Page 24 of Ruthless King
Observing it now, it suits a far different purpose than mourning. It’s tight enough to run in. Or stab someone while wearing it and obscure any bloodstains. In a sense, it’s the polar opposite of the white dress I’d been given after being abandoned.
This…is a fitting dress to kill Donatello Vanici in.
Teeth bared, I slip it on, still wearing my new white heels.
Why? My brain is on autopilot, racing ahead too quickly for my body to keep up. I keep seeing him, his back to me. Leaving, always leaving…
But following him now would be foolish. Pointless. Unless…
I can find him alone. Unguarded.
To do what?
Silver on my dresser catches my eye, and I lunge for the object, testing my thumb over a sharpened edge. Eli’s knife.
“Will…” His voice, trembling with alarm, grates on the anger, making me falter.
I turn to find him watching me, his blue eyes fathomless in the dark. “What are you doing?”
Guilt chokes me for the fear in his gaze.I have to take care of something,I sign to him.Please, just cover for me.
“Cover? How?”
A part of me knows this is wrong. My fingers are moving anyway.Make a distraction.
Pushing past him, I reenter the hall, heading for the staircase. A figure walks by, too perfectly timed to be real. I’m imagining him, storming past two guards stationed near the front door. In this hallucination, I hear him clearly. “We’ll return to the hotel.”
Rather than descend the main staircase, I skirt around to the servant’s wing and out a door that leads to the side of the house. The fact that I run into no one is a testament to the scale of the party Mischa planned. It feels as though everyone, from the servants, to the security detail, is positioned outside to manage the flow of guests.
Only one car awaits out front now; however, its headlights painting the driveway gold against an ebony sky. I crouch behind a row of hedges, inching forward until I’m just paces from the manor’s entrance. The car is close enough to touch, a black luxury model.
As if on cue, two men exit the front of the manor and approach the vehicle. The tallest of the pair gestures for the driver and hands him a large box that the man promptly brings to the trunk.
He opens the compartment, placing the box inside, and I don’t know what possesses me to grab a rock from the lawn and throw it. The skittering noise draws the driver’s attention, and he walks toward it just long enough for me to slip from between two hedges and climb inside the trunk entirely.
Admonishments run through my mind. There’s no way no one saw me. What the hell am I doing?
When footsteps approach, I tense in anticipation, knowing I’ll be caught.
But the lid slams shut instead, and the sudden darkness has the effect of a bucket of ice water being dumped over my head.
I’m in the same car as Donatello Vanici.
The knife is in my grasp, and I cling to it so tightly it hurts—but I don’t drop it.
Instead, I channel another set of memories from my childhood. Mischa, shouting at me as we trained in the yard, his warnings unrelenting.
“Never let your guard down, Mouse! No matter how exhausted you are, you fight. You win. Now move!”
With his voice in my head, I feel a strength I’ve never experienced before, giving me the sense of mind to strain through the dark and get my bearings.
I’ll trust this protector over the other two who failed me.
I’ll take his words to heart.
I’ll fight.
And I will win.
