Page 41 of Savage Claim

“Do you want any help?” he asked.

I didn't, but I appreciated that he asked. The issues with the Russians aside, Elio and I rarely disagreed. He had proven timeand time again that he was going to remain by my side. “Get me the key? And maybe grab some boxes?”

Elio was happy to have a task, and he hustled down the hall to my office. After replacing the lock, I kept the key in my desk. Damian and Elio both knew about it, but they pretended that they didn’t.

Once I got Sienna’s office open, I flinched. I had locked it back up just as Isabella had left it: books torn to shreds on the floor, broken lamps, and all.Well, at least this needs to happen anyway.

I filled the boxes that Elio brought to me with Sienna’s books first. I touched the covers gently as I took them off the shelf. Sienna had loved these books; she would spend weeks searching for the editions that she wanted.

The books that I could salvage I put aside. I would have someone donate or sell them somewhere. Once those were packed, I sealed the box and set it aside and started on the shredded mess on the floor.

I thought that doing this would be painful, but with each book and knickknack that I packed away, my chest felt lighter. Like I was clearing away cobwebs that have needed to go for a long time.

I would never forget Sienna; I would never stop missing her. But if I didn’t let her go, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to fully embrace Isabella like she deserved.

When the office had been stripped to its basic furniture—a gift for Isabella to craft in whatever way she liked–I grabbed Damian and Elio. “Get a burn bin started for me?” I still had to clean out the clothes that I had squirreled away.

“Sure thing, boss,” Elio said with a salute.

CHAPTER 26

Isabella

“What in the hell are you doing?” Lorenzo was standing beside a fire pit, feeding clothes into the bright orange flames. Glancing at the boxes at his feet, I knew that they were all Sienna’s things. I had seen him from the window in the kitchen, far enough across the property that I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing.

He looked at me and held up the blouse in his hand. “Well, I’m not going to put this on,” he said and tossed it into the barrel.

Anger gripped me hard, and when Lorenzo picked up a dress, I slapped it out of his hand. “Stop,” I said. “Just stop.” Panic was rising in my throat, and I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t allow him to do this. “Why would you do this?”

Lorenzo picked up the dress. “I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy?” The word didn’t even sound right coming out of my mouth. “Whywould you think this would make me happy?” I demanded.

My eyes stung from the smoke, and I stepped back. It probably wasn’t a good idea to breathe that shit in. My hand drifted down to my belly; it was becoming a touchstone for me. Something to do when I was nervous.

I watched Lorenzo toss a few more things into the barrel, and I felt that squirming feeling beneath my hand. “How can you just throw her away like that?” I asked. “She meant so much to you, and now you’re just?—”

“For you,” he barked.

I huffed. “Allthistells me is that I could be just as easily thrown away if something were to happen.”

“What?” His voice was brittle and sharp with anger now. “So, you can act jealous and push me away for days, but I do this to show you that you’re the only woman that I care about, and now you’re mad that I’m ‘throwing Sienna away’?” His face tightened. “Make up your fucking mind,dolcezza.”

I blinked again and again, eyes still burning from the smoke. “Who said that I was jealous?” I asked. “What do I have to be jealous for?”

“You tell me,” Lorenzo demanded. “You’ve been an even worse brat than usual ever since you came with me to the Palazzo.” My body went rigid, and he noticed. “See? You have been jealous, haven’t you?”

I was in love with an idiot, I decided. The man controlled several real, legal businesses and so many more that weren’t legal, and yet, his best estimate as to my mood was that I must have been feeling jealous because another woman had entered a room. “Was Yulia trafficked?” I asked.

“What?”

“Was. She. Trafficked?” I asked, slowing each word and dragging it out, as if he were a child who didn’t understand. “Did she come to the Palazzo because she wanted to, or was she sent and told that something bad would happen to her if she didn’t comply?”

Lorenzo looked absolutely gobsmacked. “Why does that matter?”

To say that I was disgusted was an understatement. “You’re asking me why it matters to me if a woman was raped in your hotel.” I held up my hand to stop whatever he was about to say next. “Iknowthat I don’t understand your world, okay? But that will never be okay with me, ever, and it’s not out of jealousy. It’s just abhorrent.” I gestured to the box of Sienna’s books and clothes. “You didn’t have to do this. You don’t have to erase her for me.”

Like I knew it would happen, Lorenzo’s walls went crashing up. “Sienna was my wife, yeah? So what I chose to do with her belongings is my decision.”

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