Page 69 of Carved in Ruin

I fucked up. I painted her as a villain, knowing damn well she’s pure as snow. I wanted to hate her so badly that I broke her instead. Made her see herself through my anger, twisted and tainted. I didn’t just hurt her, I messed with how she sees herself. And there won’t be a moment in my life where I won’t regret it. Watching her now, so shattered, is what finally confirmed it. I wanted her to feel a hate I didn’t even muster for her, but all I did was make her hate herself.

She shakes her head violently, trying to pull away from my hands, but I don’t let her go.

“It doesn’t matter,” she spits. “I still did it. I hurt everyone close to me. It’s like I’m a curse.”

My jaw tightens. “Kroshka—”

“No, Rafael.” Her voice rises. “No. I burn everything I touch. Everything I touch turns to ash.”

My thumbs brush away her tears even as they fall faster. “That’s not true. That’s not fucking true, Mila. You’re not a curse. You don’t destroy—you survive.”

She doesn’t look convinced.

“My mother died because of me,” she wails.

I stay silent, forcing myself not to interrupt. She needs to say it, no matter how much it kills me to hear.

“She found out that Father used to…” Her voice falters, her fingers twisting in the hem of her shirt like she’s trying to tear herself apart. “He used to…”

She blurts it out all at once like its poison she can’t contain inside. “He took pictures of me when I was a child.Inappropriate ones.She found out, confronted him, and he—he killed her.”

My chest tightens and my vision darkens at the edges. Shit.Fuck.

I almost wish she hadn’t killed the bastard. Because what I would’ve done to him—what Istillwant to do—would make the devil himself shudder.

“I… I also found a camera in my room. And I heard him talking about me… It wasn’t the way a father should talk about his daughter.”

Her words claw at me, ripping through flesh and bone. My fists clench, trembling with the force of the rage boiling under my skin. I want to castrate him. I want to dismember him, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but a fucking stain on the floor.

But right now? Right now, I just want to hold her together.

“I used to think my mother abandoned us,” she continues, grief swallowing up her small frame. “That she chose herself over us. But all this time, she was buried in the backyard, right next to the fountain, Rafael.Right next to our fountain.”

She looks up at me and her eyes scare me. No. They terrify me. They are empty and cold. “Secretly, I used to look down on her. For leaving. For not choosing us. But she died protecting me. And all while I… I used to look down on her. I’m a horrid person.”

“You’re not a horrid person, Mila.”

She shakes her head, unwilling to believe it, and it tears something vital inside me.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m so fucking sorry,Kroshka.But this isn’t your fault. None of it is. Your mother—” I swallow. “Your mother loved you. She died protecting you. And we’ll give her the goodbye she deserves. I promise you that.”

“And Father?”

I tilt my head, my jaw tightening. “Do you want a funeral for him?”

She doesn’t even hesitate. “No.”

Good.

“Because I willtorture him,” I say. “Even in death.”

“Do whatever you want, I’m not the only one he wronged.”

Even now, drowning in her own pain, she thinks of me. Of justice. Not herself.

“I wish everyone could erase me from their life like you erased me so easily.”

My head snaps toward her. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I spit, my words rougher than I intend.

---