Page 27 of Savage Saint
My fingers tighten against the counter, my breath just a little too shallow, my chest just a little too tight. I don’t know why the name makes my stomach clench, why it sits wrong and right at the same time. Why it feels like I’ve heard it before, whispered in the dark. I stare at her, my pulse picking up, something dark curling at the edges of my mind.
A distant memory brushes against my consciousness, slippery, out of reach, vanishing before I can grasp onto it.
A voice.
Low. Dark. Heavily accented.
“Don’t forget, darling, the Santoro’s are very dangerous.”
My breath catches, the ghost of the words slamming into me like a fist to the gut.
I must react, a shift, a tightening, a flicker of something across my face, because Alessa’s brows knit together, her head tilting just slightly.
“You okay?”
I force my grip to loosen, flexing my fingers, shoving the creeping unease to the back of my mind, locking it away before it can take hold.
“I...” My throat feels dry. I clear it. “I don’t—”
“The Santoro’s,” she interrupts me, voice soft but heavy.
I shake my head, staying silent, because I have no idea what she expects me to say. My mind is blank.
“Who are the Santoro's?” I finally ask.
Alessa leans over slightly her eyes never leaving mine. “The Saints. The Santoro brothers. Dante, Angelo and Luca.” Her voice drops just a fraction, as if speaking the words too loudly will shift something in the air. “They’re mafia.”
The words settle between us.
I stare at her, letting them sink in, letting the reality of them penetrate my chest.
Then I blink. “That’s it?”
Alessa blinks back at me, brows lifting slightly, like she wasn’t expecting that. “What do you mean,that’s it?”
I shrug, shifting my weight, trying to loosen the tension coiled inside me. “I mean...yeah, okay. Mafia. Not exactly shocking.”
Her eyes narrow slightly, her gaze sharp, assessing. She’s waiting for me to crack, to panic, to react.
But I don’t.
Because something inside me already knew.
I already suspected they were something else. The awareness, the way my instincts screamed at me to treadcarefully, the way I wasn’t surprised when I found out they had guns, that they moved like predators rather than men. I just hadn’t named it yet.
In fact, I have the crazy urge to chuckle. I don’t know what sort of Boogeymen I was expecting that had me so on edge, but the Mafia revelation is a relief.
Alessa watches me like she’s trying to figure out a puzzle. “You’re not scared,” she says, her voice slow, careful, as if she’s saying it more to herself than to me.
I exhale, staring down at my hands.
No.
I’m not.
And that? That should terrify me.
Silence stretches between us, heavy with unspoken thoughts and questions not asked. Alessa watches me carefully, waiting for some kind of delayed reaction. But it doesn’t come. The signs were there, the security, the quiet authority they carried, the way even their casual words felt like commands. I might not remember who I am, but I know power when I see it. And the Santoro's? They bleed power.
