Book Review: The Savage

Title: The Savage
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Mafia, Crime, Romance

What It’s About:

Constantine makes arancini and pizza dough at his family’s restaurant—the one that has been passed down for generations on Taormina. HIs mom comes in, scolds him for leaving the door unlocked and also for the loud music, before going on to talk about Isabella, Constantine’s girlfriend. He tells his mom that he’s planning on asking her to marry him, but he needs to make money to buy the ring, and he had spoken with the jeweler in the city to hold that ring for him until he’s able to make the payment in full. His mother offers him money from the safe, but Constantine tells her that he wants to work for it. Later, he’s hanging out at the house, when his twin brother Edric comes in and doesn’t say a word, but he sits across from Isabella. Constantine notes their body language and that something is up. During another visit, he notes that Isabella and Edric are having a tense conversation, and then at a club, he notes the weirdness between them again, and asks if there is something going on. Both Isabella and Edric tell him that nothing is going on. But then Edric shows up at Constantine’s apartment and tells him that he had kissed Isabella and she continued the kiss because he made her think that he was Constantine. He’s mad at his brother for doing this and making him look like a fool, so Constantine beats him up and tells him that he doesn’t want to see him again. He also breaks up with Isabella, who had come to his apartment to speak to him after he beat up Edric. She tries to beg him to stay with her and move past it, but the way that Constantine sees it is that she had an emotional affair. Something about the kiss with Edric made her feel a certain way which is why she had kept it a secret, didn’t tell him, and then also encourage Edric to keep it quiet. She wouldn’t have done that, in his opinion, if she didn’t feel something. He isn’t exactly kind to her, and when she tries to reach for him, he moves away, choosing to leave the apartment because she wasn’t willing to leave despite the fact that he asked her to do so.

Six months after that, Constantine has returned the ring and he is miserable at work and in Taormina. His mom implores him to go to speak with his brother in Palermo and work it out because Constantine is not himself. He goes to Edric and is surprised by the place that he’s living in because as far as he knows, Edric is a cook in a restaurant. Edric confirms that he moved to Palermo because he didn’t want to continue the awkwardness, and Constantine forgives him. Edric then reveals that he’s actually working for the Cosa Nostra, and gets Constantine to agree to go see the main boss. They go, and everyone has a laugh at the fact that they are twin brothers, because no one knows that Edric had a twin brother. Tomasso loves Constantine and notes that he’s much more level headed than Edric, but offers him a job with Cosa Nostra as well, and Constantine eventually does take it, moving to Palermo as well. Isabella comes through the doors of the family restaurants while Constantine is there and tries to speak to him again, to convince him that they should be together because they’ve loved each other as kids. He refuses to consider it, and is having a hard time of getting her out, until his mom shows up to see what the chaos is about. Isabella breaks down crying and keeps talking about how she’s sorry, and that they’re supposed to be together. His mom cuddles her and Constantine thinks that she will tell them to work it out and be on her side, but to both of their surprises, his mother tells her that she understands that Isabella is sorry, but that she has to accept the consequences of her actions, and they are what they are, though she will always be considered family to her; just not married into through Constantine. Isabella leaves and his mom surprises him further by saying that he’s right, Isabella is not the one because if she were, they would have found their way to one another and he wouldn’t be this miserable.

Over the years, Constantine had made himself a small fortune working for the Cosa Nostra, and he is one of their best men, rising up the ranks quite quickly for his approach to things. Edric had moved away to Florence, where he had joined the Skull King, and when Constantine meets with Edric when they’re in Florence, Edric reveals that he needed to get away because he was always in Constantine’s shadow, and he was never good enough. He also reveals that he is having an affair with none other than the Skull King’s wife, who he claims he has a connection with. Constantine tells Edric to break it off because the Skull King is obsessed with his wife and he is psychotic—he won’t take kindly to Edric being the affair partner. At some point Constantine is doing a tail on someone that the Cosa Nostra wants to follow, and he gets a phone call from Edric. He picks up on the second time that Edric calls, and learns that Edric is being chased by none other than the Skull King, Darius. He wants to go save his brother, and gets Tomasso involved to help, but when they arrive, Darius is furious and he doesn’t allow for leniency. Darius doesn’t want anything—there is no money that could pay him for what Edric did, and he had killed his wife for having the affair. He also doesn’t like Constantine’s face because it’s identical to Edric, and he has Edric brought out in front of the men from Cosa Nostra. Constantine watches and pleads to spare Edric as Darius stomps on Edric’s body, breaking bones, and ultimately his skull, killing Edric. When he goes back to Sicily, he is in a depression until Tomasso shows up, and Constantine asks him to help him get his brother’s body back. Tomasso agrees on the condition that Constantine consider marrying Tomasso’s daughter in ten years when she is 25. They return to Darius, who tells them that he could have given the answer to them via the phone, but this way, he can see Constantine’s face as he tells him that Edric is in an oil drum that will be his side table for as long as Darius is alive, even when he’s an elderly man, he will keep it and use it. Tomasso has to drag Constantine out because there’s nothing they can do though Constantine tries to beg for it.

