Page 3 of Savage Claim

My father, no, Santino, hummed in agreement. “My benefactor heard about you and Lorenzo,” he said. “He wasn’t pleased.” He held the gun up for me to see. “He wants Lorenzo to hurt.”

My eyebrows wrinkled inward. “Why would he care?” It was shocking that Santino had been sent to get rid of me. He wasn’t one to get his hands dirty like this. He liked plausible deniability.

Focus, I told myself. I needed to back up, either to get to the kitchen for a knife, or maybe, I could get to the door. I was a quick runner, and my screams would get the neighbors involved.

I shifted backward slowly one step. Then, two. Then… “Stop moving,” Santino grunted. He wasn’t pointing the gun at me yet, but he still waved it, as if to remind me that he had one. “Artem has a vested interest in Lorenzo.” I had heard that name before; it was the Russian man that Lorenzo had been talking about. The one who had been messing with his businesses. “He wants him miserable and broken.”

“What does that have to do with me?” I asked and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look casual, but another cramp racked me, and I shifted to try and alleviate the pain.

“I told you to stop moving,” Santino snapped.

I clutched at my belly. “I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me,” I panted. “I need to use the restroom.”

Santino laughed, cruel and sharp. “No.” He pointed the gun now.

My heart hammered in my chest. “Lorenzo doesn’t care about me,” I insisted. At Santino’s unimpressed look, I scoffed. “Just because he’s fucking me doesn’t mean he cares about me. I’m nothing more than a high-priced bedwarmer, thanks to you.”

I winced at how close to home that hit for me. Lorenzo might lock me up for the rest of my pregnancy,ifhe came after me, but surely, he wouldn’t let me live past that. And if I was having a miscarriage, I was dead either way. So, I might as well go out fighting.

“He came running to your rescue before,” Santino pointed out.

“He won’t.” I took another step back towards the kitchen. I wasn’t sure if Santino believed me or not. He was staring intently at my stomach. I glanced down, and I realized that when I had been trying to find a way to get rid of some of the pain, it had pulled my shirt tight, revealing the soft curve of my baby bump. I yanked the shirt so that it was baggy once more, hiding the bump. I made another small step backward. I was even with the kitchen counter now.

“You let that Italian mutt knock you up?” His tone was angry, but a smile, sharp and cruel, created a jagged line across his face. It was like he had just been given a gift from God. He pocketed the gun.

“You’re letting me go?”

Santino guffawed. It was an ugly sound. “I think you’re going to be far more useful to Artem alive,” he said. His eyes dragged down to the curve of my belly. I wrapped my arms around myself, as if I could fend off his predatory gaze. “For the time being, anyway.”

Letting him take me away from my apartment wasn’t going to end well for me, and I knew it. Gathering all of my courage to keep my face neutral, I walked into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

I kept my eyes on him as I grabbed a glass and pulled it down. Stepping over to the sink, I turned it on and filled the glass up. “What does it look like?” I asked him and took a sip of the tepid tap water. I wanted to gag, but I kept drinking until I finished the glass.

Comprehension sparked across Santino’s face. “Don’t even think about it, Isabella,” he said. I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet. If I moved fast enough, I could make it. I would fight my way out of here. “Isabella.” His words were a warning.

I sprang for the drawer.

CHAPTER 3

Isabella

“Why isn’t she dead, Santino?” Artem Volkov was a painfully, good-looking man with the coldest eyes that I had ever seen. He wasn’t lookingatme; he was looking through me. “Didn’t you promise me a corpse?”

Santino put a hand on my shoulder, and I jerked away from him, gasping when pain jolted through my shoulders. He had tied my hands behind my back, and my fingers were starting to go numb, but when I tried to roll my wrists, the nylon would bite into my skin.

I glanced at the man I once thought of as my father. Half of his face was purpling with a bruise, and the gash on his arm was still bleeding fairly heavily.Good, I thought savagely. I hoped the hits that I’d managed to land hurt. If I was going to die today, I wanted to go knowing that I had fought back. That I had made him bleed, even if he was going to recover.

Artem reached behind him and pulled out a 9mm. He pointed it at me. “Were you too sympathetic? She’s your daughter, correct?”

“He doesn’t give a damn that I’m his daughter,” I spat. “If he did, we wouldn’t be standing in this ugly ass office. He wouldn’t have sold me to Lorenzo Vitali to begin with.”

The back of Santino’s hand collided with my face, sending me reeling. My knees hit the ground hard, but I was able to keep myself from pitching forward onto my belly. Artem laughed. “She struck a nerve, Santino,” he said.

Instead of saying anything, Santino yanked me to my feet. When I was standing again, he reached behind me and pulled my shirt tight. Artem’s piercing eyes dipped down, and I saw it the moment he realized that I was pregnant. He looked like he was seconds away from slobbering all over himself. “You’re sure that it’s Vitali’s brat?”

Santino nodded. “Isabella has been his plaything for months. As far as anyone could tell, he hasn’t taken anyone else to his bed, not even that Gallo bitch and she’d practically shoved her tits in his face.”

I heard a little scoff and subtly looked around. Most of the guards were staring at Artem, waiting for a signal. But one, near the door, was trying to mask a look of disgust. He didn’t like seeing Santino hit me now that he knew I was pregnant.

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