Page 89 of Lords of Ruin: Savage

Twice.

I press the back of my hand against my lips, my breath uneven as my pulse hammers through me. Maybe he won’t pick up. Maybe this is a mistake.

Then, on the third ring?—

“Willow.”

His voice is low, rough, like he wasn’t expecting to hear from me but knew, somehow, that I would call.

I exhale shakily, pressing my forehead against the wall. “Cast.”

There’s silence on the other end, heavy and charged. He doesn’t ask why I’m calling. Doesn’t ask how I am. He doesn’t need to. He already knows.

“You shouldn’t be calling me,mi amor.”

I let out a soft, broken laugh. “I know.”

More silence. I hear the sound of him exhaling, the faint clink of glass—he’s drinking. Of course he is.

“Say it,” he murmurs.

My throat tightens. “Say what?”

“You didn’t call me for no reason.” His voice dips lower, rougher. “Say what’s on your mind,corazón.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, my fingers tightening around the phone. “I love you.”

A sharp inhale. A barely there sound, but I catch it. My heart clenches.

“I love you,” I say again, my voice firmer this time. “I love you, and I don’t know how to stand up there and pretend like I don’t. Like I’m not breaking my own heart by doing this.”

He lets out a slow exhale, like my words are a knife dragging across his skin.

“Willow,” he says softly. “You don’t belong to me.”

My stomach twists. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.” He pauses, then his voice drops, rough and edged dark, “You’re too good for me.”

I laugh, but it’s humorless, hollow. “That’s a lie.”

His silence tells me he agrees.

Then, after a long pause, he says, “Do you know what I would have done if you were mine?”

I shiver at the way his voice dips, my fingers tightening around the phone. “Tell me.”

“I would’ve burned down the whole fucking city to get to you,” he murmurs. “Vincent wouldn’t be breathing. I wouldn’t have let it get this far. I would havekilled my best friend, my brotherfor you, Willow.”

A shudder rolls through me. It should scare me, the quiet violence in his words. But it doesn’t. Because I believe him.

Because part of mewantsthat. Wants to behis.Wants him to take me away from all of this and keep me locked in his world, where he’d kill and destroy and ruin anything that tried to keep us apart.

I swallow hard. “Cast…”

“Where are you?” he asks suddenly, his voice sharper now, all business. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”

I suck in a breath. My hands are shaking. My thoughts are spinning.

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