need intel. I need him alive.

I remind myself over and over again as the raging wrath surges through me. My fingers are curled into fists, nails digging into my palms. All I want to do is rip his damned head off. He could have killed her.

And it would’ve been my fucking fault because I was so busy dancing with her, touching her, rubbing up against her hot little body, I hadn’t been watching the perimeter. Thecoglionehad been perched on the neighboring rooftop. The question was: why? Which one of the Kings’ enemies had tracked her down here?

The other option… the one I dare not voice aloud is so much worse.

That it has nothing to do with her at all and instead, is because of me.

Have my past sins come back to haunt me? To steal the only woman I’ve dared care about in a decade?

“Merda,” I grit out.

“I can do it if you don’t have the stomach for it.” Enzo appears beside me, flashing brass knuckles.

“No, trust me, I can do it,” I growl. I’m worried I’ll do it too well. “Take off his blindfold, I want this fucker to see my face, to intimately know the man who’s going to deliver him to hell.”

A whimper escapes from thebastardo’s bloodied lip. I allowed myself one shot just for fun when we finally caught up to him. Enzo loosens the dark length of fabric and drops it down around his neck. Like a noose.

Terrified eyes stare up at me, an unmistakable tremble in his lower lip. “Please, don’t…” he cries.

I bark out a laugh. “Why should I show you mercy when you shot at a bunch of kids at a party? When you could have killedher…” I stalk closer, my sanity hanging on by a thread. “If you had shed even a tiny drop of her blood, I would have shoved my fist down your throat and tore out your spine.Capisci?”

“But I didn’t…”

“Because you’re a shit shot,” I roar before I draw my fist back and slam it into his nose.

The satisfying crunch of bones breaking and the ensuing scream sates some of the fury. Blood streaks down his upper lip and into his mouth as he sobs.

“Who sent you?” I snarl.

He shakes his head back and forth. “No, please, I can’t say. I don’t even know?—”

“Are you seriously going to deny me this?” I loom over him, my lips twisted into a savage sneer. “After everything you did, you cowardly shithead? I will get the information I need.” I inch closer, fixing my eyes to his until he’s trembling. “The rest is up to you. Either you give it to my now, and I make your death quick or you’re difficult and you’ll suffer every agonizing minute.” I pause and reach for the knife in my pocket. Running my finger over the edge, I draw a thin line of blood. “I can make the torture last for alongtime,amico.” I bring the blade to his neck and press it to his Adam’s apple until I see blood. “And I would much rather be upstairs tending to my client than stuck down here with you. So every moment you make me wait will only heighten my fury. Your call,stronzo.”

He heaves out a shaky breath. “They’ll kill me.”

“You’re dead either way. The question is how do you want it?” I exert more pressure until a steady stream of crimson dribbles down his neck.

“Please, you don’t understand. They made me?—”

“Who?” I snap.

“I swear I don’t even know. It was a third party, an intermediary who brokered the deal.”

“What was his name then?”

I pull the blade from his throat and jab it into the meaty part of his hand. He lets out a shriek and a string of curses as drops of deep ruby splatter the wall. I bend down again, searing him with a murderous glare.

“Give me a name.”

“Arjan Kola,” he bites out.

The name is familiar, but I can’t quite place it. The Albanians have long been involved in the Italian mafia, more and more trickling over since the opening of the EU all those years ago. But what the hell do they have to do with Isabella?

“I need more,bastardo. I need to know who fucking sent you to shoot my… client.”

“It wasn’t her,” he murmurs, mucus mixing with blood as it trails down to his upper lip.

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