“I can’t believe she’d rather be with a tech geek like you thanwith a man who has all the power in the world. You work forme, but she chose you.” Steffano huffs and leans against a nearby wall.
His obsession with power and a social hierarchy is obnoxious, and yet I’m the one in a wolf pack.
To stop myself from smarting off, I hold the screwdriver in my mouth while I start working on the cables.
We could do what Dad did with his screwdriver?My wolf suggests, picturing the day back in the garage while I cracked the safe.
The easy way I consider violence should scare me, but I’m getting more used to thinking like Valor. It’s easier to protect Leticia if I’m willing to kill without remorse for her.
“Nothing to say to that?” Steffano crosses his arms in front of his chest.
I take the screwdriver out of my mouth.Try to behave.I let out a slow breath. “Sometimes it’s not about power. Not all women are attracted to it.”
“So they claim.” Steffano raises his nose in the air, and I force myself not to roll my eyes.
“Well, I’m going to get to it. Big project and all.” I gesture to the box of cameras. “Unless you want to help.”
Steffano scoffs. “I’m letting you know that it’ll just be you in the house the rest of the week. I don’t want my men knowing of all the security procedures I have. Do not tell anyone what you do here.”
“Got it. I take what we do seriously. I’m not about to fuck up your house because I’m mad at you for how you treated Leticia.” That might have been a little too bold of me to say.
“She had the chance for me to treat her like a princess. Then I found out she was a whore for the Cavanaghs.”
He did not just say that.My wolf snaps his teeth, growling, tossing his weight into each lunge, and trying to break free.
“You know, if you’d prefer not to have such an easy woman like that for yourself... I know a guy who doesn’t have the same rigid rules your organization does for getting rid of someone unwanted.” He shrugs, unaware of the rage coursing through me. “It would be quick, and her body would never be found. I’ll give him a call right now.”
Steffano’s offer to kill my mate snaps my threads of barely contained restraint.
I lunge forward, my logical brain gone, survival instinct on high gear.
My wolf helps guide my movements. With the first jab, the screwdriver misses a rib, neatly lodging into the space between.
My next movements become a blur. I pull the screwdriver out and plunge it into the side of his neck. I yank it toward me, ripping it out just like Dad had done in the garage, and Steffano falls to the floor, clutching his neck.
It was so easy. And it happened so fast. It takes me a minute, drawing deep breaths full of copper-scented air, to get a handle on what I just did. The screwdriver coated in crimson now lies at my feet.
Steffano gasps and sputters, coughing blood all over me.Great.
He reaches for the gun strapped to his waist, his bloody fingers slipping against the metal.
“That won’t save you.” I shake my head and reach for it myself.
He fumbles trying to take it out of my hand, and I’m definitely going to need a shower to wash off the evidence of this altercation by the time I flick the safety off.
Too noisy.My wolf warns me.Someone will hear it.
I hate that he’s right. Killing Steffano just got more personal. I click the safety back on and lower the gun to the floor out of his reach before picking up the screwdriver again.
It’s messy but not as hard as I thought it would be to impale his skull through his eye with the screwdriver.
Steffano’s brain shuts down fast, his body slumping to the floor.
“No one talks about my wife like that,” I snarl at his lifeless body.
No one talks about our mate like that.My wolf snaps his teeth in punctuation.
59
