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There was only one person who would be desperate enough to dare to assault my home: Caesar Hernández. Sofia’s father had sent men to retrieve her.
Possessive rage ripped through my body in a torrent I’d never experienced before, driving me to action before I fully considered a plan or assessed the risks. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have sent a message to Adrián for backup, and I would have stationed myself as close to Sofia as possible to shelter her from a defensive position.
As it was, mind-numbing fury propelled me toward my enemies, my muscles straining with the imperative to rip apart anyone who was foolish enough to try to take her from me.
I could have grabbed one the many Glocks I kept stashed around my home as I dashed to the back door. But using a gun to dispatch the men who threatened what was mine wouldn’t satisfy me. Vicious, primal instinct urged me to mutilate them with my bare hands.
Based on the heat signatures provided by my security system, there were three of them.
An easy number to handle on my own. Caesar had opted for a stealthy extraction rather than a full-on assault. I almost wished there were more attackers for me to punish. Only three might not be enough for me to vent my rage.
I pressed the button on my app that activated the floodlights behind my house just before I dropped my phone onto the grass. I wanted full use of my hands for this.
The assailants cursed when the sudden wash of light seared their eyes. Their seconds of blindness provided all the time I needed to launch my attack.
I put one man down with a punch to the throat. The second man’s jaw shattered beneath my fist. The third tried to aim an assault rifle at me, but I ripped it from his hands before he could get his bearings.
Satisfied that the other two were incapacitated for a few minutes, I decided to take more time with this one. I whipped the rifle around and slammed the butt of the gun into his ribs, hard enough to ensure they cracked, but not hard enough to puncture his lung.
None of them would be allowed to die for several more hours, at least. Once my rage was sated by their blood, I could dump whatever was left of them at Caesar’s doorstep as a warning to never fuck with me again.
“Sofia is mine,” I snarled into the man’s face as I tackled him to the ground, pinning him with my hand around his throat.
“Wait,” he choked, his fingernails scrabbling at my wrist.
I squeezed, cutting off his air supply. His eyes bulged, and his face turned purple. Just as he started to go limp beneath me, I eased off.
“You don’t get to die yet,” I seethed. “Did you really think you could come into my home and take her from me? I’ll send you all back to Caesar in pieces.”
“We didn’t come…to take her.” The man struggled to speak through heaving breaths. “Just a message.”
I flexed my fingers around his throat. “You expect me to believe that you broke into my property armed with assault rifles just to deliver a message?”
The man held his hands up, desperate to placate me. “Precautions. Caesar knows…” He coughed and gasped. “Attacking you will mean war. He wants to make a deal.”
“And why couldn’t he just call me?”
“Would you have listened?” he rasped.
I growled down at the man, because I knew he was right. “I don’t have to make a deal with Caesar,” I ground out. “I have Sofia. He has to prove his loyalty to Adrián if he ever wants to see his daughter again.”
“He knows this. But he wants… She’s engaged. The alliance with Pedro Ronaldo. Caesar can’t back out. It will upset the balance of power with the Mexican cartels.”
My hand tightened around his throat, and I barely retained the presence of mind to prevent myself from crushing his windpipe. “I don’t give a fuck about the Mexican cartels. If Caesar thinks I’ll give Sofia to Ronaldo, then he doesn’t understand what I’m really capable of.”
The man’s mouth opened and closed. I loosened my grip enough to allow him to breathe. I wasn’t nearly finished with him.
“You might not…care. But Adrián Rodríguez does,” he persisted. “Ronaldo expects to marry a virgin, and if you—”
Bone and cartilage crunched beneath my hand, and the man’s face went slack.
I threw my head back and roared out my fury. He wasn’t supposed to be dead yet.
The other two were still alive, though. I could hear them groaning behind me.
I pushed to my feet, stalking toward them. They cowered in my shadow.
I could kill them so easily. I wanted to kill them. They’d tried to take Sofia away from me.
We didn’t come to take her. Just a message. I recalled the dead man’s words. You might not care. But Adrián Rodríguez does.
