Page 163 of Maddening Fixation

Perhaps this was what it meant to love a man who hated you.

You could save his life three times and still be worth nothing to him.

Keegan stepped forward, his expression tight with disbelief.

“Boss, surely you aren’t going to let Zachary walk out of here after the disrespect he just showed you—and your wife?”

Romeo’s gaze remained fixed on the warehouse entrance long after the last of Zachary’s vehicles disappeared beyond the gates.

His expression was unreadable.

Then his eyes shifted to Keegan. “Set up an ambush.”

Keegan went still.

“None of them leave Florida alive.”

Romeo’s voice was quiet and absolute.

“I want every man in that convoy dead. Zachary and his son included.”

A beat of silence. “Bring their heads to my fifth warehouse.”

Keegan’s jaw dropped.

“Boss—”

“Kill them all.” Romeo didn’t raise his voice, but the command fell with the finality of a death sentence.

He turned away from Keegan, already finished with the matter, as though the lives he had just ordered taken were nothing more than another problem to be removed from his territory.

Keegan hesitated for only a second before nodding.

“Yes, Boss.”

The Irish soldiers moved immediately.

They scattered with practiced efficiency, weapons secured and orders relayed in clipped voices as they poured out of the warehouse and into the waiting vehicles.

Engines roared to life outside.

One vehicle after another disappeared through the gates, carrying Romeo’s men toward the hunt he had just unleashed.

Within minutes, the enormous warehouse had fallen eerily quiet.

The echoes of footsteps faded.

The vehicles vanished.

The last engine disappeared into the distance.

Until only Romeo and I remained.

Romeo walked back to the metal beam, his gaze settling on the bullet hole where Zachary’s son’s shot had struck.

He ran his fingertips across the fresh dent, studying it in silence.

I watched him from several feet away.