Page 73 of Ruthless King
“You should go to bed, Ms. Willow.”
He heads after Mischa, leaving me alone in the entryway. Silence falls again, seeming so unnatural in this large house.
The same quiet fell over Havienna the first night Donatello mourned his wife. How he could even manage to stay in that house, I’ll never know. I remember how he hugged Vincenzo to him as though God himself couldn’t tear the boy away.
As for me…
He didn’t make me pack a bag like my father had. He didn’t feed me some lie about a “vacation” that would span the better part of two years. Donatello said nothing to me at all until we finally reached our destination, a foreboding, unfamiliar fortress far from what had become my home. I recall clinging to his hand so tightly it hurt, desperate to find the warmth in his touch I usually could.
But he was stone that day, ice-cold as he wrenched his fingers from mine.
Then he left me there.
Tears sting as I blink them back. Swallowing hard, I find myself creeping down the hall in the direction of Mischa’s study. Paces down from the room, his voice reaches me, so gruff and hollow, his accent thicker than ever.
“You can hold your mothering,” he growls, presumably to Evgeni. “It’s already done. Have your men patrol the perimeter tonight. I wouldn’t put it past him to retaliate soon.”
“Yes, sir,” Evgeni replies in a crisp tone that makes my breath catch in my throat. I know him well enough to predict his expression even before I near the doorway and peer inside. He stands beside Mischa’s desk, his hands clasped behind his back—but as expected, his expression is constricted, visible in the moonlight streaming in from the window. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the faithful bodyguard so troubled in the presence of his employer.
The two men stand in the dark apart from the silvery glow emanating from outside. Mischa leans over his desk, his hands braced against the surface. Head lowered, his hair falls wildly down his shoulders, obscuring his face.
“You want to say something,” he snaps. “So say it.”
“Vanici may have been behind the attack, but going after the man directly could start a war that I doubt you truly want.”
Mischa scoffs. “It’s too late for your scolding—but I’m sure you know that.”
My blood runs cold. I turn, bracing my back against the wall for stability as the air sticks to the inside of my lungs.
Donatello…dead? It’s a reality I’ve told myself over and over that I wanted. The only way to move on from him. Forget him.
I try to picture him lying lifeless, those dark eyes closed forever, his laugh silenced—and I don’t feel an ounce of joy or satisfaction.
I just feel cold.
“The man will want his revenge,” Mischa says, and something in his tone draws my attention back to him. With difficulty, I focus on his voice, trying to decipher the words he says. “And he can come after it if he wants. He will lose more than his son.”
Confusion rips through me as my brain tries to identify the unnamed figures.Heas in Donatello. And as for his son…
Vincenzo.
Maybe I’ve always known, the same way I know Mischa and how he responds to his enemies—violently and callously, rarely striking them head-on at first. He prefers to make them suffer. The same way he kidnapped Ellen to prove a point to her first husband. He wouldn’t attack Donatello directly.
He’d do the next best thing and attack the one person whose loss would hurt him the most.
I barely register wandering down the hall on trembling legs. My fingers flex against the icy wall as I brace myself in some distant corridor.
Left in turmoil, my thoughts are a tangled mess of fear and doubt. Donatello gave me away without a second thought. Then he martyred that girl and turned her into some kind of saint. But now?
All I can do is think of him.
His pain.
And his rage.
I know Mischa well. I once knew Donatello even better. If Vin is really gone, nothing will hold him back.
And no one.
