“Noted,” Fabio says over me. “But first things first, tell me more about that woman. Like why you were with her in the first place. A whore? A fling? What did she look like?”
“She looked…” Blond and slender with haunting cat-like eyes. “She looked like a woman who waved a knife in my face; that’s what she looked like.”
Fabio strokes his chin. “You and your entanglements.”
As though I’m accosted by murderous women daily.
“This… This was personal,” I say. “I took the woman so we could have a nice long discussion about why it is unpolite to dredge up someone’s past.”
“So, you spoke to her?” Fabio sighs and staggers to a nearby chair, collapsing onto it. “Thank God. If you had a conversation with her, then that settles it. It wasn’t her.”
I raise an eyebrow, confused by the leap in logic. “How so?”
He shoots me a strange look. “It’s not common knowledge, but Mischa’s daughter is mute. Can’t say a damn word. Some kind of trauma from when she was young and… Don?”
“Describe her,” I croak, sensing the blood drain from my face. “His daughter. What does she look like?”
“Blond. Pretty. Smaller than you’d expect for a girl of nineteen. God, don’t look at me like that. Tell me it wasn’t her.”
“She tried to kill me,” I croak, lurching to my feet. “She tried… With a knife!”
And if, by some horrible twist of fate, the little tigre had been Willow Stepanova, why would she want me dead?
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap. “I never even met the girl!”
“You need to fix this,” Fabio demands. “Where is she now?” He scans the room as if expecting a woman to come jumping out of the closet.
“I left her,” I say.
“Where?”
“Havien—a property I own in the countryside.” There’s no need to bring up Safiya or my old home and the suspicions that might arise in him. I taught the girl a lesson, nothing more.
He nods, raking his fingers through his hair. “Okay. You were attacked. You took her to safety and left her in a countryside villa safe and sound. Right? Tell me you didn’t touch her.”
The look on my face makes him hunch over, cupping his hand against his mouth. “I’m going to be fucking sick—”
“It has to be a misunderstanding,” I insist. “Why would Mischa’s daughter want to kill me?”
“Forget his daughter! What about the man himself? If I heard the rumors about you, then I’m sure he already has as well. It doesn’t look good for you, Donatello, even if what you say is true.”
His tone sends an ominous sense of dread through my stomach. Turning to the doorway, I call out, “Javier?”
The bodyguard appears there within seconds. “Yes, sir?”
“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.
I am his monster.
Mischa’s grace changes nothing. Donatello ruined me far beyond any physical violation. He teased me with what love could be and ripped it away.
But Mischa and Ellen have shown me what love is. It is brutal, violent affection. The tears fall as I recall all the ways they’ve protected me without question.
How do I repay them?
I can’t even be their perfect, accomplished Willow Stepanova.
I will always be Safiya Mangenello. Unwanted, rejected, repulsive little Safiya, undeserving of Don’s love even then. And now, I can’t even live up to his memory of her.
I don’t know how long I lie here. Minutes? Hours?
As if from miles away, I hear the sound of approaching footsteps, but I can’t move. I can’t even lift my head to see just who is rushing toward me.