The Savage, page 6
And as I stare into his eyes, a searing emptiness, echoes of whole lives wasted and loves squandered, flares in my mind, catches fire and burns agony through my soul.
5
RENZO
For a few fractured seconds, the world swims between dream and waking. Beeping. Voices. The taste of iron filling every corner of my mouth.
And her. The angel haloed in white, her pale green eyes wide as if she’s never seen sin before. Never had sin made flesh thrusting between her beautiful thighs before, making her scream to the fucking heavens.
I blink, trying to reconcile the breathtaking image before me with reality. The angelic robe of my dreams morphs into a shapeless, long-sleeved habit concealing every inch of her beautiful body. A… fucking wimple? Trembling hands clutching a goddamn rosary. And on her feet are what must be the ugliest shoes ever created.
But even that isn’t what punches breath from my lungs.
It’s the fact that even after having already seen her tonight – hours ago – standing barefoot in her tiny convent cell, a candle trembling between us as my men blew her door off its hinges, the flash of terror in her eyes, her gasp when my hand caught her arm, I still can’t believe she’s real.
And the way she whispered, ‘Why are you doing this?’ even with a hood being pulled over her head? I thought it was all a fever dream.
And now she looks at me again, here, under this blinding hospital light… as if I’m a stranger.
It shouldn’t gut me.
But it fucking does.
She swallows, nerves fluttering in her throat. ‘Why did you come for me?’ Her voice gains bite, the same fire I saw when she resisted while my soldiers restrained her. ‘Why? Nobody answers my questions and I… I deserve an answer. I’m asking you.’
God help me.
Even now, weak, stitched back together, ribs screaming every time I breathe, my cock twitches at the sound of her bite, her defiance.
Don’t think about her biting you, I warn myself.
Too late. I’m already thinking about it.
‘Why do you think?’ I rasp, harsher than intended.
‘I don’t know,’ she snaps back, chin lifting. ‘That’s why I’m asking you.’
Of course she is.
Of course my lost little angel still burns like this, even kidnapped.
Even terrified.
It hits me square in the chest. Giada Mancinelli’s quiet fire, that reckless, holy, forbidden fire, lives untouched.
And God forgive me…
I’ve missed it more than air.
But as I stare at her, a new, terrifying knowledge strikes me, vicious and so fucking deep, I lose what’s left of the air in my lungs.
Because those beautiful eyes bear no hint of recognition, the way her mouth parts in confusion.
My pulse thrashes against the monitor like it’s trying to claw its way free.
‘Giada,’ I rasp… implore again. My throat burns like sandpaper. ‘Angel.’
She flinches, blinking rapidly as if to dislodge tears – or truth. Or reality.
Maybe she’s dreaming too. Doesn’t want to wake up to this fucking nightmare where up is down and my long-lost angel is trapped in limbo.
I say something that doesn’t quite register and it seems to hit her like a slap. Wound her. I see it in the way her spine stiffens. But instead of relief, her face folds into dismay, almost disappointment.
‘I-I’m sorry but you’re mistaken,’ she says quickly, voice small but determined. ‘I’m not who you think I am. My name is Sister Benedetta.’
No. The words ring with practised truth and she looks like she believes it. But to me they might as well be hollow nonsense. And that is an insult to both of us. My chest seizes with the urge to laugh, to demand she stop pretending. To curse the weakness in my body that keeps me shackled to this fucking bed.
I don’t regret telling the doctors to fuck off when they cautioned against my little jaunt to retrieve what’s mine, but I have a feeling I’ll be paying for it longer than I want.
‘Giada,’ I say again, slower this time, tasting the name like a prayer I never stopped saying before offering it to her in clear, unmistakable taunt.
If… after six fucking years, this is how we’re playing this, so be it. From the agony tearing through my body, I have nowhere else to be but right here in this godforsaken bed. For the time being.
She looks down, hands twisting in the rosary wrapped around her delicate hand. Seeking courage? Divine intervention?