Eventually, Constantine tells his family that Edric died in a car accident, avoiding telling his mother and sister that he was involved in nefarious activities. He also pays for an empty but closed casket, to help symbolically bury Edric, though he knows that he will never stop trying to get his body back for his family, but it will give some closure to them. Isabella speaks to him while he’s alone after the funeral, because she knows that those are all lies. Eventually, time passes on and Constantine convinces both the Pope, the president of Italy, and the military leaders of Italy to be the Roman Emperor, who controls crime. They agree, on the condition that he leave Darius alone and does not seek his revenge because Darius is more powerful and there is nothing that anyone can do that he won’t see coming off a mile away. It infuriates Constantine but he accepts, knowing that he will never stop working towards that goal of destroying Darius. Constantine begins working out and bulking up because Darius is huge and he knows that he will need every advantage.

As time goes on, he comes back to Taormina to check in on family. But he also speaks to Tomasso and tells him that he will forgo the 10 percent tax that the Roman Emperor takes off of the top of the criminal activity, if Cosa Nostra looks out for his family and friends. Tomasso agrees. Another time, Constantine returns to Taormina for Isabella’s wedding, thoguh he feels weird about it, and when he visits a couple years after that wedding, he learns from one of his cousins that Isabella was getting a divorce, because her husband was cheating on her. Constantine visits her and talks to her, before finding her husband and beating him up to the point that he ends up in the hospital. He ends up having sex with her, hoping that it will get that last bit of them out of his system, but realizes that it’s a mistake and leaves Taormina early. His friend, Rocco, talks to him about it when he’s back in Rome. Then, he’s back in Taormina and hanging out with his friends and family at the family restaurant, when he feels someone watching him. He looks up and sees green eyes of a beautiful and intelligent woman who is riddled with sadness. She doesn’t stop looking at him even when caught, and his breath is taken away—he had long given up the idea that he would find something like what he had with Isabella, until that particular woman took his breath away. He goes in the back to speak to the kitchen staff, but then decides to go back for the woman, only to find that she’s long gone. A few days later, he goes to the hotel, where he is staying now that he’s convinced his mom that he needs his own space (as at first she demanded he stayed at home), and notices that woman. He sees her cycle through different thoughts, and then falter when another girl walks up to him from a group of girls behind her. He ignores the girl who came his way, after telling her that he’s into someone else, and walks over to the woman who captured his attention, introducing himself.

In the present, Constantine has Timothee brought into the coliseum that the Roman Republic has made, and Timothee only gives him information that leads nowhere because he knows nothing about the man who had been running the trafficking ring to get organs onto the black market. He only tells Constantine that his name was Vincent. Constantine gives him a chance to fight and live but Timothee ends up dying in the ring, which is meant to replicate the gladiatorial fights. Constantine calls Luca, who is the leader of the French Republic, and he tells him that he will look into it. He eventually has to go to France, so he tells Aurelia that she should stay in his house while he’s gone, because he can tell that she’s afraid. They’ve been seeing each other and she doesn’t ask too many questions about what he’s up to or what he’s doing, unless she really wants to know, and Constantine doesn’t keep secrets from her. He does fuck her and she enjoys it. When he returns, he meets with Pope Zephyrinus, who is actually a distant uncle of his, and asks him to set up a meeting with the Skull King to mediate, because the Roman Republic has received noticed that there is a terrorist attack on the EU imminent, and they found out that Darius has either been helping or been pretending he doesn’t know anything about weapons shipments—something that the agreement was that they wouldn’t use to turn on their own people. Constantine is still annoyed because Darius had only run unchecked because the political leadership is afraid of doing anything about him because he’s too powerful.

He spends time with Aurelia, even taking her to meet the pope at an meant for dignitaries and world leaders. She’s awed by the Pope, and later she watches as a man walks up to Constantine that she can tell has the same kind of assured energy as Constantine, which means to her that he’s from the criminal world. Constantine confirms that later when she asks about the man, and he tells her that it was Luca of the Fifth Republic, and that he has Vincent, who was the man behind her attempted kidnapping. He goes to meet with Luca’s men at the given address, leaving Aurelia alone at his home, and picks up Vincent. With some torture, Vincent gives up the information on where the humans are trafficked to and where the organs are harvested, so Constantine leaves him in the hands of Rocco, who wants to do something even worse to him. He instead goes to meet his men and they take down everyone in the illegal warehouse, rounding up the women and chaining them to the walls to hand over to the police. As much as Constantine knows that women can be just as evil as men or worse, he doesn’t have the heart in him to do anything to them, so this is what he can do. Instead, he takes the men and hangs them in front of the Pantheon in Rome as a warning to others—he does get a call from President Barsetti, but tells him to live with it. Then he later takes Aurelia down to a restaurant nearby. They talk about a lot of different things, including children, and eventually, he asks her to move in, which she does without hesitation.

