Page 51 of The Roman's Woman (A Singular Obsession)

In the dim light from the window she could see who it was—Gio’s teenage cousin Lucca, the one he was mad at. The boy was stinking drunk.

Her fear catalyzed to anger. Suddenly furious, she struck out with her fist.

She was strong, but the little shit climbing all over her must have been numb in his drunkenness. He murmured something unintelligible in Italian and pulled back enough to put a little distance between them. With a wrench, she drew back her head and snapped it forward the way her self-defense instructor had taught her long ago.

The flat part of her forehead crashed straight into his nose. He fell back, crying and clutching his face.

Using the strong muscles in her thighs, she pushed him away with her powerful legs. He hit the floor as she scrambled away, standing on the other side of the bed.

No sooner had Lucca hit the floor than a roar filled her ears. Gio came out of nowhere. He took it all in an instant, running toward them to grab the drunken idiot by the collar.

She had no idea how strong Gio was until he picked up Lucca with one arm, swinging him like a rag doll. He dragged him farther from the bed and started pounding on him. His fist came down over and over, the dull thudding sounds of flesh being beaten filling her ears.

Lucca was crying and weeping openly, gibbering on in Italian. He was trying to cover his head and face, curling into a ball while pleading for Gio to stop. But that wasn’t going to happen.

Sophia stood frozen in shock until she caught a glimpse of the cold rage on his face. It was chilling.

He’s going to kill him.

Sick to her stomach, she realized it was up to her to save the man who’d attempted to rape her.

“Stop it, Gio!” she said, running up to him and putting her arms around him.

But he was too far gone to listen to reason.

He shrugged her off. She landed on her butt on the floor. Picking herself up, she reached out and took his arm, stopping it from connecting with Lucca’s head.

“Gio, please!”

The boy was still conscious, covering his head and sobbing with a harsh wheezing sound. Desperate to stop her enraged lover, she jumped on his back, wrapping her legs around him and squeezing with all her might.

“Sophia!” Gio yelled, finally acknowledging her.

“Stop it!” she shouted back. “Stop it now, or you’re going to kill him!”

“That’s the idea.”

“No! He’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“I don’t care! He’s dead!” he said, trying to shrug her off without hurting her.

She wasn’t as gentle. She squeezed harder until she could swear his ribs groaned in protest.

“For fuck’s sake,” Gio wheezed.

Coughing raggedly, he stopped struggling, so she relaxed the muscles of her legs. They stayed like that for a long moment, their breathing fast and ragged.

“Are you going to get off me now?”

Still holding tight, she craned her neck, trying to look at his face. “That depends. Are you going to stop?”

He didn’t answer, so she held on and waited.

“All right,” he finally ground out.

She slid down, clinging to his shoulders with shaky hands.

In front of them, the teenage boy curled into himself and cried harder. He was saying something, but her Italian was too poor to understand properly.

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