Page 55 of XV (Fifteen) (War of Roses 1)

But fear can’t override every instinct, as it turns out. My teeth clamp down over an answer. My brain won’t betray those memories. I’m forced to endure his curiosity for nearly a minute before he shifts his weight and knocks me off him without pressing the topic further.

“Get up.”

I scramble onto my hands and knees and back away to the opposite end of the mattress. He watches me go with an unreadable expression before he stands and strips his shirt, tossing it onto the floor.

My brain short-circuits as I take him in. A collage of scars and varying tattoos mark his body like it’s a vandalized canvas. Long, vicious marks. Snarling black skulls and swirling designs with undiscernible meanings. I’m not sure why my gaze settles over one brand in particular, sliced into his lower back. It’s large enough to span nearly his entire torso, neatly integrated through several surrounding tattoos. A complex series of scars forms its construction: two vertical slashes beside a crudely etched V. Another Roman numeral?Seven.

The longer I stare, the more unsteady the world feels beneath me. With Robert, curiosity was a warning sign to back away from whatever sparked it. Nothing good ever came from learning his secrets.

With Mischa…

That same emotion is a drug, numbing me to the harsher reality. The promise of his secrets doesn’t repulse me as much as it confuses me. Maybe because I can’t escape the pathetic truth: I want to learn…everything.

I want to know what made him human once. Robert wasn’t a monster so much as he was a beast. He was born that way. He’ll die that way.

He doesn’t use his body as a canvas to illustrate his descent into madness.

He has no Vanya mourning what he used to be.

Does the difference mean a damn thing?

Maybe…

“See something you like?” Mischa wonders, his cold tone snapping me back to reality.

I turn my focus to the wall beyond his head as he continues toward the dresser, swiping a clean shirt from one of the drawers. I hear a zipper come undone moments later, but when he finally reenters my line of sight, he’s fully dressed in a pair of slacks and a lazily donned button-down. He fastened it up to his chest, leaving a sliver of defaced skin in view.

“Let’s hope that sleep refreshed your memory,” he warns before exiting the room altogether, leaving me to follow on shaking legs.

Morning casts an alarming pallor over the grand estate, and the daylight seeping in reveals secrets skillfully hidden by the dark. His men are a constant presence, lurking around doorways and wandering the ornate halls. There’s a staleness to the wealth, like something long since abandoned.

Why?

The wooden floors and paneled walls reveal no answers by the time I’m led inside the barren office, forced to take a seat before the desk. Mischa hands me the leather book, which was still where he’d left it. I dutifully flip it open to a clean page and balance the pen between my fingers.

Memory is a dangerously unreliable thing. It’s there, fighting to be known when you’re desperate to suppress it. Yet it hides when you need it, obscuring details and blurring lines. Mischa watches, patiently impatient as I etch out another four names in painstaking fashion.

Upon snatching the book from me, he scans the page, his eyes narrowing over the entries. Then he rips it from the book and shoves it crumpled into his pocket. “More.” He drops the book onto my lap and jerks his chin toward the pen. “Write them.”

“I can’t.” My hand trembles, allowing the nib of the pen to broadcast my anxiety on the air. “It…it doesn’t work like that—”

“Like what?” he presses, lethally soft. His hand cups my chin, wrenching it back so that my gaze meets his. “What doesn’t work?”

I swallow hard, consumed by the vast emptiness that paints his irises. I always thought Robert was hard to interpret, but now, I know the truth. Robert hid nothing behind his darkness. There were no secrets to discern.

“I can’t just turn it off and on,” I admit. “M-maybe…if you told me what you were looking for—”

“Ha!” He lets me go and throws his head back for another chilling laugh. “Don’t, Little One,” he warns. “Don’t attempt to manipulate me. I am not Ivan.”

I don’t know what he means. Looking down at my hands, I try again. “There are hundreds of names. Thousands of accounts—”

“Then give me the ones that you heard the most.” His tone is less mocking this time. Something odd taints his expression and I struggle to name it. Actual interest? “Think.” He comes up behind me to hiss the word directly into my ear. “Think hard, Little One. I suggest you hold my attention for as long as you have it.”

My body resonates with the ominous suggestion, and I return the pen to the page. Three names spring to mind and I scribble them hastily, one after the other. When I hold them out to Mischa, I expect him to shove the book back in my face with a growled command.More!

But his eyes spark with interest as he fingers one name in particular. “Son of a bitch…” His gaze flicks up, burning through mine. “Him. How do you know him?”

I scan the letters partially obscured by his pointing thumb.Kostas. My stomach tightens ominously.Thatname. It’s one of the few I can trace back to a clear memory. Several memories. He was one of the few men Robert made me pleasure for him. With my mouth. My hands. They tremble as the coarse images linger on my conscience.

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