Page 142 of The Savage

Rafa steps forward despite himself. His jaw is clenched so tight it looks like it might crack. ‘Everything,’ he snaps. ‘You tell us everything. Now.’

I’m on my feet before the word finishes leaving his mouth. ‘Enough.’

The growl cuts clean. Rafa freezes. His eyes snap to mine, blazing and haunted and agonised, then away. Sofiya shoots him a look that says ‘not now’ and ‘don’t you fucking dare’ all at once.

‘We’re still on an open road,’ Sofiya says coolly. ‘Bodies. Noise. Lights. Vittore isn’t done throwing shit at us yet. We need to move.’

She’s right. I know it. The men know it.

I don’t care.

I turn back to Giada and don’t hesitate again.

I scoop her up off the ground, one arm under her knees, the other locked around her back, pulling her tight against my chest. She gasps, startled, then melts into me, face pressed into my neck.

‘Mine,’ I mutter into her hair. ‘You’re mine. No one fucking touches you.’

No one challenges it. No one even looks surprised.

I carry her to the car myself, open the back door and slide in, hauling her onto my lap and cradling her as close as I dare without breaking her. She curls into me instinctively, her soft arms locking around my neck.

The engine roars and the convoy rolls.

I kiss her temple. Her cheek. Her hairline. Over and over. Grounding her. Grounding myself. ‘I knew,’ I tell her, mouth against her skin. ‘I fucking knew. I never believed it. Not for a second.’

Her breath stutters. She clutches my jacket.

‘My angel,’ I murmur. ‘My sweet fucking angel. What you’ve been through.’

She lifts her head, eyes red, searching my face like she needs to see it there too. I let her and I don’t hide a goddamn thing.

Floodlights cut through the dark ahead and I see steel and stone. Guns waiting and the safe house gates parting. I almost grimace at how close we were to home.

Just before we pass through, she shifts in my arms, her eyes still on me.

And I ask the question tearing a jagged path through me. ‘Giada,’ I say quietly. ‘What else do you remember?’

She doesn’t hesitate. ‘I remember everything.’

My heart slams hard enough to steal my breath. She cups my face, thumbs brushing my jaw, gaze steady now. Clear.

‘I remember you and me. I remember that I belong to you, Renzo,’ she says. ‘Only to you.’

* * *

Giada

The safe house seals behind us with a sound that feels final.

Steel and stone and power humming through the walls.

Inside, the Salvatore men station themselves around the room with a deathly stillness that would’ve terrified me if I didn’t remember that these are the kind who have learned to stand still through grief because if they don’t, they break things they can’t put back together.

And a sound escapes me when the deeper thought pervades.

I remember. I remember. Every single one of these men. Some I only saw from afar but one I know like the back of my hand.

I feel every eye on me.