Page 13 of The Savage

‘Yeah.’

Rafaelle, the enforcer for our family, is unhinged at the best of times. When one of us is threatened, he goes extra mental. I probably need to add my voice to the petition to save Sebastian’s life before things get out of hand. The British kid is a rookie, stupid-eager to please. As bloodthirsty as every single Salvatore is, he doesn’t deserve to die for his mistake.

But I can’t think past the throbbing in my head. Past the flashes of ghostly white that won’t leave me alone.

She’s haunted every inch of my dreams, and now she’s crept into the waking world too.

I need to do something about that.

Before I lose my fucking mind.

* * *

Nightowl

The feed has been looping for thirty-two hours.

Four different camera angles. Three audio inputs. One fading heartbeat.

Renzo Salvatore – twenty-seven years old, professional Formula One driver, registered capo in a criminal organisation that still believes it can outrun its own ghosts and be born anew. Except ghosts have the habit of hanging around.

And right now, a host of them are gathered around Renzo Salvatore.

Ten hours ago, he was up and talking.

Now, he’s losing the battle.

Lines of code crawl across my secondary screen, each one a lifeline: heart rate, oxygen saturation, neural response. I’ve patched into the hospital’s private network through a satellite bounce off Reykjavik, because the UK’s firewalls are laughable if you know where to dig. The doctors are too fucking terrified to tell the Salvatores that one of their own is hanging by a thread. They, probably rightly, fear the wrath of the Cosa Nostra.

Cesare’s been pacing for hours.

The rest keep glancing at the monitors like they can intimidate them into behaving. They don’t know I’m watching everything. They never do.

At the start of my fascination with them, I told myself I was doing it for the data, for possible leverage down the line, because nothing sells better than a juicy secret, right?

But that’s a lie.

I’m fascinated. By this family. By their story. By the unhinged carnage permanently waiting in the wings to unravel. By how so many catastrophes hinge on a name.

Two families, bloodily, fatally and inextricably intertwined. Morbidly fascinated with one another. They’re the epitome of the tired cliché of love and hate being two sides of the same coin.

On the monitor I watch his lips move. I don’t even need my special lip-reading programme to translate the silent words.

Giada Mancinelli.

At this point, I’m convinced she’s the only thing connecting him to life.

He whispers her name repeatedly, voice raw, and I feel the barest hint of something sharp and searing twist deep in my chest.

Interesting.

My fingers hover above the keyboard as a dozen possible responses queue in my mind.

Alert Rafa.

Scrub the feed, shut it all down, resist the urge to pull this particular thread.

But even as the thought hits, I pull up another window, my fingers flying.