Page 149 of King of Obsession

‘I thought -,’ he faltered. ‘I thought they were guarding you until Franco could get to you.’

I cocked a brow and shook my head to dissuade him of the fact.

With an inarticulate cry of rage, Rocco charged.

I sidestepped his clumsy attack and seized his arm, wrenching it behind his back.

I turned to the porch, heart pounding, and caught slices of action as Franco, the fucker, attempted to drag my woman away.

With a mighty roar, I jerked Rocco’s hand upwards.

The sickening pop of a dislocated shoulder echoed across the space. I stretched his hand out and crashed my boot onto it, snarling at the satisfying crunch of breaking bones and screaming man.

Wailing, Rocco collapsed to his knees as I released him.

I stood over his writhing form, chest heaving with exertion and unleashed fury. It would be so easy to un-alive him, to snuff out his miserable life like stepping on an insect.

But I was more human than that.

Better than them.

My issue was with his father.

I turned back on Rocco’s writhing, pathetic self and strode towards Cleo.

It was time to end this fucker and his perverted obsession once and for all.

I leaped over a few benches to get to her.

I needn’t have.

Somehow, Cleo had wrenched away from Franco and found a shotgun.

She stood a few steps from her kidnapper, breathing so hard that I tagged the jagged inhales from where I was.

Franco, too, had a second weapon in his hand, trained at me.

I’d already whipped out my Sig, and Franco froze, eyes darting between my woman and me.

‘You’re dead, Alessio,’ the Conti patriarch snarled, his finger tightening on the trigger. ‘You and that bitch of yours.’

‘Bitch? Hell, weren’t you about to wife her?’

‘I realize now she’s sloppy seconds,’ he hissed at me.

I huffed. ‘You never had a chance, for she is more regal, more valuable, more impossibly more beautiful for your filthy hands even to touch. You’re the scum of this earth, and I should have finished you that night long ago in Naples.’

My words enraged him, and he raised his gun.

I braced myself for the blast, my Sig rising to meet his.

But before either of us could fire, there was a loud explosion.

The shot was so forceful and delivered over a compact range that it punched a hole through Franco.

Lifting him into the air, vaulting him over the altar, where he crumpled to the ground.

Cleo rose from the ground, a shotgun smoking in her hands as she met my gaze across the makeshift chapel.

---