Chapter 88: Rescuing Her. His Burning Rage.

Chapter 88.

Xavier’s POV.

They had touched my woman. They had fucking touched her.

The exact moment my heavy boots stepped over the shattered, broken remains of the warehouse doors, the very first thing my eyes landed on was her. On my Bunny. On my fucking Bunny. On my sweet, helpless, perfect Bunny.

Their filthy, rough hands were all over her body. Their hands were pinned against my woman, tearing at her clothes, and oh goodness me, she looked completely terrified. She looked like her entire world was coming to an absolute, horrifying end right before her eyes… until she looked up through the dust and saw me standing in the wreckage.

The moment those four men saw my silhouette through the rising dust, their entire bodies froze completely still. Yeah. They knew exactly who they were looking at. They were looking directly at Xavier Thorne. The under-boss of the undercover mafia syndicate. The child who was abandoned on the brutal, unforgiving streets of New York to become a hoodlum, who fought his way through the blood and concrete to become the youngest kingpin the underworld had ever witnessed. Now, my name and my face are feared by every single mafia family across the country. They all knew the absolute rules of the streets. They knew never to come close to a single thing that I cherished. But these bastards had crossed the line. They had laid their hands on my property, and I was not going to spare a single fucking one of them.

The large, broken iron doors behind me seemed to seal the room in darkness, and I watched as they began to tremble in pure, unadulterated fear. Their breath caught in their throats. Their shoulders slumped. Their fingers began to shake against their weapons. They were shaking because they knew exactly what my presence meant… they knew with absolute certainty that they were going to die in this room, and there was no running away from me. There was no backup coming for them. There was no escape.

I did not turn my gaze to stare directly at my Bunny now. It wasn’t because I didn’t care about her. It wasn’t because my heart was not desperately yearning to pull her into my arms, hold her tight, and wipe the blood from her cut lips. No. She was my entire world, and I was starting to realize with terrifying clarity that my life was completely meaningless without her in it. If she was gone, I would have nothing left to live for. But right now, these men had touched what belonged to me, so they deserved nothing but an agonizing, slow death. My focus had to remain entirely on their execution. I had to be the monster they feared.

“And who the fuck gave you the right to touch what is mine?” I asked, my voice dropping into a dangerously low, raspy growl that echoed loudly off the cold, empty walls of the warehouse.

My eyes were completely bloodshot, filled with a blinding, murderous rage that I could feel burning behind my eyelids. The veins in my neck and arms were bulging. I slowly stepped out of the heavy shadows and walked straight into the dim, flickering light of the warehouse, my black handgun raised firmly in my grip.

“I… I didn’t mean to…” the leader stammered, his teeth chattering violently as he tried to take a step back. His confidence from earlier was entirely gone.

Before he could even utter the fifth word of his pathetic excuse, my hand moved with lightning speed. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! I fired four fucking bullets in rapid succession, targeting their kneecaps with absolute precision to bring every single one of them down to their fucking knees.

Their knees met the hard concrete floor roughly with a loud thud. They groaned and shrieked in pain, clutching their shattered joints as blood began to soak through their trousers. Perfect. This was the exact reason why I had started learning how to handle a gun at the tender age of eight. For horrific reasons just like this. To protect what belongs to me, to guard the woman I love, and to eradicate anyone who dared to challenge my authority in this city.

I glanced toward Bunny for a split second, watching as she flinched in raw fear from the loud, deafening blasts of the gun. She immediately began to crawl backward across the dirty concrete, her eyes wide with terror as she looked at me. She was scared of me. She was looking at me like I was a dangerous monster, and that realization broke my heart into pieces. I could see the disgust and horror in her eyes, and it pained me deeply. But I couldn’t stop now. The job wasn’t finished.

“My lord… We are so sorry for… for standing while you are talking,” the leader wheezed, blood pooling heavily around his legs as he begged for mercy, his forehead touching the floor.

I didn’t let them finish their sentence. I stretched my arm out again, cold, mechanical, and completely devoid of human emotion, and I fired another precise round of shots. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four more bullets tore cleanly through their upper arms. It wasn’t enough to kill them just yet, but it was more than enough to make them suffer excruciating pain before they breathed their last. I wanted them to feel a fraction of the terror they had inflicted on Bunny.

Bunny was shaking violently, crying softly into her hands as she continued to crawl backward, trying to get as far away from the gunfire and my dark aura as humanly possible.

I walked closer to the men, the heavy soles of my boots clicking loudly against the concrete floor. My eyes were entirely red, and I demanded again, “Who gave you the right to fucking touch what belongs to me? Answer me!”

They were crying like babies now, their faces covered in sweat and tears as the dark red blood continued to leak heavily from their arms and legs. Their bodies were shaking uncontrollably from the sheer shock of the bullets.

“We didn’t know!” one of them yelled out, his voice cracking with agony. “We swear we didn’t know she was your woman, Thorne! We were just following orders! We were just paid to do a job!”

I wanted to open my mouth and ask them who they were. I wanted to demand the exact identity of the person who had hired them to storm that restaurant and drag her away. But I forced myself to hold back. I stopped myself because, deep down in my mind, a terrible, dark suspicion was already forming. My father could have easily sent them. He was the only one with the resources, the tracking ability, and the sick motive to strike at me through her. And I knew that if Bunny found out my own father was actively hunting her down and trying to end her life, she would never want to be with me again. She would think my entire world was too dangerous. She would flee from me forever out of fear for her life. So I tightly held myself back from asking for names. I couldn’t risk the truth destroying my chances with her.

I returned my harsh, deadly gaze to the bleeding men on the floor. Seeing them like this, pathetic and broken, I badly wanted to do my usual routine. I wanted to draw my combat knife from my belt, dip the sharp blade deep into their flesh, and tear them wide open until there was nothing left of them but scraps. But with my Bunny sitting right there in the corner, watching every single move I made, I couldn’t afford to traumatize her any further. She had already seen too much horror and violence today. I didn’t want her to see me act like a complete butcher.

Without saying another word, I took a calculated step backward, my veins pulsing with heavy adrenaline. I leveled the gun one last time, aiming straight at their heads.

“When next you come into this world… avoid anything that is mine,” I stated coldly.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I fired three consecutive shots directly into the skulls of three of the men, ending their lives instantly. Their bodies slumped heavily onto the floor, completely lifeless, their blood spreading fast across the warehouse concrete. I purposely left the fourth man alive, bleeding out on the concrete, as a message to whoever stumbled upon this place later. Let his boss know what happens when you touch Xavier Thorne’s woman.

Slowly, deliberately, I slid the warm gun back into my jacket pocket. The silence in the warehouse was deafening now, broken only by the sound of the wind outside. I turned away from the dead bodies and walked over to where Bunny was sitting against the wall.

But the moment I stopped right in front of her and dropped to my knees to reach for her, Bunny was far too scared. She scrambled backward with so much panic that her entire body shook violently against the wall, her eyes filled with absolute horror as she looked at my bloody clothes. She was trembling, sobbing, and pushing herself away from me as if I were the devil himself.