Page 47 of Savage Claim

“But we’re doing this my way,” I said. “I can’t trust that Artem is any more dead than we thought that Santino was. I need to send the very best.”

“Send? You’re not going?” Her nose scrunched.

“I’m not leaving you in anyone else’s hands,” I told her. “The last time I went after your sister, it was a trap.”

“But we know he has her this time. This wasn’t his voice over a call; Iheardher scream.”

“But you didn’t see her,” I pointed out. “How do you know that he didn’t kill her first and record those screams while he did it?”

I could tell that Isabella hadn’t thought of that. She clapped her hand over her mouth and jumped off her barstool, running for the powder room. Amalia sighed. “Did you have to say that to her?” she asked.

“Yes, because it could be true. It’s something that I would have done, if I wanted to lure someone to me.”

Amalia’s frown deepened, and then it slipped away, leaving her looking tired. “I shouldn’t be surprised by anything you do,” she said, mostly to herself. Then, she leveled me with a look. “You aren’t a good man, Lorenzo.”

“That also shouldn’t surprise you,” I said. “You’ve lived in this house long enough, and your own father isn’t a saint.”

“You have achanceto be a good man now, though,” she said. “Rescue Isabella’s sister and bring her back here.”

“And if she’s dead already? If I’m right?” Telling Isabella that we found her sister already torn to shreds would break her, and I told Amalia that much.

“At least she would know that you tried,” Amalia told me. When I didn’t respond, she made a sound of frustration and looked at Elio, who shrugged. “You know how the men feel about her,” she said.

I did. Elio had made that pretty clear. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“If you send men who don’t like her after her precious, baby sister, and they come back empty-handed, she’ll always wonder why. Even if they reported back that she was already dead, had been dead long before that call, Isabella will have it in the back of her mind that they lied and killed her themselves for spite.”

Imprecazione.

CHAPTER 30

Lorenzo

“You’re sure that Artem is alive?” Nikolai crossed his arms over his chest and seemed to be chewing on the inside of his cheek. He either had snuff clamped at the back of his jaw and was tonguing at it, or he was fucking with an ulcer. Stress-related, either way. I didn’t blame him.

“Seventy percent sure,” I said. “I know one of his underlings, Santino Rossi, is alive, and we had a body with his gold tooth melted into its gums. I don’t trust that the other one brought in was Artem.”

“Ya ubiu etogo ublyudka,” he muttered and rubbed at his face. It wounded my pride a bit calling Nikolai, considering that Artem’s supposed death was the foundation for my alliance with the Russian Syndicate in the first place. But Damian had nowhere to start tracking Artem and Santino down, so we were at the mercy of asking for help.

We were in my office at the Palazzo. A contingent of my men were waiting for orders. Damian and Elio were both at the house. Usually, I would keep one of them with me for somethinglike this, but we all agreed that they would both stay at the estate to keep an eye on things there in case this was another trap.

I was pleasantly surprised when Isabella didn’t argue about being left behind. She wasn’t happy about it, I could tell, but her hand had been planted on her belly the whole time that I was making arrangements. She knew that she couldn’t go rushing into danger, even if she wanted to. I had never been so happy about the baby as I was right now because while she might not listen to me, Isabella wouldn’t intentionally do anything to put our baby at risk.

“As long as he dies, I don’t care who gets the credit for it at this point,” I said, equally as frustrated. I had met cockroach men before, the ones who refused to die no matter what you did to them, but it never failed to impress and repulse me how much spectacular luck thesefiglio di puttanaseemed to have. “My question is, where might he go? Any of his bigger businesses are out; it would be foolish for him to go somewhere where one of your men might see him.”

Nikolai called one of his men who was closer with the Volkov family. He and Artem’s younger brother, Efram, were friendly. “Sergei, where is Efram tonight?” he asked when the man picked up the line. I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Nikolai kept nodding and humming, and when he hung up, he gave me an address. “It’s a converted warehouse in the Bronx. Artem bought it for Efram after he graduated from college. Only their closest associates and friends have ever been brought there.”

Once we had a starting place, I sent the address to Damian and told him to find out everything that he could about the building. Then, I made a call of my own. “Alfie,” I said when the line clicked over. “I need to place an order. I need it to be foolproof.”

“Give me twenty.” The voice on the other end of the line was gravelly. Alfie was a firebug. Not only had he made a career out of supplying the Cosa Nostra with explosives, but he was obsessed with building devices that could be small and easily hidden but packed a massive punch.

I didn't call on Alfie often. But I wanted things settled with Artem and Santino once and for all, no more near-misses. So, it was time for the big guns.

Nikolai was able to confirm that Efram was home through his network. Even if Gemma wasn't there, we would take Efram. If Artem was as close to his brother as intelligence would suggest, then I would squeeze him until Artem came running.

Once I gave the address to my men, I met Alfie a few blocks away. He handed over a duffle bag that feltfartoo light. I opened it: there were half a dozen, palm-sized pieces of plastic. I lifted an eyebrow. “You're sure about this?” I wasn't a stranger to the occasional bomb, but these were the smoothest, smallest ones I had ever seen. They looked like light sconces.

Alfie’s smile was unsettling. Even for me. “I know my shit, Don Vitali,” he promised. “Wherever you plant these babies, only a crater will be left.”

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