Page 85 of Savage Proposal

Isabella’s tongue flicked out, gliding over the raw, ragged edges of her bottom lip. “I need to get her away from him,” she said. “Before he has a chance to hurt her.”Like he did to you.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll get her away from him, then.” I could not care less about Isabella’s sister; she wasn’t anyone to me. But helping her would put me close to Santino, and thatfiglio di puttananeeded to die.

“Really?”

I touched her cheek. “I am going to put a bullet in your father, understand?”

The corner of Isabella’s mouth quirked up in a mockery of a smile. “Just a bullet?” she asked.

I leaned down and brushed my mouth against hers. “I could bring him to the basement and let Elio play with him, if that’s what you want,” I said.

A shiver ran through her. “I—” She swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I just want him gone.”

“That is assured,” I told her. “I promise you.”

Isabella nodded. “I trust you.”

Fuck. There was something about her saying that she trusted me that made me rock fucking hard. She knew I was a man of my word, no matter what, and at least some part of her knew that she could rely on me.God, I wanted her, even though I’d just hadher.Now wasn’t the time for it…but the next time I had her in my bed, I was tying her to the headboard again and I might not let her leave for several days.

I let her go before I bent her over my desk. “Elio and I will leave in ten minutes,” I told her.

She caught my hand. “I want to go.”

Absolutely not. Putting Isabella in harm’s way was never going to happen, but I could see the argument already set into her features. “You’ll listen to me the entire time?” I asked. “No arguments?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Yes,” she promised.

I threaded our fingers together. “You’re going to need to change,” I told her, eyeing her pajamas.

Once we hit the hallway, however, I steered her down the opposite way from my bedroom. “What are you doing?” she asked, digging her heels into the hall’s carpet. “Lorenzo?” At the end of the hallway there was a guest room that had been outfitted with a lock on the outside, and Isabella started struggling the minute she realized it. “Don’t!” she screamed. “Please, Lorenzo.”

Without a word, I pushed her into the guest room and closed the door in her face. The last view that I had of her was her expression twisting into one of anger and betrayal.

She’ll be fine. I could apologize later if she needed me to.

“Should we be doing this?” Elio asked as we followed the satnav to the address that Santino had sent to Isabella. “We burned down a building tonight.”

“Should we? Probably not.” But we were already five minutes away from the location.

Elio kept his head on a swivel to keep an eye out for anyone who might be following us. When we arrived at the address, it wasn’t an apartment. It was a café that had closed three hours before. “Enzo, I don’t like this,” my cousin said.

“I don’t either.” I parked the car and grabbed my cell phone from the cupholder beside me. Opening my contacts, I clicked Gemma’s number, saved from Isabella’s phone, and called it. On one of the tables outside of the café, a phone lit up at the same time the call connected. Like someone had left it there inadvertently after stopping for some coffee.

Elio saw it too. “Fuck.” He started to look around frantically. I did the same, expecting to be ambushed. When nothing happened, the feeling of dread deepened. “This is a trap, right?” he asked.

“It certainly seems so.”

“But.” His eyes met mine. “There’s no one here.”

Déjà vu hit me hard.God-fucking-damnit. After Sienna’s murder, I had always been on my guard; I was determined to never be surprised by anything again. But this was just too convenient, wasn’t it?

Santino would have known that Isabella couldn’t leave the estate without telling me. So, he either hoped that she would try tosneak out, which could end in her death. Or, he knew that she would come running to me.

“Turn around,cugino,” Elio urged, having come to the same conclusion.

I whipped away from the curb and plunged back into the darkness.Damian is with her, I told myself, and he was the polar opposite of Francis. I had trusted the man with my life for years, and he had never let me down. He wouldn’t allow Isabella to come to any harm.

Still, I flattened the gas pedal against the floorboard. Elio grunted as we sped up, but he didn’t complain. He was just as eager to see Amalia safe. “They’re going to be fine,” I said out loud, even if that sinking feeling was only getting worse.

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