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmurs, softer. ‘Whoever this Giada is, she isn’t me. I’m a nun from Santa Maria delle Nevi. Perhaps you and your soldiers… umm, your associates… perhaps you took the wrong person from the wrong location. There’s no Giada where I’m from.’ She glances at the door where a lot of footsteps are approaching. Then she looks back at me. ‘I’ll speak to someone. I’ll pray for you, if that’s what you need. But afterward, please tell them I’d like to be returned to my convent. I won’t even press charges.’
Press charges. Christ. The absurdity almost makes me laugh.
But the monitors don’t. They accelerate, betraying the storm inside me. Building and ready to explode.
Behind her, the doors open and doctors surge forward. Two of them, one young, the other older, both terrified of the black-clad figures – apparently the soldiers she almost let slip just now – lining the walls. The doctors’ gazes flick between me and the men in black with expressions that say we didn’t sign up for this. One whispers something in rapid Italian about cardiac stress; another gestures nervously towards Giada, as if she’s the defibrillator.
I suck in a pained breath and force myself to assess what the fuck’s going on. Last night, I barely assessed the why’s and wherefores of the men who appeared seemingly out of nowhere to assist me in my little kidnapping jaunt. I initially thought they were part of hospital security, placed here by my brothers.
But now, I scrutinise them more carefully, my jaw locking when things fall into place.
The soldiers… while their posture is perfect enough to please a demanding Orazio Salvatore, are not our men. For one, they’re too strait-laced. Too disciplined. Too… government-issue.
And Orazio would rather toss his own foot into a meat grinder than let any Salvatore wear tactical gear over Italian wool. These stiffs are waiting for orders from somewhere above medicine, and far outside my family.
Besides, if my family had dispatched them, they’d be here.
Cesare, Rafa, Dante – hell, especially Orazio – would’ve bulldozed through these statues to get to me, and to the long-lost Giada Mancinelli standing three feet away like a ghost resurrected.
Which means only one thing.
Night – motherfucking – Owl.
The phantom puppeteer with a god complex not only gave me Giada’s location, but helped me extract her as efficiently as possible.
Of course this reeks of them. Their invisible hand. Their penchant for chaos disguised as aid. I would’ve thought they’d disappear into the night after that though.
Yet somehow they’ve managed to keep their men guarding me, guarding us, without alerting my brothers.
I’m torn down the centre between fury and gratitude. Between wanting to tear them several new assholes to offering them my first born – the very one I intend to have with the angel still staring at me like I’m an exorcism patient she’s gearing up to pray for – on a platter.
And when I can stand without swaying, there’s going to be a reckoning. Just as I’m certain whatever their endgame is, it doesn’t stop here.
But none of that matters.
Not when she’s standing there, alive.
My gaze locks on hers. There’s fear in her eyes, yes, but something else, too. A pulse of heightened… unclean, possibly ungodly, emotion she’s fighting hard to bury. She takes a hesitant step back, fingers white and still clutching her rosary.
The machines react first.
Alarms spike as the heart monitor wails in protest.
A volcanic roar builds in my chest next. It’s enough to send furtive glances from the doctors.
‘Signore, you need to calm down,’ one of them says, his voice trembling. ‘Your blood pressure—’
‘Don’t fucking tell me what to do,’ I growl, never looking away from her. ‘Stop,’ I snarl.
Giada… Benedetta… stops mid-step, startled by the sound. Her mouth opens, maybe to apologise, maybe to run.
And then one of the soldiers makes a mistake.
He reaches for her arm.
The world goes red.
Before the thought even finishes forming, I’m moving – ripping out IVs, monitors, tubes. Pain ignites down my side like someone’s taking a blowtorch to my ribs, but I don’t care. My hand slams against the bed rail, metal screaming, and I’m upright. ‘Take your fucking hands off her!’
The roar tears through the room like Vesuvius erupting. The soldier freezes, eyes wide. Every other man in the room tightens his grip on his weapon, waiting for a command.
