Page 12 of Lords of Ruin: Savage

Before any of them can look at me like I’m broken.

6

WILLOW

After we arriveat the Chessmen’s penthouse, he drops me off in the room he callsmybedroom and gives me space to breathe.

I don’t know if it’s mercy or strategy, but either way, I take it.

The room isn’t just beautiful—it’s mine.

The walls are painted a deep, muted blue, the kind that swallows light in the most expensive way. A king-sized bed with silk sheets sits against the far wall, the comforter the perfect shade of ivory.

I close my eyes, exhaling shakily and kick off my Converse. The plush carpet cushions my feet as I take another step forward, my pulse hammering against my ribs. The floor-to-ceiling windows stretch across one side of the room, a private balcony just beyond them, the Dallas skyline shimmering in the distance.

I sit on the bed, sinking into the comforter as the scent of lilacs and cherries kisses my senses. The scent reminds me of Dad, and all the lilacs he would get my mother when I was younger.

Mom looked like one of those old-school supermodels, like Shalom Harlow but with huge, curly black hair and devastating blue eyes that looked like the ocean and reminded me of the sea.

When Mom was good, everything was good.

She was a piano teacher, and she played like a saint. Dad would fall asleep on the couch as she practiced, lulled into dreams by the soft, rolling notes, and I would sit on the floor, knees tucked to my chest, watching the way her hands moved.

She never just pressed the keys. Never forced them.

She coaxed them.

Each note was a whispered secret, each song a spell cast into the air. She played like the music was alive beneath her fingers, like the piano itself was breathing.

She said the lilacs were for good luck, that they kept the bad energy away. Every week, he’d bring home a fresh bouquet, filling the house with the soft, floral scent that mixed with the warm notes of old sheet music. When she played, the lilacs swayed from the vibration, like they were listening, too.

“Art is the only way the soul gets to scream without making a sound,” she told me once, her voice soft as she guided my hand over a blank page in my sketchbook. “When you don’t have the words, when it’s too much to say out loud, you draw. You paint. You play.”

So I did.

The first thing I ever sketched was her at the piano. The curve of her back as she leaned into the music, the way her fingers barely seemed to touch the keys, the lilacs framing her like she was an apparition out of a dream. I wanted to capture the way shelooked when the world made sense, when the melody carried her somewhere far away, where nothing could hurt her.

The shrill ring of my phone shatters the trance, yanking me out of the past and slamming me back into the present. My breath hitches, my fingers still curled around the soft fabric of the sweater Vincent picked out for me. I blink, forcing my vision to clear, and glance down at the screen.

Rudy.

I hesitate for only a second before going to sit on my bed and swiping to answer, pressing the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”

There’s a pause. A breath. Then his voice, low and urgent. “Willow, where the hell are you?”

“I had to do an emergency trip,” I whisper, sitting up in the bed and pinching my nose to get the lilac smell out of my system.

“An emergency trip?” Rudy repeats, and I can practically hear the disbelief dripping from his voice. “You vanish without a word, and that’s the best you’ve got?”

I sigh, sinking deeper into the plush pillows, the soft fabric brushing against my skin as I try to ground myself. “I didn’t exactly have time to draft a formal excuse, Rudy.”

“No shit.”

I can hear him running a hand through his hair, likely pulling at the strands out of frustration. “Rudy?—”

“Willow.” His voice is heavy with concern now. “How long?”

“What?” I shift, feeling my heart beat a little faster.

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