Massioni sneered at Savage. “Done chasing rabbits so soon, warrior? Here I’d been looking forward to taking my time with these three.”

“You heard me. Put the boy down.”

Instead of complying, he raised Pietro higher, until the child’s rib cage was level with Massioni’s open maw. Saliva dripped from the tips of his fangs. “Put down your weapon, warrior.”

Savage didn’t move. He didn’t as much as blink. Holding his 9mm steady, he only hoped Massioni would believe his bluff.

“Bella,” he said calmly. “Move out of the way, baby.”

Massioni growled. “Don’t you take even one fucking step, Bella, or the next thing you’ll hear is this brat’s screams as I punch a hole through his sternum with my fist.”

Chiara sobbed. Bella looked equally miserable, but she held herself together. She stared at Savage, shaking her head as if to warn him away from doing anything rash.

Well, fuck that. He would do anything to get her out of this, but damn if he wanted to forfeit an innocent child’s life to accomplish it.

He saw little choice but to try to catch Massioni off guard.

In a split-second move, Savage took his shot, hitting the Breed male’s forearm.

Massioni hissed as the bullet bit into his ravaged flesh.

As Savage hoped, he lost his grip on Pietro. The boy dropped to the floor, unharmed.

But then, just as quickly, Massioni snatched up Bella and hauled her against him like a shield.

She screamed. Arms trapped at her sides, she struggled in vain to break loose. The monster who held her only chuckled, seeming to delight in her terror. His glowing gaze was wild with madness. And dangerously smug triumph.

Savage couldn’t contain the nasty curse that exploded out of him. He’d never known this kind of fear. He’d never felt the kind of bleak horror that raked him as he watched his mate sag into a resigned slump in her captor’s arms.

Massioni tilted his head, those insane amber eyes studying Savage too closely.

“What’s this?” he taunted. “Why, you look more than worried for this bitch, warrior. Am I taking something you thought belonged to you?”

“Let her go.”

He held his weapon steady on his target, but he knew damned well he would never pull the trigger. Not when he was staring at Bella’s beautiful, fear-stricken face.

If anything happened to her—for crissake, if she died right here at Massioni’s hands—he would burn the whole world down around him.

“Please,” he said woodenly, too afraid of losing her to care if he had to beg. “Let her go.”

Massioni’s eyes narrowed on him. “You’ve fucked her.”

Savage bristled at the other male’s crudeness. He wanted to flay him just for uttering the words.

A bark of laughter erupted from between the male’s cracked and blistered lips. “Holy hell. You love her. Don’t you, warrior?”

Bella made an anguished sound in the back of her throat. She shook her head at Savage, and as their eyes connected and held, he didn’t so much feel fear in their bond, but a strange and steely determination.

“She’s no good to me now,” Massioni muttered. “Her gift was the only thing of value to me. You’ve ruined it.” He shrugged. “I might as well kill her now.”

Massioni gripped her chin in his soot-blackened, blood-stained fingers. He yanked her head back, and Bella’s sharp cry tore into Savage.

Her pain was real.

But her terror had galvanized into something else.

Something that told Savage to trust what he was feeling, not what he was seeing.

“All right.” He relaxed his stance, lowering his weapon. “All right, you son of a bitch. You win.”

Massioni stilled. Confusion swept over his feral features. His hold on Bella relaxed—ever so slightly.

It was all the opportunity she needed.

Twisting in the slackened cage of his arms, Bella drew the dagger she’d been concealing in her hand and drove it hard and fast and mercilessly into the center of his chest.

He staggered back, a look of shock on his face.

Until the poison of the titanium began to seep into his corrupted blood system. He howled, his face constricting in disbelief and agony. His body convulsed, collapsing to the floor.

Savage was at Bella’s side in no time, pulling her close to him—holding her tight as the Rogue that had once been Vito Massioni began to disintegrate into a puddle of sizzling, melting flesh and bone.

In a few moments, there was only ash where his body had been.

He was dead, and Bella was safe.

Chiara and her son had come through the ordeal uninjured too.

As Savage held Bella in his embrace, he glanced to the door where Scythe had now entered. The former Hunter strode inside his house, his black gaze taking in the signs of struggle and the pile of ash still crackling on the floor. Then he looked to Chiara and Pietro, the pair of them huddled together nearby, and something crossed the remote male’s face.

Relief, Savage thought.

And maybe something more.

Regret?

Whatever it was, the emotion was there and gone in an instant.

He gave Savage a sober nod, whether in confirmation of what he’d allowed him to see just then, or in acknowledgment of their teamwork tonight, Savage wasn’t sure.

He might have tried to decipher it, but right then, with Bella warm and alive in his arms and his heart full to the brim with love for her, the only thing on his mind was the well-being of his woman.

His brave, beautiful mate.

He couldn’t contain himself from dragging her to him for his kiss.

She resisted a little, drawing back on a small groan. “Ettore, I’m a mess. I have his blood on me…his foulness.”

“That won’t stop me from kissing you,” he told her gently. “Nothing is going to stop me from doing that ever again.”

He pulled her closer, wrapping her in his embrace as he brushed his lips over hers in a slower claiming, a tender joining of their mouths that still had the power to inflame them both—even after the ordeal they had just endured. Perhaps because of it too.

But she was right. She had been through hell with Massioni. Not only tonight, but for the past three years as well.

Now that the monster was no more, Savage wanted to erase all trace of him from Bella’s life.

He swept his tongue across her soft lips on a groan that promised more. With Chiara quietly tending to her son, Savage lifted his head to look at Scythe.