Page 85 of King of Obsession

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.

Chapter 17

CLEO

Iwoke to find the other side of my bed empty.

Instant panic and a flood of fear filled me and shook me so hard that I trembled for minutes.

Where had he gone?

I rose with shaking limbs, going to the living room.

It lay empty.

More dread ensued.

I peered through the windows to the outhouse.

There was no light visible.

Searching the room, I found his boots missing, as was his gun, which I’d placed on the sideboard for him the night he’d arrived.

---