Page 69 of Savage Claim

“And you’ll come home for dinner tonight?”

“Boss.” Lorenzo gave Damian a hard look. They seemed to have a silent conversation, and Damian sighed. “I’ll try and have him home on time.”

I beamed at him. “Thank you, Damian,” I trilled at him.

“How is the pressure, Mrs. Vitali?” the massage therapist asked. She had set me up for a pregnancy massage while two other therapists were working on Amalia and Gemma. Lorenzo had prepared an at-home spa day for all of us.

“It’s wonderful,” I told her. Pregnancy massages were a little odd because I wasn’t able to lay on my belly, and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I usually preferred, but she knew exactly where to touch me to give me relief.

“Good,” she said. Her voice was soft and soothing, meant to create a tranquil environment. The other two therapists spoke in the same tone: it had to be a learned trait. “If you feel any pain or discomfort, please let me know immediately.”

“I will.”

While I drifted, I listened to the other therapists murmuring equally as soft questions to Amalia and Gemma. Far too soon, it was over, and we transitioned into where they had set up to do our nails.

Our feet were soaking as we flipped through the color options when Gemma asked about Cristian. “How close was he really to becoming a priest?”

“He had less than a year left at the seminary,” Amalia said.

“Wow,” Gemma breathed. “He said he had a crisis of faith. Do either of you know?—?”

“We don’t,” I cut off the question. I wasn’t sure how much Amalia knew, but even if Elio had told her everything, Gemmacertainlydidn’t need to know. “The only thing he told Lorenzo was that he and his mentor had a falling out.”

Gemma hummed. “That’s so sad,” she said, mostly to herself, even as a smirk grew on her face. “Though, keeping that man locked away in a Church would be a crime.” She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “He’s such a genuine person.”

Amalia and I agreed with her. “I’ve known Cristian my whole life,” Amalia told her. “He’s always been like that, even when we were in school. The other guys ragged on him all the time for being so ‘sensitive.’”

Gemma sighed again, sounding very much like a school girl with a crush. “A Vitali man with substance,” she chuckled.

Amalia’s smile fell off her face. “What the hell does that mean?”

My sister looked at her and outright laughed. “Oh, come on,” she said.

“No.” I had never heard Amalia’s voice so cold before. “Explain to me what you meant.”

Gemma caught on that she had put her foot in my mouth, and instead of apologizing, she went on the defensive. “You’re not going to sit there and tell me that Lorenzo and Elio are good men.”

“You didn’t say anything about ‘good,’” Amalia pointed out. “You said Cris had substance. What does that mean?”

“I’m fairly certain that Cristian has never done anything illegal,” Gemma said, pitching her voice low.

Amalia expression became even more veiled. “You’re happy enough to benefit from Lorenzo doing illegal things,” she said, matching her low tone. Her angry eyes found me. “Are you going to say anything?” she demanded. “She’s insultingbothof our husbands.”

“I insulted them too when I first came here,” I pointed out. “She’s still settling in.”

Usually, Amalia would be much more forgiving, but today, she was not having it. She reached for a towel and quickly dried her feet and legs off. “You’re going to have to figure out who’s side you’re on sooner or later,” she said to me.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Amalia’s expression was mutinous. “You can’t run away from what Lorenzo is, no matter how much you may want to. You can’t be innocentandthe matriarch of the most powerful family in the goddamn Cosa Nostra. Are you Isabella Rossi, or are you Isabella Vitali?”

She didn’t wait for an answer; she swept out of the room, apologizing to the woman who was coming in to do our nails.

“What is her problem?” Gemma asked with a scoff, flipping through the colors again. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, right?”

“You didn’t,” I agreed. “Elio and Lorenzo are very different than Cristian.”

“See? I don’t know why she was so?—”

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