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For not being present to ensure that she never knew a moment of pain or heartache or fear.
All the things he could see playing across her features now.
Because of him.
She sucked in a sharp breath when she spotted the ominous-looking, empty black sedan parked halfway up the drive to the rambling villa. “Oh, no. Ettore, we’re too late.”
He clamped his molars tight, holding back the curse that leaped to his tongue. She was right. It didn’t look good.
A plan formed in his head—a risky one, but the best option he had.
He didn’t dare ditch the car with Bella inside it, and damned if he was going to let her out of his sight for as much as a second.
“Slide down as far as you can,” he told her. “Don’t move, Bella. Not unless I tell you to.”
She shot him an anxious glance but did as he instructed.
He swept off his black knit skullcap and tossed it aside. Instead of keeping his cautious pace up the meandering drive, Savage gunned the engine, letting the tires chew up the dirt and dust as he roared all the way to the homestead.
Up ahead in the dark, a pair of Breed thugs in black suits were prowling the perimeter of the house and surrounding grounds. Shit. They were both carrying semiautomatic pistols and looking short on patience. Maybe that was a good thing where Bella’s family members were concerned.
Savage threw the Pagani into park but left the engine running. Since his attire could raise questions he didn’t want to answer, he would have to employ his unique brand of obfuscation in order to get him past the other males’ suspicion.
Using the Breed ability that served him well in his stealth line of work, he conjured an illusion that turned his tactical gear into a black suit and altered his face and hair color. Then he pulled his own semiauto 9mm and climbed out of the car as if he had every right to be there.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered loudly as he stalked toward the goateed man out front. “Where the fuck are the other guys?”
The henchman scowled. “What other guys? Far as I know, me and Luigi were the only ones called out for this job. Who the hell are you?”
“Backup,” Savage said, giving the man a look of disdain. He called out to the second man, a thick-necked mountain of a male who was just coming around from the rear of the farmhouse. “What the fuck’s taking you so long, Luigi? You find that bitch and her brat back there?”
Luigi shook his head as he started jogging over to meet them. “Not yet. They must’ve cleared out before we got here.”
Savage grunted. “Good.”
He popped a round into each man’s skull before either of them could react. The two would-be killers dead on the ground, he jogged back to the Pagani. Arabella was still hunkered down on the floor in front of the passenger seat like he’d instructed her. Good girl.
He opened the door. “It’s okay. Chiara and your nephew aren’t here and the two men sent to find them won’t be looking for them anymore.”
“Thank God.” She lifted her head, pushing herself up to peer into the darkness where Massioni’s men lay unmoving in the grass near the house. “But Chiara wouldn’t have known to run away. There wouldn’t have been time to get very far, especially with a three-year-old in tow.” She glanced up at him, worry—and a small glimmer of hope—in her soft brown eyes. “But I think I might know where they are.”
Savage held out his hand to assist her from the car. Gathering up the long skirt of her dress, she ran past the dead Breed males with Savage at her side. They entered the sacked villa and she headed immediately for the sampling room at the back of the expansive house. An immense wine cellar was attached to the room, its floor-to-ceiling wine racks filled with bottles of nearly every vintage the vineyard had ever produced.
“Over here,” Bella said, walking to the far wall.
The bottles housed in those racks looked to be the oldest in the collection. Most of them were covered in a fine layer of dust. Pulling a sliding wooden ladder toward her, she climbed up and reached for one of the highest bottles in the old rack. Instead of pulling the aged bottle of Aglianico out, she twisted it clockwise.
It wasn’t a bottle. It was a lever to a secret chamber.
One narrow section of racked wine popped open soundlessly.
Bella swung a glance over her shoulder at him. “My father had this panic room installed during the wars after First Dawn twenty years ago.”
She started to duck inside. Savage caught her by the arm. “Stay close to me, Bella. If anything happens to you, I couldn’t…”
He let the thought trail, but his touch lingered longer than necessary. She gave him a curious look, then nodded.
They stepped inside the unlit, cavernous room. Large oak barrels, shelves of paper supplies, and chunky, hand-hewn wooden tables made the secret chamber appear to be nothing more remarkable than a workroom for the vineyard.
