Page 42 of Ruthless King
“Where is Vin?”
The man frowns at my tone. “He went into the city—”
“Bring him back and get him on a plane,” I say, pushing past him. “Now. And get me into contact with Mischa’s people. Offer whatever assistance he needs to find the girl.”
“While you get your ass to that villa and make sure your little knife girl isn’t the daughter of the most powerful man in the city,” Fabio snarls. “And if she is, you get on your knees and do whatever it takes to fix this. Whatever it takes.”
“It wasn’t her,” I snap. But I was more convinced in the case of her being Safiya. As for Willow?She’s mute, Fabio said.Can’t say a damn word...
But Willow’s birthday was supposedly just the other day—Safiya’s was several months ago. I try to cling to that small shred of reinforcement, but it surprisingly doesn’t soothe the unease brewing in my gut any.
“Let’s pray she’s hiding out with some lover, and her father will find her decently scandalized like any rich, well-bred girl,” Fabio warns, coming up to my shoulder. “Because if she isn’t…”
The answer doesn’t need to be voiced out loud.
If the girl was Willow Stepanova, I might have signed my own death warrant.
And Vin’s.
13
WILLOW
He left me once to a much worse fate…
And I survived. I endured. I went on to thrive in a new world he could only dream of me living. His betrayal hurt me, but I stayed standing.
Watching him leave this time shatters the pathetic barrier I spent seven years building. Those lies I told myself. The scenario I fed myself, the fantasy promising that I’d find him again as I am now, and put a knife through his chest. As he lay gasping, I’d stare into those glinting eyes until they went dark for good. He would see my face in his dying moments and realize with a cold sense of finality who I am. What he did.
I’d finally be able to let him go.
The man in that fantasy was cruel and heartless but resigned to his fate. He’d always see me coming.
In reality, this Donatello is a stranger—an unpredictable one at that. Tormented, haunted, anguished. He keeps the name of a dead girl slashed into his chest as a constant reminder. He mourns her jealously. He’s martyred her.
But when faced with her specter, he crumbles into denial. More than that. He was so damn convinced I wasn’t her. Because his perfect, precious Safiya was a saint. Someone he loved enough to threaten murder at anyone who dares challenge her memory.
He loved her.
And he let her die.
Why?
Why?
It’s the confusion that barrels into me in a brutal, relentless assault. It leaves me gasping, clawing at the dusty wooden floor in search of stability. An answer. Clarity.
Why?
The walls of this place laugh at me and all those childish whims I’ve clung to. Reality is as cruel as a searching hand, prodding into one’s deepest depths. There is no hiding from it. No escape.
Donatello didn’t even recognize me—not because he had forgotten his Safiya. I just don’t match the horror he conjured for her. His innocent little Safy’s suffering isn’t comparable to my own. Even after he threw me away, my pain isn’t good enough to impress him.
He can’t even recognize the scars of the wounds he inflicted.
Because in his mind? They aren’t gruesome enough.
I’d laugh if I had the voice to. Scream. Find a new knife and stab him again, and again and again until he saw me. Really saw me.
