Page 3 of Savage Saint (Empire of Secrets #2)

ANGELO

I look between my siblings and future sister-in-law, waiting for someone to tell me what the hell is going on.

The weight in the room presses against my chest, a familiar suffocation I haven’t felt since the day my mother died.

It’s the same sensation I felt standing in that shipping container earlier, like the walls were closing in, trapping me in someone else’s nightmare.

The air feels heavy, tinged with antiseptic and something bitter, like dread made tangible.

There is a distinct buzzing in the background—the fluorescent lights—amplifying the silence that stretches uncomfortably long.

For the first time in years, fear coils around my rib cage, squeezing tighter with each passing second.

Alessa’s quiet sobs are muffled by her hands, causing Dante to pull her into his chest, his large hands gently cradling her head as though she’s the most precious thing.

His grip looks protective, but his knuckles are pale with restrained anger, a stark contrast against her dark hair.

It’s strange to see my brother like this, so tender, so human.

Dante’s always been the controlled one, the born leader, but moments like these remind me that love has made him soft in ways I don’t understand.

Soft, but not weak. He still has his edge, carrying his ruthlessness like a badge of honour, but now it’s tempered by something I’ll never have.

Not that I want it. There’s no space for love in the life I lead.

Dante looks me in the eye, swallowing before looking away. My heart races, a primal instinct screaming at me that I won’t like whatever I’m about to hear.

“She’s been branded,” he says, his voice low.

“What?” My heart races. The word feels foreign, surreal, as though it doesn’t belong in this room. I must have misheard him.

“Branded,” he repeats, the weight of the word suffocating. “She’s got the letter N branded on her hip.”

A sharp, electric jolt shoots through my chest, leaving behind a hollow ache.

I try to swallow, but my throat is as dry as the desert.

The thought of someone reducing another human being to a mark, stripping them of their humanity—it’s revolting.

And worse, it’s a mark of Nicolosi, the man who’s been the bane of our existence.

The man who just made this war personal.

I swallow, or at least I try to, but my mouth comes up dry, unable to clear the bile that’s threatening to rise in the back of my throat.

I think of my mother, of her trembling hands clutching mine as she fought through her last days.

I think of the promises I made to myself after her death, that I would protect, that I would never let harm come to the innocent, that I wouldn’t become my father.

And yet here I am, facing the kind of darkness even I never anticipated.

“We don’t know why,” Alessa sniffles. “But there’s really not that many reasons someone gets branded against their will.”

“Nicolosi?” The question slips from my lips on a whisper, but Dante must hear me.

“Most likely.” His jaw tight as he pulls Alessa closer to him, shielding her from the conversation.

His shoulders are rigid, and the vein in his temple pulses like a slow, steady drumbeat of anger.

There’s something in his expression, a mix of rage and helplessness, that cuts through me.

Dante doesn’t let himself feel powerless often.

When he does, it shakes the foundation of everything around him.

“And we’re sure it was against her will?” I croak out, cursing myself for even asking, but I need clarity.

Alessa’s voice is shaky, muffled by Dante’s chest. “She’s covered in bruises, and there are scabs around her wrists and ankles like she’s been tied but tried to escape. And the burn is... it doesn’t look good.”

Her words conjure images I don’t want to see: raw skin seared with metal, the smell of burning flesh, the way she must’ve screamed.

My stomach churns, bile threatening to rise.

Bruises and scabs, evidence of a struggle, of defiance.

She fought back. Whoever did this to her tried to break her, but she fought back.

“ Fuck,” I hiss, fists clenching. The anger in me boils over, threatening to explode. I’ve seen a lot of horrific things in my life, things I’ve done, things I’ve witnessed, but this feels different. It’s not just violence; it’s control, humiliation, a methodical stripping away of someone’s soul.

“What are we going to do, then?” My mind races with solutions, none of them good. Every one of them involves blood, pain, and making Nico suffer in ways he could never imagine. I don’t just want him dead—I want him to beg for death.

“Wait for her to wake up and return her home, of course,” Luca states, as if his word is law.

His voice, usually a source of wit and sharp insights, grates on me.

It’s not that he’s wrong, it’s the casualness of it, the dismissal of her situation as though it’s a problem to be filed away and forgotten.

My chest hollows at the idea. What if she doesn’t have a home to return to?

What if this is all she’s ever known? What if we send her back to hell? Fuck that.