She jerks away and her knees hit the chair. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, eyes huge, terrified, and God help me, still so fucking beautiful. She could at this very second snatch the last breath from my lungs and I would happily allow her.
Hell, didn’t I summon her, pray that she would be the last thing I see before the devil took me? Looks like my prayers were answered.
But fuck it, now I want more. I’m staying. Maiming and tearing out throats of anyone who intends otherwise, even God Himself.
Now I can see she’s alive, breathing, I’m greedy for life, too.
I want to reassure her. To explain. But all that comes out is a rasp. ‘Come here.’
She shakes her head. ‘You’re not well, Signore. Please, listen to your doctors and lie down,’ she says softly. But her eyes are still wide.
‘I will. If you come closer.’
Her fear flares again, and she takes another step back instead. ‘Why?’ she demands, and it’s another beautiful sign of the stubborn girl I knew. The one with a thousand questions for one request. I would grin if I wasn’t in agony. If I wasn’t poised to chase her the fuck down if she dares one more step. ‘You don’t even know me,’ she whispers. ‘You think I’m someone I’m not.’
‘I’m not sure what game you’re playing but my patience is wearing thin, sweetheart.’
‘I’m not—’
‘You fucking are,’ I say, forcing breath past my lungs. ‘You’re Giada Mancinelli. And you need to get your sweet ass over here, right fucking now.’
Her mouth trembles. ‘No. And would you please stop cursing so much.’
‘Yes to the first. And if you want the second, you know what to do, Giada.’
‘Please – stop saying that name.’
I can feel my pulse hammering like it’s trying to crack bone. The doctors exchange a glance; one reaches for a syringe, whispers to the other. Sedative. They think they can put me down like a wild animal.
‘Don’t,’ I warn, still without taking my eyes off her. Jesus, I don’t think I’ve blinked since I open my eyes from the way they burn. And I won’t. Not if she intends to run.
‘Signore,’ the younger one says, ‘we have to stabilise you. Your vitals—’
‘Put me to sleep,’ I snarl, cutting him off, ‘and you better fucking kill me. Because when I wake up’ – I lean forward, eyes locking with his until he pales – ‘I’ll peel this place apart, brick by brick, starting with you. And if she’s gone, I’ll hunt down your family, kill every last one of them. Capisci?’
The room goes silent.
Even the machines hesitate, as if afraid to make a sound.
The doctors step back, raw fear filming their eyes.
Good. Whichever family member dumped me here… Cesare, Rafa or most likely Orazio, they’ve adequately apprised the staff of the Salvatore power and might.
So I can safely return my focus where it craves to be.
On the woman still standing too far away.
After all this time, what the hell was she doing in that place? And why? The Giada I remember had zero plans of giving herself to God.
Unless under the colossal weight of guilt?
The thought isn’t a sentence so much as a detonation ripping through my skull. She’s five feet away in a habit like a cross between a dare and the filthy temptations entertained at stag dos or red rooms.
Her skin is too pale for my liking, eyes too wide for my sanity. The room reeks of antiseptic and fear. Mine. Hers. Theirs.
Too fucking much.
The younger doctor takes a nervous step forward, still holding his syringe like he’s summoning the courage to tranquillise a tiger. I don’t bother looking at him.
I only point. ‘Out,’ I say, eyes on her. ‘You. The puppy. Get out.’
He glances to the older doctor for permission. The older one with grey at the temples, hands that have cut into bodies and pulled lives back out, lifts his chin a fraction.
‘Go,’ he tells him, voice even.
The door whispers shut behind the kid. Good. One less heartbeat cluttering the air and my thought process.
‘Dottore,’ I rasp, ‘tell her to come closer.’
The older doctor studies the monitor, then me, then her. He knows what he’s seeing. Spikes that will turn into storms if he picks the wrong word. And he knows what will make his very much hanging-in-the-balance life easier.
His gaze flicks to the soldiers hugging the walls. They don’t blink. He turns back to her with a professional calm I almost respect.
