Page 70 of Savage Proposal

Damian shook his head. Lorenzo let out a sound that was like a growl. He gently guided me to a place near the wall, far enough back that I wasn’t within touching distance. “Stay there,dolcezza. Don’t come closer.”

“Okay,” I breathed out, unable to look away from the priest’s bloodied hand.

Lorenzo stared at me for a long while, and then he turned and became a different person entirely. The aura around him changed and grew colder. It was the same thing that was emanating from Damian and Elio.

I was standing in a room with three predators but…somehow, I was safe from them. They were here to protect me, to hurt the man who had hurt me. There was a lot of power in that.

“Which family were you working for, Father?” Lorenzo asked, and I shivered at the sound of his voice. It was almost sweet, almost kind, but there was a slice of cruelty to it. A mocking of how he would talk to me in the bedroom.

Father David tried to speak, but the gag muffled the words. Damian loosened whatever it was in his mouth and pulled it aside. They must have had it tied tightly because I could see the angry red marks from where it had cut into his cheeks. “It doesn’t matter,” the priest panted out. “I didn’t—” His eyes landed on me, and I froze. Lorenzo grabbed him by the hair and forced his gaze away from me. “I wasn’t sent out of malice.”

Lorenzo spat on him. “Do you think that matters?” Now, he wrenched him so that he was looking at me. “Do you think it matters to her that you didn’twantto hurt her?”

My throat was dry, but I forced myself to speak. “It doesn’t.”

Lorenzo smiled at me, sharp and terrifying and proud, and I knew that I would never be able to come back from this. “See? She doesn’t care about your intentions. What we want to know is who sent you and why.”

When Father David didn’t answer quickly enough, Lorenzo nodded to Elio, who took the pliers and clamped them around the nail on his middle finger. He yanked quickly, and a screambubbled from the priest’s throat. “I was in debt,” he screamed, as if he were begging for our mercy. “I owed them so much money.” The words reminded me so much of my father, of the situations that he frequently got himself into, that it made me sick. I gagged and sank my teeth into my fist, trying to hold it all back. This room did not seem heavily ventilated, and the smell of vomit would not improve things.

“You owed money to who,” Lorenzo said.

Tears were running down Father David’s face. It was the lowest that I had ever seen a human being, and I should pity him, but I felt none of that. Instead, I felt cold in a way that I never had before: cold from the inside. I wrapped my arms around myself. “Artem,” he choked out. “Artem Volkov.”

The name didn’t mean anything to me, but I saw a ripple of acknowledgment in the men. “Why did you owe Artem Volkov money, Father?”

The priest shook his head, eyes pleading. “Don’t make me say it.” Elio moved on to his ring finger, but as soon as he gripped the nail between the pliers, the man started to blubber. “Artem has boys.”

I gagged, and Lorenzo glanced over his shoulder at me before he put his focus on Father David. “You like them young, Father?” he asked, and I could hear the anger simmering beneath his words.

The priest shook his head, sobbing. “Notchildren,” he insisted. “They were older, I swear.”

It didn’t matter. No one in the room, me included, believed him. Lorenzo glanced at me. “Look away,dolcezza,” he said. “It’s time.”

Father David started to fight now, seeing that the end was near. “No,” he begged. “No, please, I have more information.” His eyes flicked to me. “I know why I was sent after her.”

CHAPTER 43

Lorenzo

Father David was full of bullshit. I stared at the man, crying and bleeding as he was, and I knew he was trying to delay the inevitable. “Tell me,” I said. “Why did Volkov want anything to do with an eighteen-year-old girl? How did he even know Isabella?”

The priest shook his head weakly. “I’ll only tell you if you promise to let me live.”

Of course. “I should crush your face and watch you suffocate,” I said and leaned in. “You’renotleaving this room alive, Father.”

“Then, she’ll never know.”

The fucking gall of this man. “Boss?” Damian asked. “What do you want us to do?”

I took a deep breath and turned around to face Isabella. She was leaning against the wall as far back as she could. I wanted to get closer to her, but I wasn’t sure how well she would take that. “What do you want to do,dolcezza?” I asked her. “I could end his life now, just like I promised.”

She shook her head. “I have to know.” Her words were a whispered plea.

“Okay,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Please.”

I turned my back on her again. “You can live,” I told Father David. “You give me everything that I need to go after who is responsible, and I will let you disappear. Leave the Church, leave the fucking state; if I ever get wind of you again?—”

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