The light in his eyes vanished overnight, and the warmth in his voice grew cold. In theory, what he did to me should have hardened him more, completing his descent into madness. But here he is, more like the old Donny, the figure in my memories.
But then his eyes darken, scanning my face. “Safiya…” He inhales sharply as if just saying the name pains him, and I sit straighter, steeling myself against whatever he might say.
“She had an illness as a baby,” he explains, seemingly oblivious to how I jump. “Afterward, she developed aphasia. She was mute, you see. Never said a damn word in her life. Though your boss must have told you that. But it was more than a coy little silence.” He sits forward even more, practically frozen mid lunge. Something in his expression changes, darkening his gaze, making his shadow loom taller. “She couldn’t cry out when afraid. She couldn’t whimper. She couldn’t scream. When in pain, she couldn’t even gasp in alarm like you or I can. It is a silence unmaintainable by anyone without her affliction. And when you scream for me, little tigre, I will know for sure that your ruse is a hoax. So I suggest you come clean now.”
A shudder runs through me. This tone I also recognize from my memories. The voice I used to overhear him utilize during heated conversations with the men in his employ. The voice I heard the day Olivia died.
The voice of the Donatello who struck fear into the hearts of his enemies.
Do I fear him now? The answer comes to me easily. No.
I meet his gaze and hold it until he’s the one forced to turn away. Just when I think I’ve won, those cold eyes return to mine, glinting with a renewed intensity.
“Javier?” he snarls toward the driver’s seat. The tinted window in the partition separating the back of the vehicle from the front lowers.
“Yes, sir?” the driver responds, a man with short black hair, olive skin, and a serious expression that renders him the polar opposite of my playful Evgeni.
“Has Vin made it to the villa?”
“Almost, sir. They have so far been unbothered by any attacks.”
“Good.” Returning his attention to me, Donatello raises an eyebrow in a way that makes my breathing hitch. “Send word to them not to wait. We’ll be taking a detour.”
“Oh?”
“I’m in the mood for a drive. Take us to Havienna.”
My eyes widen, and he nods, stroking his chin.
“You recognize that name, eh tigre?” He reaches for me again, fingering a lock of my hair. “I’m sure your employer told you all about that. But how much will his money be worth when I’m through with you?” Switching effortlessly to Italian, he murmurs, “Tell me your name, little hellcat. I don’t think you’ll like what lies in store for you if you don’t.”
He fits the part of intimidating captor; I will give him that. His body is practically balanced on his knees, his eyes boring into my own, his tone a lethal whisper. At the back of my mind, I think I should feel some ounce of alarm.
But I don’t. I feel nothing.
Donatello Vanici cannot hurt me any more than he already has.
I’d bet my life on that.
11
Willow
Within minutes, he grows bored of me and returns to his previous position, slumped against his seat, his gaze focused on the window. Alarm makes me stiffen, and I cut my eyes to the door, wishing I had the energy to wrench it open and leave. I prefer the anger. The threatening side of him is easier to withstand.
Because when his eyes soften… Something in his expression now recalls those old, peaceful days when I would curl up by his side with a book while he pored over ledgers or business documents. Little had I known what his true work entailed.
In my ignorance, I only knew that I enjoyed being beside him, sneaking glances at his stern, focused face while he’d been too distracted to notice. No matter how lost in the details of his empire he became, he would always humor my presence. Always.
His large hand would absently stroke through my hair in acknowledgment, and I can still recall the feeling of calm that used to come over me. A feeling I haven’t been able to ever achieve since.
God, I used to live in such awe of this man.
Now, without the lens of childhood to distort him, all I see is a cruel bastard no different than any other in this twisted war of men. But Mischa doesn’t clothe himself in the blood of dead children by way of armor.
“It must be exhausting to be so angry with me,” he taunts, leaning his head back against his seat. He lets his eyes fall shut, an act that betrays just how little he fears me.
A smart woman would lunge for the knife. Instead, I lower my gaze to the strip of flesh bared by his ruined shirt and can’t seem to do anything more than stare. My fingers twitch, my teeth grinding together as I imagine his reasoning for having that name tattooed there. For sympathy? Pity?
It certainly can’t be out of guilt. He had weeks to find me before Mischa Stepanov entered Nicolai’s that fateful day—but he never came.
I don’t even realize I’m moving until it’s too late. My fingers twitch in the still air, reaching across the distance between us, grappling for the lapel of his tailored suit jacket. It’s expensive judging from the fabric’s softness—a world apart from the simplistic clothing he used to wear.
But he still smells like tobacco. Like old, expensive cigars and musk. Like fresh air and rain. My lungs greedily fill with his scent, comparing it to those old dangerous memories. My throat tightens at the threat of them, and I wrench my hand away just as he stirs, opening his eyes.
Rather than react in alarm, he snatches my wrist, running his thumb along the back of my hand as if testing the flesh for any hint of my identity. These smooth, manicured hands obscure so much of who I really am. His frown deepens.
“You are not Safiya,” he says coldly. But then he raises his free hand, tugging his shirt aside, revealing the planes of his chest and the letters scrawled across it in scarlet ink. Tightening his grip on me, he forces me to touch the curve of the S. The A next, which curves around the outline of his pec. The f…
“Do you want to hear what I did to her?” he asks, though there is no pride in his voice. Just exhaustion that matches the wrinkles etched into the flesh around his eyes. “I lied to her,” he tells me, forcing my fingers to trace the path of the I. “I told her I would always protect her, though I knew then that I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I sacrificed her love to my hate, and at the time… I didn’t regret it. You know what they call me, tigre? The men who hired you and the others. Il Mostro.” He switches to Italian, using his free hand to stroke my cheek. I don’t know why I let him. Why I’m so riveted by the flesh beneath my fingertips. Up close, it’s easy to tell that this tattoo wasn’t done carefully like Mischa’s many adornments. With every new child, he has their name added to a tally on his back, his way of marking his growing family.
Those carefully inked designs are nothing like this. Raw, jagged lines. Smeared ink as though something other than a professional instrument made the initial incision. And I can picture exactly what from my own experience with the weapon—a knife. A small one, wickedly sharp, utilized crudely to form the final creation inch by inch. To stain the skin, the creator had to use raw ink, rubbing it into the open wounds for no other reason than to cause pain. Agony. Horrified, I realize that this isn’t a tattoo.