Page 77 of Savage Claim

“Hey.”

Amalia snarled. “She didn’t eat last night,” she snapped.

Gemma scoffed. “It’s not like I’m stopping her. I just wanted some coffee.”

Amalia gestured to the coffee station. “And you are free to go make some yourself,” she said. “Isabella isn’t your maid.”

My sister’s face twisted into a nasty expression. It was becoming more and more alarming how much Gemma reminded me of Santino. There were certain expressions, especially when she was upset, that chilled me right to the bone. “No, you’re right,” she said. “Aren’tyouthe servant in this situation?” She made a shooing gesture. “Why don’t you run along and put on a pot? I won’t even ask for you to pour it or anything.”

“Gemma.” My voice came out like a crack of thunder, and my sister flinched like I had struck her.

“What?” she asked. “I thought she was the housekeeper?”

“Her job is taking care of the house,” I said. “Not babying a grown-ass woman who knows how to make a damn pot of coffee.”

Gemma scoffed, and Amalia made a point to laugh. It was an ugly sound, and I knew nothing good would come of it. “She’s just upset that Cris doesn’t want her warming his bed,” she said.“You think I didn’t notice you scratching at his door like some kind of cat in heat?”

She flushed an awful burgundy color. “I wasn’t doing that.”

“Then, what were you doing? I was in the laundry room and heard you tapping and begging for him to let you in.” Her triumphant expression only grew the more Gemma curled in on herself. “You picked the wrong Vitali for that,rompicoglioni,” she said almost tenderly. “Cris was going to be a priest; he barely knows what his right hand is for, let alone a woman.”

“Shut up,” Gemma squealed, nearly clapping her hands over her ears. “You don’t need to speak so crassly about him. Cris is a real gentleman.”

“Wow,” Amalia deadpanned. “That’s hot. I bet he’d be a real firecracker in the bedroom.”

“You’re disgusting,” Gemma spat. “You think sex is the only thing that matters in a relationship because that’s the only way your brute of a husband shows you that he cares. He’s like a caveman; he and Lorenzo both are.”

“That’s enough,” I warned her.

But Gemma was on a role now. “I don’t know how you stand to let them touch you. I can’t imagine being trapped beneath either of them and enjoying it.”

Amalia stood, picking up her plate. “That’s enough for me,” she said. “It would be safer for your sister if I took my breakfast to my room. Thank you for making it for me.”

“Of course,” I started to say, but Amalia was already leaving the room. I sighed, staring at her back as she went. “Why can’t you just be nice to her?” I asked Gemma, who had finally gotten upand was poking at the coffee machine. She was acting like she didn’t know what buttons to push so that I would step in and do it for her, but I wasn’t going to. She could and would figure it out for herself.

“She was the one going on about Cristian like that,” Gemma said. “You should get mad at her.”

“She adores Cristian, for the record,” I said, “and you were insulting her husband. And mine. Again.”

“I’m just being honest,” Gemma said. “Our mother raised me to speak my mind, and I cannot for the life of me fathom why you would let that criminal put his hands on you.” She gestured in the direction that Amalia went. “I mean, I understand that she grew up here; she doesn’t really know any better. But you’ve been with normal men before.”

“Normal?”

My sister looked at me like I was being deliberately slow. “Men who don’t have ‘career criminal’ stamped across their forehead.”

I was over this whole conversation. “I think I’m going to eat by myself.”

“Come on,” Gemma complained. “You have to know that you’re going to end up some prison widow. The FBI are after him now; it won’t take long for them to come up with something.”

She said it casually, but it made me stop and look at her properly. She had made herself scarce when the SWAT came to the house; she hadn’t come to check on me when I got back from the station. “Gemma, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” Her voice came out a tad too high-pitched.

“Gemma.” She looked at me, defiant and scared all at once, and I knew what she’d done even without her saying it. “Did you call the FBI? What the hell did you say?”

“He set that fire at that loft,” she said. “The one where they took me and Mom. He almost burned down the entire borough. Haven’t you ever heard of ‘see something, say something’?”

CHAPTER 50

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