Page 30 of Savage Heart

Such as selling her off to the man who’s waited decades to get his revenge through her.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Antonio asks the men in the room. “She’ll make a perfect wife for Lucius.”

All the men agree, and Basilio licks his lips before saying, “I’d say so. Young, fresh, and ready to learn some life lessons I doubt she’s even considered yet, even at that fine school she attended.”

His round face grows red as he talks about Sienna like that. A decent man would be offended by his friends discussing his future wife like that, but I have no interest in stopping them. Not only am I not decent, but this isn’t a love match, and I have no intention of pretending it is.

This is revenge through the use of a young woman’s body. Nothing more. She’ll learn to endure what I force upon her, or she’ll be broken by the experience. But she will obey me, and I will exact my vengeance on her.

“How did Maya take the news?” Antonio asks as he settles in with his own drink now that he’s finished serving the rest of the group.

I shrug at the memory of her momentary unhappiness when I told her the other night. “She knows how this works. She can’t be my wife, so she’s either happy being my mistress or she can be out on the street. I give her that choice every time I marry, and she makes the same one every time. She’s smart. She knows she won’t find anything better.”

Tommaso laughs at my truthful answer about Maya and points at me. “This will be how many wives now, Lucius? I’ve lost count.”

“Four. If Alesia had been stronger, she would have been number four, but it’s all for the best, I think, since Sienna is the prize I’ve been waiting for,” I say with pride now that my revenge is almost complete.

“And what happened with her? One day she was here hosting parties as an intended wife should, and the next day she was creating a scene that one night and she was gone,” he says, clearly angling to find out if I got rid of my last intended bride in the most complete sense.

I stare him down for a moment for being so impudent and asking about what I do with my women, but I can’t condemn him for being curious. Each of these men is saddled with the same wife they’ve had for ages. They need something to amuse them.

“She wasn’t strong enough to be the woman of this house. When I found that out, I let her go.”

Antonio lifts his glass and adds, “Not until you gave her a little dose of your particular brand of punishment, though, boss. I bet she’s still smarting from that beating.”

I nod, remembering how enraged I was after her behavior that night that sent me into a blinding rage. “And now she knows what happens when she doesn’t behave. I bet her next man will appreciate how I beat the brazenness out of her. I did him and all men a favor.”

“So what about this new one?” Gabriel Montero asks, nudging Basilio next to him so they both chuckle at the question. “Is she going to be strong enough? She’s delicious, to be sure. One look at her in that dress tells anyone with a working pair of eyes that, but does she have what it takes to handle you?”

The room erupts into laughter at the mere possibility that any woman has what it takes to handle me. I’m Lucius Angeloni. No one handles me. Not man or woman, and especially not some young girl.

“This one has fire inside her,” I say before taking a mouthful of my drink and letting it slowly slide down my throat, warming my insides as it makes its way to my bloodstream.

Gabriel’s eyebrows shoot up into his forehead. “Do you really want that? Fire sounds like work.”

“Let’s just say I’m going to enjoy taking out my revenge on her and extinguishing that fire of hers at the same time. Then she might become a woman I want. Until then, she’ll be what I want in between the sheets.”

“Tell me, Lucius,” Basilio says. “Did you dress her like that for your guests tonight? If so, you’re an even better host than I thought.”

I shake my head at the vision of Sienna out on my terrace standing as still as a statue in that gawdy silver dress her brother forced her to wear. The women serving the food and drink to my guests need to show skin. They’re help, for fuck’s sake. Sienna is the woman I’m about to announce as my intended wife, and he dresses her like some cheap whore.

I’m going to enjoy when I kill him. I truly am.

Leaning back in my chair, I shrug at how ridiculous the entire situation is. “Did you get to see anything you like?”

Each man nods, clearly happy to get a peek at my new bride. Tommaso raises his hand and says, “All it took was a few steps and I got to see enough to make me like her.”

“Then maybe I’ll let you take a try of her before I marry her. After tonight, of course. This night is for me. Afterward, though? Who knows?”

My marriage to Sienna Rossetti isn’t a romance. It’s payback, pure and simple, so why shouldn’t I let my best friends enjoy her if they so choose? What do I care? I plan to kill her and her entire family anyway, so they might as well get off on her while they can.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Alaric

As I walk through the garden outside of Lucius Angeloni's home, I feverishly try to think of a way to get Sienna out of this house. I can't let her be with him. I can't let her brother get away with marrying her off to this man. She's mine. And if it takes having to kill every single one of these people to get her free, then that's what I'll do.

I tilt my head back to look up at the stars and wish the two of us were back at that apartment of hers less than a mile away from school.

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