Aurelia also introduces him to her friends and they are all starry-eyed because he’s so handsome and they didn’t believe her. At some point, Constantine’s mom calls him and talks to Aurelia, while she’s in the room with him, and at a different point, his sister calls him and doesn’t want to talk to her. While they’re out, Aurelia lets slip that she understands that his sister doesn’t like her because Isabella is her friend. Constantine’s mood slips and when they get home, they get into an argument because he knows that no one called Isabella out in front of Aurelia. So Aurelia admits to him that she overheard their conversation, on purpose, and that she had chosen not to say anything because he had made it obvious to Isabella that he didn’t want Aurelia to see or witness this and it felt like they could leave it under the rug as she didn’t even know what was going to become of them. Aurelia tells him that she loves him, as they argue about it, and this puts Constantine in a different mood at work the next day. He’s smiling so much that even Rocco comments about it and Constantine tells him what happened. Rocco, having met Aurelia at dinner one night, asks Constantine if he will marry Aurelia, and he says yes.

Constantine then has that meeting with Darius, with the Pope mediating, and while the two of them do get some verbal sparring in, Constantine does deliver the message about the attack on the EU, and asks about the weapons. Darius tells him nothing, and it begins to devolve into another verbal sparring match at which point the Pope says that enough is enough, and Darius leaves. The Pope tells Constantine that he did what he could and there is no more to be done. There is a period of time that Constantine is depressed and distant, and barely engaging with Aurelia. She tries to call Rocco for help, but he tells her to give Constantine time. Eventually she confronts him in the bathroom, and he tells her how he feels about the whole situation with the Skull King and the fact that he killed his brother, because she recognizes it as grief. He tells her that his life would have been different if he had married Isabella and never followed Edric, but then he snaps out of it and realizes that it would mean that he wouldn’t have Aurelia. Constantine is at work, when he gets a phone call from one of his contacts in Florence that there is movement from the Skull King’s lair, and he realizes with Rocco that Darius is coming for them, so he calls up his men in his house and asks them to move Aurelia and his german shepherd, Medusa out of the house to a safe location. He also calls Aurelia and tells her to get ready.

She wakes up as a result of the phone call, and makes sure to pack a few items that she needs in order to leave, and then calls the dog. Unfortunately, they’re not able to leave the mansion, because there are gunshots everywhere, so Aurelia gets a gun, and hides in the room. She ends up closing the heavy metal doors in the last minute before anyone is able to make it in, but after some time, the gunshots get it down. She tries to shoot someone, but misses, and Medusa bites the man who comes in, trying to protect Aurelia. He flings the dog out, and Medusa hits the wall, where she becomes disoriented. Aurelia realizes that the dog is in pain and disoriented—one of her paws is broken—and she gives herself up for the dog. The man, who she later learns is Darius, shoves her out and makes her fall. She hears as Constantine enters the house and up the stairs before anything else can be done to her, though Darius has threatened her with rape. Darius gives Constantine an ultimatum—either he takes Aurelia and she dies, or Constantine walks away from the Roman Republic. Constantine chooses to walk away, and then jumps in front of Medusa when Darius tries to kill her for biting him. Darius gives him three hours, and Constantine quickly removes the bullet from the wound in the bathroom, and packs, with Aurelia packing her stuff. While she watches him patch himself up from the bullet wound, and the ease with which he does it, she realizes that the tattoos are there to cover up his scars. He carries out both his and hers bags, as well as Medusa and puts them on a private chartered flight to Sicily, where he pays the veterinarian to fix Medusa’s leg. Constantine does get a call from President Barsetti before they fly out and tells him that he’s done with fighting for the Roman Republic—someone else needs to do it because they didn’t want him to take out the Skull King years ago when he said they should. He also had talked to Rocco and told him the same, leaving it all behind.

Now at his new mansion in Taormina, Aurelia apologizes to him because she knew his job was important. He tells her that she is more important than him and so he would always choose her over his job.

My Thoughts:

I think this is the first time that I’ve read a Penelope Sky book from the man’s perspective and we get an insight into the gory details of his job as the head boss man of a mafia or crime boss. It’s interesting, and it’s different, but I liked it. I wasn’t a fan of the fact that there were several prologues throughout the book, as in the chapters were named that, when it could have just been a flashback or something. It just felt a little clunky and like a start and stop of a manual car when you don’t know how to drive a manual car as it skipped between the different scenes of the past. I think that could have been written better to make it seem more reminiscent on Constantine’s part. But I really enjoyed getting to see more of his perspective and the backstory all along. As a result of the back story, the book also felt less like a romance story or smut book because there were less sex scenes or they were not as explicit. More of the variety of “I came home and had sex by bending Aurelia around and sliding in” and quickies rather than detailed scenes.

I was very invested in the story and could not put the book down as I love Aurelia and Constantine together, so I can’t wait until the next book comes out and I can read it as well.