Page 88 of Savage Proposal

He thanked her. “You’re quite good at patching me up,” he said before he headed to his room for some rest.

I reached out to touch her, and again, she stepped out of my way. “Dolcezza, really?”

She glared at me. “I’m going to put a bag together for Amalia. Be ready to go in twenty, all right?” There was not an ounce of friendliness in her tone.

I wanted her in my arms for just a moment, but I didn’t force the issue. We could discuss it, or fuck about it, later. “I’ll be in my office when you’re ready.”

Isabella

I had been in Amalia and Elio’s room once or twice since coming to the estate, but I had largely tried to keep out of it and respect their privacy. It felt like a wasted effort now that I was elbow-deep in their drawers, digging out clothes for the both of them.

Once I was finished with clothes, I would grab some toiletries from their bathroom. The smell of the hospital-grade shampoo and lotion made me sick to my stomach; I had been forced to use plenty of it during my long hospital stay following my attack. There hadn’t been anyone there to bring my favorite things, and I didn’t want that to happen to Amalia.

I opened the very top drawer in their bureau. I didn’t want to paw around her panties, but she would need some, and while what she had on top was very pretty, thongs and lace wouldn’t be comfortable. So, I dug deeper into the recesses of the drawer. She had to have period panties, right? What woman didn’t?

My fingers brushed over something that felt like paper, and I was pulling it out of the drawer before I could tell myself not to.This is an invasion of privacy, I reminded myself, but my eyes were already glued to the picture in my hand.

My first thought was that I was looking at a picture of myself, but that was a stupid thought. I didn’t own the clothes the woman had on in the picture, and while at first glance, she and I could have been mistaken for twins, I noticed that her hair was lighter and longer than mine, and her teeth were perfectly straight. Mine were ever-so-slightly crooked. Plus, she didn’t have a spiderweb of silver scars climbing up her cheek.

Who is this?

I turned the photograph over, and the air was sucked out of my lungs. On the back, in Amalia’s scrawl, was:Sienna Bianchi, 2016.

Sienna. Bianchi.

This was Lorenzo’s wife; I had nearly forgotten that she and Amalia were cousins. I turned the photo back over and looked at it again. My stomach sank with that uncanny valley feeling. She looked like me, but she didn’t look like me.

The pit inside me grew even more. I was a facsimile of the woman Lorenzo had fallen head over heels for. The dead woman that he still lived for. For a moment, I let it sink in that everything between us had been a lie. Or, in the very least,tainted by what he didn’t say. There was no coming back from this; I might not love myself every day, but I had more self-respect than to be with a man who only wanted me because I could be the 2.0 version of his dead spouse.

Too quickly, however, that overwhelming sadness that threatened to drown me disappeared, and it was replaced by rage.

The world became a hazy red around the edges.

CHAPTER 56

Lorenzo

“You have my word that I will call the moment I get word on Amalia,” I promised the sobbing woman in my ear. Amalia’s mother wasn’t the kind of woman who fell apart at the drop of a hat, nor was she the kind of woman who would ignore a time where a little bit of histrionics could go a long way.

She was trying to wheedle me into giving her Sienna’s fox fur coat, and I was nearly ready to hand over the moth-eaten old things if it would get me off this phone.

“I’ll call again soon,” I said. “Uh-huh. Goodbye.” I set the phone back into its cradle and squeezed the bridge of my nose between my fingers. The Bianchis had to be told about Amalia and I still had to call all of the minor families about the Volkovs.

The Gallos were sure to pitch in for whatever I might need them for…but for a price. A lot of the minor family Dons were nothing if not predictable, and I knew that asking them to join me in taking down the Volkovs would not be free.

I scrolled through my contacts for Don Gallo’s number when a smashing sound stopped me. I dropped my phone and grabbed the gun at the small of my back, running entirely on instinct.

Sienna’s study was open again, and when I pushed the door fully open, there was Isabella. All around her were the remains of the lamps that Sienna liked to turn on when she spent hours reading. One of her rare books was in Isabella’s hands, and she wasripping outthe pages and dropping them to the ground.

“What in the fuck are you doing?” I clicked the gun safety on and set it down before I rushed her. I yanked the book out of her hands, cringing about the idea that the oils on her hands were ruining the book even more.

Isabella didn’t seem at all fazed by having the book taken away; she lunged for another one, and the only thing stopping her was me catching her around the middle. “Dolcezza, what’s wrong? Why would you do this?”

She was shaking in my arms, and for a moment, I thought she had to be crying. She had to have lost every bit of her fucking mind. But when I let her go enough to get a look at her, Isabella was laughing. “You asked me how I could do this?” She was laughing harder now: deep laughs that came straight from her belly. It would be charming in a different context.

“Hai perso la testa?” I wanted to shake her…but it was also startling to realize that I wasn’t so filled with rage that I went homicidal. “Dolcezza.”

“Don’t call me that!” She screamed in my face, voice immediately ragged. “Why don’t you tell me what you called her, huh? Tell me what special little nickname Sienna had?”

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