“What if—” I start.

“We make sure she’s cared for. And treated kindly. God knows what she’s been through before you found her,” Alessa interrupts. “We need to make sure she wasn’t sold to him before contacting anyone about her. There are real monsters out there.”

Her words hit like a gut punch. I know there are monsters out there—I’m one of them. I might not traffic women or burn brands into their skin, but my hands aren’t clean. They’ve never been. They never will be.

“I’ll get Arrow to look into her background once we have her details. We need to figure out what to do with her in the meantime,” Dante says.

“What do you mean?” I ask, frustration bubbling.

“Her wounds have been treated, she’s getting all the medical care she needs. Provided she wakes up soon the doctors think she can be released into our care in the next couple of days,” Dante answers.

“Our care?” I shake my head. This feels too big, too complicated. I can handle violence, but this? This I’m not sure how to clean up.

“She can stay with us. We have on-the-clock nurses looking after Massimo.”

“No,” I shake my head. “Not a chance.” The idea of her being anywhere near our father makes my skin crawl. I’ve spent years avoiding the man who ruined us all, the man who turned my mother’s life into a living hell. I cannot, will not, let that bastard be near her.

“Angelo–” Dante growls, eyes flashing.

“I’m not letting that unhinged tyrant anywhere near her.”

“Watch your words,” he snaps. “Do you think I’d let him live under the same roof as Alessa if I thought he was a danger to anyone?” But I can see the crack in his armour. He doesn’t really believe in his own defence. Massimo Santoro is a relic of a man who should have been put down years ago.

“She can stay with me,” I declare suddenly, the room falling into stunned silence.

“You?” Luca cocks his head to the side, disbelief shining through his eyes.

“I’m more qualified to look after her than any of you,” I insist, locking eyes with each of them.

It feels absurd, even to my own ears. I’m far from the right choice.

With my past, present and future, she should be as far away from me as possible.

But I found her. She is mine, to protect, I mea n .

At least that’s what my brain is insisting on.

“You are?” Alessa questions, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“He’s got a medical degree,” Dante explains, shocking her and me alike.

A bitter laugh bubbles in my chest, though I suppress it. A medical degree. It feels like a distant memory from another life. Back when I thought I could be something more, something better. Before I realised healing wasn’t my calling—destruction was.

It shouldn’t be so shocking though. Not in this world, not in this life.

It goes hand in hand with the job, knowing how to really hurt someone.

How to make sure they’re always just on the verge of passing out, but not crossing the threshold until I’m done with them.

Keeping someone alive is harder than killing them.

It feels like a cruel joke that knowledge of saving lives has made me an expert in taking them.

Every lesson I learned in medicine has been twisted, weaponised.

Knowing precisely where to strike, how deep, and just how much blood a body can lose before it crosses the point of no return.

It’s a skill set that makes me the perfect monster.

“I didn’t know that,” she states, looking at me with something that almost feels like awe. Her expression makes me uncomfortable, like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve. I don’t want her to see anything in me, certainly not something worth admiring.

“It’s not something I advertise.” And it’s definitely not something anyone expects from someone like me. In most people’s eyes, I’m the blunt instrument, the enforcer. Nothing more, nothing less.

“And you’re okay with having a stranger in your house?” Luca asks incredulously, disbelief clear in his tone.

No . “Why wouldn’t I be?” I shrug like my hands aren’t itching to punch a wall.

My home is my sanctuary, my fortress. One I designed and built as far away from everyone as I could get away with.

It’s the one place where I can breathe without feeling the weight of our family’s name pressing down on me.

Having someone in my space is going to tear at every nerve I have, but I can’t say that.

Not here. Not now. It’ll only be for a short period of time , I tell myself.

Once she’s recovered we’ll send her on her way, and my life can return to the familiar colours of death and blood.

“It’s decided then. She’ll stay with you.

” Dante’s jaw tightens as if it’s the worst idea I’ve ever had.

And maybe it is. Maybe I’m too impulsive, too reckless.

But I can’t shake the image of her frail body in that shipping container, the faint pulse beneath my fingertips, the soft whisper of that word— anio?.

As if she saw something in me I haven’t seen in myself in years.

I’m about to open my mouth and take back everything I just said when a crash comes from behind the door separating us and the woman we’ve been discussing. Then comes the one thing you don’t want to hear in a hospital—a continuous piercing beep.