Page 70 of Ruin

“I know you did.”

“I can see why you would think that of me.”

Her eyes flicker over mine, so close to me, the vision blurred. My gut twists with pain, heat thudding hot and hard, my mouth feels dry and sweat collects beneath my arms. Because the thought of him beingnot here, means he’s with hisher, whoever the fuck that is, and I think that’s worse than picturing him in a cage.

Kyla-Rose scrunches her nose, and a smirk envelops my mouth.

“Did you ever stop to think… just for one second,”like me.“He might have left, of his own accord. Just to escape you?”because I’m certain he left to escape me.

Her hand cracks across my face before I have time to register it, but the sting is sharp against my cheekbone. The pain burning my skin with her handprint, and it feelsgood. To hurt on the outside the way I hurt on the inside.

“Kyla-Rose,” Dee warns lowly, and without looking back at him, or away from me, she takes a step back, fisting her hands at her sides.

I don’t move back, or leave, or even think about doing any of those things. Because I need to know.

“How long has he been gone?” I ask, flicking my gaze over her head, glancing around the very full room.

All white marble, cut with grey, silver furnishings, cold, all of it is like stepping foot into an ice palace, but it makes me think of Charlie. His pale skin always cool, his hands always cold.

Too many eyes are staring at me, likely wondering why the fuck I’m here, in their house. And it isn’t a wonder that it would be Kyla-Rose letting me through that gate, answering the door. I’m the first person she thinks of when someone wrongs her beloved cousin.

My eyes meet Dee’s then, Charlie’s dad. A man, who rightfully so, probably hates my guts, and definitely would not want me within one million miles of his son. If he knew what really happened between us. No one but Kyla-Rose knows anything about my relationship with Charlie. Even still, he knows my father kidnapped his son, and by bloodline, I too, am not to be trusted.

“You know!” Kyla-Rose spits back at me, full body trembling with rage now.

I look back at her, lazily lifting a brow on my head, “If I had taken him, why would I be here?”

It’s logical to try and cover my tracks, make myself appear innocent this way, were I responsible, still, I have never been to their house before like this. I would not do so either, were I guilty.

“Because you’re fucking sly, you sleazy cunt, that’s why! We’re not fucking idiots, we know it was you!” she steps into me again, jabbing a finger into my chest, I want to break it. “You have a sick obsession with my cousi-”

I laugh loudly, cutting her off, her chest rising and falling without control.

“Ihave a sick obsession with your cousin?” I fire back, smirk sharp on my mouth. “Youhave a sick obsession with your cousin, Kyla-Rose. Not me,” I shrug, sliding my hands into my pockets, lifting my eyebrows into high arches on my forehead.

She scowls at me as though she’d like to cut out my tongue for that, but she’s not thinking clearly enough to be that rapidly violent, so, instead, she shoves me in the chest. Palms flat, fingers splayed, she smacks her hands into me, hard, the sound of it echoing throughout my chest. And then again, and again.

“I hate you!” she screeches it, and her bottom lip wobbles. “He isn’t yours!”smack.“He won’teverbe!”smack.“Give him fucking back,” she smacks me so hard that time, the heels of her hands making my chest ache, I drop my hands from inside my pockets shaking them out. “GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!” she explodes with a pained moan.

Eli instantly grips her shaking shoulders, hauling her back from me, spinning her around in his arms. His almost seven feet of height bowing over top of her, pulling her quivering body into his. He looks up at me from beneath long pale lashes, those emerald green eyesjustlike my Charlie’s.

“I think you should leave,” he says gruffly, walking backwards with Kyla-Rose still engulfed by his arms.

Her blonde husband stepping around them both, shielding them from me with his huge build. He says nothing, yellow eyes unblinking. And I think I could just say no.

Stay longer, really make them see,Charlie isn’t yours,my mouth opening to do just that, because no one in this house knows him like I do. Not even Kyla-fucking-Rose.But out the corner of my eye, I see Violet, tears in hers, hands up by her face, fingers pressing to her lips.

And I deflate, just like that.

She has been here for most of Charlie’s life, he won’t talk about his biological mother, or what happened to her, but Violet has been there since Eli was a baby. Charlie won’t call her mum, but that’s who she is to him.

I take a few steps back, the blonde giant unmoving, tattooed arms folded across his broad chest, and then I turn, through the front door, out into the night.

A million things rush through my brain, thinking of where he would go, voluntarily being separated from his basement lair for any period of time seems highly strange. Unless…

“Kazimir.”

Turning back towards the steps I just rushed down, I glance up, Charlie’s dad quickly makes his way to the bottom of them, stopping before me. Automatically, I offer him my hand, out of respect, and surprising me, he reaches out without hesitation, taking it in his, warm and firm, he shakes my hand.

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