Page 61 of The Savage

He drags a hand over his face, exhaling hard. ‘And since you’re clearly not going to wake up and help, I guess I should also tell you the other shit that’s brewing. There’s a new problem on the horizon – some rancid fucker on the Mancinelli side has popped his head up. Might be nothing. Might be a storm. We’re keeping an eye on it.’

A sour laugh escapes him, low and tired. ‘And Matteo… he’s slithered back to Sicily. Holing up in Taormina, licking his wounds and consolidating loyalties – typical rat bullshit. Cesare’s already got eyes on every port from Palermo to Catania. Just thought you should know the cesspit’s stirring again.’

I’m digesting the last piece of info about Giada’s father, Matteo Mancinelli, and this new threat when Dr Conti bustles in then, urgent and pale, like a man who knows exactly how thin ice feels like. ‘Signore Dante, I really must insist—’ he begins, trying to be professional and failing because one unsettled Salvatore is bad enough. Two, and brave men descend into shit-in-your-pants territory.

And true to form, Dante snaps his head and he glares at the man with a look I know well: the one that says you are in the wrong room. The doctor flinches, retreats a few paces, then says, ‘Per favore. He needs rest.’ It’s less a command than a plea.

Dante’s fists clench.

Then he sighs and stands slowly, the chair whining against the floor. He leans over, closer than a man should, until his breath brushes my ear. ‘This has gone on long enough, fucker. Wake up for me, Renzo,’ he whispers, half-order, half-lure. ‘I’ll see you awake. I’ll make sure Maddie’s baby gives you the first slobbering judgement. Make sure you’re not a ghost by the time he gets here.’

He pulls back, leaving a wake of warmth. Then, with a grin that’s more pain than humour, he says, ‘Don’t make me have to punch someone.’

He stands, claps the doctor on the shoulder, too hard so the man knows he was in the room with a man capable of manic savagery, and then he heads for the door.

At the threshold he pauses and looks back like a man checking on a wounded bird. ‘Don’t fucking die,’ he says, stupid and soft and the kind of brotherly thing that’s a promise and a threat all at once. ‘I need you to be irritating.’

The door shuts. The room resettles around the beeps and the low mechanical breath. I can sense the vacuum where his presence has been, the way he took up space in my life without asking because it’s his right.

I let the sedation pull me deeper. The twisting ache in my chest refuses to be soothed by drugs. I’m not ready to be a ghost. Not now. Not with this woman in white somewhere beyond the locked door.

Several minutes tick by, then the door opens. ‘He’s left the premises, Signore.’

Dr Conti rushes to my side, syringe prepped.

And in between two heartbeats, the world sharpens like a blade. Dante’s absence cuts deep but something else cuts deeper.

I force my jaw to move. ‘Bring her back,’ I say, voice rough as gravel. ‘Now.’

The doctor moves like a man trying to keep both his head and his job. The other machines murmur approval or concern.

I close my eyes again, satisfied for the moment, the ache and the anger a live thing coiled and ready for whatever comes next.

* * *

Sister Benedetta

They didn’t lock me in the room when they rushed me in here.

They didn’t need to. The window doesn’t open and I don’t need to open the door to know the bodyguards are right outside.

At first, I was outraged in the dignified way of a novice nun who has practised self-control: pacing three measured steps, saying calm prayers through clenched teeth, arranging and rearranging the blanket on the neat bed until the weave left a crosshatch on my palms.

I told myself I was captive, that this was wrong. I told myself, in the firm voice of the Madre Superiora – because old habits are hard to break – that obedience is the shortest road to peace.

But as I wait, with nothing but time on my hands and confused prayers on my lips, for Renzo to summon me back to his room, I think over the last five days.

And my confusion deepens because… I’m not sure what I am.

A prisoner should not have clean sheets and good espresso and a guard who knocks and lowers his eyes with deference when he speaks. A prisoner should not wake in the night listening for a stranger’s uneven breathing an alarming three feet away. A prisoner should not feel her heart lift at the stray sound of footsteps that might be his, returning after his latest round of physio.

Why don’t I feel more like a prisoner?

I pause in my pacing, drop to kneel on the rug that’s expensive and soft enough to make contrition feel luxurious, and bow my head. The prayers wander, unnerving me further.

They do that more, lately.

I start with the Our Father and end up thinking about Renzo’s hands braced on crutches, the line of his jaw as he refuses help, the way he softens – not often, not easily – when he looks at me, then looks harder, deeper, like he knows me in ways that would thrill and terrify me.