Page 69 of Savage Proposal

“Okay, Cris.”

I walked with him to the living room. Isabella was awake and weeping in Amalia’s arms. “Dolcezza,” I said. She whipped around, face swollen from her tears, and threw herself into me. I caught her easily, wrapping my arms around her and murmuring nonsense to her. “Cristian wanted to speak with you,” I said softly. “Is that all right?”

It took her a moment to shift back enough to look at him, but I was proud when she did. Cristian looked like he wanted to reach out to her, but he clenched his hands into fists so that he didn’t. “I’m so sorry for whatever he put you through,” he said. “I’ll never be able to say it enough.”

“You didn’t do anything to me,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. “It’s not on you to apologize.”

Not that an apology from that fucker would be enough, I added in my head.

“I know,” he said. “But I still wanted to say it.” He did reach out then and cupped her face gently between his hands. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “You make my brother happy,” he said. “Even if thestronzonever says it to you, know that you do.” Cristian looked at me. “Make that fucker pay,fratellone.”

“I will.”

Cristian put his hand on my shoulder, squeezed, and then he was gone. I looked down at Isabella. “Stay with Amalia for a little bit?”

CHAPTER 42

Isabella

“No, I want to go with you.”

Lorenzo’s breath caught in his throat. “Isabella, no.”

He said my actual name, which usually meant he expected me to listen and do as he said. But I shook my head. “Don’t argue with me. I need to look him in his eyes and know why.”

“I’m not going to hold back for your sensibilities,” he warned. “You don’t need to see any of that.”

I shrugged. “I already have nightmares, Lorenzo. Is this going to give me more, or will I finally feel safe to sleep without worrying that someone is going to come in through the window?”

Lorenzo took me at my word. “Get out of the house for a little while,” he said to Amalia, who was standing in the living room, unsure of what to do next. “Go to the store, make up some errands.”

She nodded in understanding. “Sure thing, boss.”

He threaded our fingers together and led me to a door in the hallway that I had never opened before. It was locked allthose months ago when I was first learning the house. It was open now, and I could see there were stairs that led down into darkness.

“What you see down there,” Lorenzo said, pausing at the door, “you can’t ever un-see it, do you understand? And you can never tell anyone about it.”

“I can handle it,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure that I could. A part of me wanted to run screaming back to the safety that Amalia offered, but Ineededthis. Such a large part of my life had been ruined that night in my bathroom, and I wanted it to be over.

Lorenzo brought my hand up and brushed his lips across the back of it, and then we were descending into that darkness. It was cool, and there was a vague mildew smell that I associated with all basements. For a moment, it was like any other basement that I had been in: cinderblock walls, open beams overhead, shelving filled with odds and ends that didn’t quite belong upstairs in the main house.

Then we turned a corner, and there was a door. It was cracked open, but I didn’t hear anything. Maybe they hadn’t started whatever they were going to do just yet?

I held on to that until Lorenzo opened the door wider, and I realized that the hallway was soundproofed. The corridor had several doors on it; each had a lock on the outside. I would have bet my last paycheck at the clinic that each of the rooms were soundproofed as well. “Are these holding cells?” I asked.

“Yes.”

My chest tightened. The air around us felt hotter somehow. This was where he was going to put me if I had truly planned to runaway, in this place without light and fresh air. “Besides Father David,” I said, my stomach rolling just saying his name, “is there anyone else down here?”

“Not right now.” But he didn’t reassure me that there would never be anyone left down here; I knew it wasn’t a thing that he could say or promise. Nausea gripped me for a moment, and I had to swallow hard so I didn’t throw up as we walked down that corridor. Now was not the time for morning sickness.

We came to the end of the hallway, to the door at the very end, and Lorenzo reached for the doorknob. He paused for a second, glancing at me, and then he pushed the door open. At first, all I could take in was the screaming. We hadn’t heard it in the hallway, but it was bloodcurdling now.

Father David was strapped to what looked like a doctor’s examination table with straps that were straight out of a BDSM nightmare. Something had been stuck into his mouth to muffle the sound of his screams, but it wasn’t helping much. Elio had pulled out two of the man’s fingernails with a pair of pliers that were still in his hands.

“He confirmed that he worked for the Bratva,” Damian said without looking up.

“Which family?”

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