Page 111 of The Savage

Cesare enters first, in a black shirt rolled at the forearms, shoulders locked with the kind of tension that could snap rebar. His eyes sweep the room, calculate every exit, then land on me – and go volcanic.

Rafa barrels in second, no patience for assessment. He looks at me, at Giada, back at me, and his entire face twists.

‘What the fuck have you done?’

Behind him, Maddie and Sofiya slip in through the doorway, a quiet tornado and a deadly promise, two forces that I’m pissed to admit hugely complement the men they’ve chosen for their husbands.

Sofiya’s eyes are already tracking threats; Maddie’s face cracks right down the middle when she sees Giada. Her hands fly to her mouth. ‘Oh God. Oh God Oh God Oh God.’

It’s Giada who breaks first.

Her eyes turn to massive saucers and she goes still.

Too still. As though her mind is a glass pane fogged by breath, just beginning to clear.

Her lips part and her pupils constrict.

Something inside her flickers – recognition, terror, longing – before pain streaks across her expression like lightning.

She sways.

I’m at her side instantly, my arm around her waist, pulling her against me.

‘No,’ she whispers. ‘No, no, this… I don’t – I can’t⁠—’

‘Giada,’ Maddie chokes, stepping forward, hand outstretched, voice cracking at the sight of her sister alive and broken in someone else’s arms.

‘Stop,’ Giada gasps, stumbling backward into my chest. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t – please – don’t…’

Maddie’s face collapses. Sofiya steps in smoothly, hand on Maddie’s arm.

‘Space,’ she murmurs. ‘She’s drowning, Maddelena. Don’t push her under.’

Rafa snorts. ‘No shit she’s drowning. Renzo dragged her ass from a fucking convent and hid her from us⁠—’

Renzo.

Convent.

Hid.

Giada flinches at every word.

‘He what?’ Maddie breathes.

‘Enough,’ Cesare snaps, stepping forward. ‘Renzo. A word. Now. Alone.’

‘No,’ I say flatly.

‘Renzo—’

‘Not until she’s safe.’

Rafa scoffs. ‘Safe? From what – us?’

‘From all of you,’ I bite out. ‘Touch her wrong and I light this place up with all your fucking asses in it.’

The silence hits like a falling cathedral.