Page 105 of Vicious Impulses (The Capo and Ballerina)

I wrench the bedroom door open with enough power to almost rip it off its hinges and then barrel down the hall, heaving like a beast embarking on a rampage.

In this moment, that’s what I am.

I make it downstairs where several of my men swarm me. Matteo is first to launch into an explanation.

I hold up a hand to shut him up. “I don’t want to hear any fucking excuses! You imbeciles have failed to keep the premises secure—and worse than that, you’ve failed to keep my ballerina on the premises! What fucking good are you?”

“Caelian, we don’t know how she did it! How they did it! We think they used an exit through the east wing. They knew which spots to avoid so the cameras wouldn’t capture them.”

My glare darkens.

So my ballerina has been sneakier and more observant than I thought. As we’ve spent more time together and our relationship bloomed, I have trusted her more. I have given her privileges she never otherwise had. Even after discovering the espionage manner in which Nero deployed the ballerinas in his dance company, I foolishly believed Nevaeh wouldn’t betray me.

Not mia bella ballerina.

She had sworn to me she was mine. She had confessed she loved me. She had given me a fucking ring and vowed she wanted to be with me and only me.

How could she disappear into the night only hours later?

“Search the woods,” I growl.

“We’re combing through them now. It’s miles before civilization. Doesn’t even make sense how they’d be able to get so far.”

“It was planned. That’s the only way they could’ve managed. It was part of their scheme all along. That is why she begged to see her mother for so long. She was going to try to escape.”

Matteo blows out a breath as we descend the spiraling staircase into my underground compound. “I’ll tell you what—she had me fooled. Really thought she’d fallen for you in recent weeks.”

His words remind me of the fact that I’m holding the note Ms. Poitier said Nevaeh left for me. I unclench my fist and open up the wrinkled sheet of paper. Nevaeh’s penmanship is as graceful as her dancing:

Cael,

I didn’t want to have to do this. But I knew I couldn’t involve you in my mess. It’s for the best that I handle what’s happening with my family on my own. I’m sorry it had to be this way. Just know our time together wasn’t a dream this time.

This time, it was real. I love you.

Nevi

Her letter only ignites an even hotter flame of anger that scorches me. I crumple it back up in my fist and release a roar that surely echoes for miles. If Nevaeh and her mother are still wandering somewhere in the surrounding woods, they must hear it.

Buried further down from the rage and fury is the heartbreak. The twitchy heart that has been the bane of my existence from the time I was a boy snaps into smaller, more pathetic fragments. Fresh pain rolls through me that I’m unsure if caused by my condition or by the realization Nevaeh has walked out on me.

She’s left me and everything we’ve begun building together.

If anyone ever had the power to hurt me, she does. Deep, deep irreparable pain that could destroy a man. It will destroy me if she doesn’t return.

But that won’t happen. Because I’ll destroy her first if she won’t be with me.

I grit my teeth, my balled up fist absorbing the words written on the paper clenched inside. “Do whatever it takes to find her. Bring her back here. She will be punished. She will regret ever trying to run from me.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

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