Page 38 of Savage Claim

“Back off,cugino.”

But Elio’s eyes didn’t move from Isabella. “You don’t think the men haven’t noticed how obsessed you’ve become?” he spat. “You barely visit the businesses anymore because you’re lodged so far up yourfottuta puttana’sass.”

Isabella let out an angry sound. “Fuck you, Elio,” she hissed, not needing to know Italian to understand that he’d been insulting.

Elio and I had a tumultuous relationship at times, but I had always been as close to him as my own brother… but the darkfeeling in my chest was far from brotherly. “Did you forget that Isabella saved your wife’s life?” I asked, stepping closer to him. Elio didn’t back down. “If it hadn’t been for her, Amalia would have bled out in the garage.”

“Well done, Don Vitali,” he snarled in return. “You finally picked a woman who could hold her own for more than five minutes.”

My knuckles split when it crashed against his teeth. Elio’s head snapped upward; blood poured down his chin. For a second, I thought he might crack a smile, like he usually did after an argument was pushed this far, and we could move on, but he swung at me again. This time, the hit connected, and it felt like my brain rattled in my skull.

I launched myself at him, tackling Elio to the ground. Vaguely, I could hear Isabella scream, but my focus was on the animalistic expression on my cousin’s face. I had to make him back down because I was fully aware of what Elio could do with just his fists.

Elio tried to roll us, but I brought my fist down into his face again and again, ignoring the throbbing in my hand. My focus narrowed down to the movement, hitting and bringing my fist up to hit again.

“Enzo, stop,” I heard someone calling. “Please, you’ll kill him.”

Hands grabbed me and hauled me backward, and I was able to fully take in Elio again. His face was a fucking mess of blood and spit and swelling. I sneered and wrenched myself out of Damian’s grasp. “Get him the fuck out of my kitchen.”

“Sure, boss.”

Elio was glaring up at me, and I leaned in close. “If you weren’t my cousin, I would have put you in the fucking ground, and hewouldn’t have stopped me,” I spat. “Get on board with my plan for the Russians or get the fuck out of New York. Those are your options.” I lifted my hand, and Isabella’s slid into it, locking our fingers together.

We left Damian to clean up the mess.

CHAPTER 24

Isabella

Lorenzo wasn’t talking to Elio, but he had taken his cousin’s words to heart and had been dragging me to every business that he owned for the last week, checking up on things. It wasn’t like I wanted to be at the estate without him. Everything felt so nauseatingly tense because the cousins refused to be in the same room with each other. At the same time, Elio hadn’t been wrong about Lorenzo’s men.

They hated me, even worse now that there was a schism between the cousins.

Just like at the warehouse in New Jersey, the men weren’t afraid to make comments that they knew that I could hear, as long as Lorenzo was far enough away. I dealt with them the same way every time: subtly threatening to tell their boss exactly what they’d been saying. It didn't endear me to any of them, but that was fine. I could handle it.

“Dolcezza, are you bored?”

I glanced over at Lorenzo. We were in his office at the Palazzo. He was on the computer, looking over the accounts, and I hadcurled up in a chair that had been placed beside the tempered-glass window for me. I had been going over a medical textbook that my new tutor had brought, reminding myself of the few things that I had gotten fuzzy on. “Was I sighing again?” I asked.

He chuckled. “A little.”

“I’m sorry. We’ll be heading home soon.”

There was a knock on the door, and the woman who was the manager of the front desk, Barbara, poked her head in. “Mr. Vitali?” She wasn’t a part of the Cosa Nostra, and while she didn’t seem to be naive about what her boss really did, she did ignore it.

“What do you need, Barb?”

Barbara was a handsome, older woman. She was a bottle blonde, and her makeup was perfectly applied. Her carefully lined lips were pinched. “You have a visitor,” she said. “She came in through the hotel lobby.”

That was unusual. Lorenzo had a few meetings earlier, and all of those people had come in through the business entrance that was attached to the parking garage. “I apologize about that,” he said. “You can send her in.”

Barbara’s pursed lips seemed to squeeze in all the more. “What’s wrong?” I asked. She turned to me, and her mouth relaxed into a small, fond smile.Well, at least she likes me, I thought.

“The woman is questionable,” she said. “We almost showed her back out, but her escort wasinsistentthat they see you.”

Lorenzo stood, eyebrows furrowed together now. “Let them up,” he said. His eyes strayed to me. “Maybe you should go wait in Barb’s office.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine here,” I said.

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