‘For the patient’s own good,’ he says gently, ‘come a little closer, Sister.’
My spine stiffens at Sister.
Everything inside me screams but I strive not to show it.
I’m willing to give the Unhinged Salvatore a rest for a second if it’ll get her to move closer, dammit. The veil shadows her throat as she swallows. ‘If the patient calms himself, I’ll pray from here.’
‘No. Closer,’ I growl.
The chair moves closer, swift and silent, conjured by one of the soldiers who has learned obedience and the art of diffusing volatile situations well. I keep an eye on him to interrogate later. He sets it two metres from the bed and fuck, they’re really determined to make me lose my mind.
‘Closer,’ I grit out without looking away from her.
Another scrape. One metre.
‘Jesus Fucking Christ. Closer.’
The legs of the chair bump the bedframe.
A full minute passes while nobody moves. It would almost be comical if entire sanities and families didn’t depend on her next move.
Finally, she jerks forward, a gorgeous feline, with one foot almost fully extended in a balletic arch before she sets it down. Then moves the other.
Whatever Giada Mancinelli has been up to, the innate grace of a ballerina she yearned to be way too long ago hasn’t deserted her.
She still moves like a dream.
And before this mad circus is over, I’ll have her moving that ballerina body right over my cock.
The appendage which I abstractedly note is very much alive and functioning – thank fuck – twitches beneath the expensive cream sheets as she moves closer.
She perches like a bird that knows the hawk is hungry.
I could reach out and touch her now. I don’t. Not quite. But I lift my hand, slow enough not to spook her, and skim the edge of her wimple with my knuckles. Shitty wool hard enough to strip the hide off a donkey rasps on my skin. Holy cloth against unholy man.
Something like a smile twitches at the corner of my mouth despite the burning in my ribs. Of all the things I’ve imagined in six years, this wasn’t one. Her wrapped up like temptation with a halo stapled on. The filthy things I could do to that halo…
I pull my hand back before my heart explodes from a combination of lust and stitches.
‘Who authorised your presence here?’ I ask the soldiers, not her. ‘Who do you answer to?’
The closest soldier keeps his eyes front. ‘Not you, Signor Salvatore.’
I let the silence stretch until it threatens to choke him. ‘That wasn’t the question.’
‘We don’t answer questions,’ he says after a beat. ‘We execute them.’
‘Cute,’ I mutter. ‘Phone.’
No one moves. I turn my head slow and menacing until the doctor flinches. ‘My phone.’
He hesitates. One of the soldiers taps his ear, listening to ghosts, and then, clearly annoyed, pulls a handset from a sealed pouch and drops it on the tray beside me.
My thumb is clumsy with tape and disuse, but muscle memory wins. I unlock it, ignore the flood of unread messages, and open the only app that matters.
There’s a single message waiting.
Nightowl
YOU’RE WELCOME.
The sound that rips out of me is part fury, part snort, and it hurts like the worst torture. I type with deliberate slowness.
Renzo
Accept that this is far from over. I’ll deal with you later.
A little typing bubble appears, flirts with existence, then vanishes. Coward. Or smart. Depends on the night.
‘Comms,’ the lead soldier murmurs to no one, then two fingers press his collar. ‘Delta, confirm.’
A chorus of invisible confirmations ticks through whatever net they’re riding. The leader tips his head, listening, then says flatly, ‘Understood. Orders complete.’ He turns to the squad. ‘Move out.’
They peel off the walls like shadows recoiling from light. Boots. Doors. Gone.
The room exhales a fraction. The old doctor doesn’t. Smart man; he knows storms have eyes and vicious reach.
I look back at her.
She hasn’t moved. Chin high, hands clenched in her lap tight enough to whiten knuckles under the rosary. She won’t look at my bare chest where the sheet has slipped to my waist or the blood at the bandage edges. She’s trying to keep her eyes on a point just to the left of my shoulder like she can make me less real by misaligning me.
