Page 15 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

Those words…said in that smooth, deep voice of his, they wrapped around me like a thick, soft blanket on a cold night.

They echoed in my head in different variations, the voice less gruff, sometimes irritated, sometimes amused, sometimes younger, and yet each and every one of them sounded exactly like him.

It was very confusing. It was like being pulled in many different directions, never quite sure which way was up or how to avoid spiraling out of control. My laughter cut off sharply.

“I don’t want to die.”

My life before might have been great, or maybe it really sucked, considering my injuries, but I couldn’t know that for sure.

“Why do you want to kill me?”

The paper crackled more, this time loudly and with no subtlety. A rip tore through his movements, and then a fist thumped against the table. He sighed long and deep.

“It’s not about what we want. It’s about what we must do.”

“That sounds like a cop-out. Make me understand.”

He groaned as if I were the one who was insufferable in this exchange.

“You have a tattoo on your calf. A constrictor’s knot tied around a burning rose.”

I did? Did it look bad? “So?”

“Means you were property.”

I scoffed. He took me for an idiot. “I might not remember much, but I know people aren’t property.”

“When you have no choices, when everything you do or say is controlled by another, and you live at their whim, then you are property.”

“Does that mean you consider me your property?” I mocked.

He snorted. “Odd creature.”

I imagined him shaking his head with irritation, and my lips tipped up.

“I wouldn’t smile if I were you,” he said gravely. “There was a yacht that sailed along the Mediterranean from Turkey to Morocco and back six months of the year. On that boat were women of every color, every shape, every type.”

Chills ran down my spine, and it wasn’t from his flat tone.

“And these women were not there by choice. That tattoo says that you”—he drew out the word—“were one of them. A trafficked woman, in the stable of a man named Xhafer Bogdani, known as the Albanian Dreq.”

My mouth ran dry because somewhere in the recesses of my mind, that name meant something dark and unforgiving. My hands trembled, and my palms turned clammy.

“Is he…”

“Dead? Yes.”

The relief that brought was instantaneous, my shoulders drooping. I wasn’t quite sure how to process that.

“You see, my team is very good at what they do. They never fail.”

“And that is?”

“They kill.”

“Assassins?”

“Smart girl.”

My cheeks heated, and I licked my lips. Those whispered words did something to me.

“But they didn’t kill me.”

“No.”

“The bullet…” The one they retrieved from my side. The bodies I crawled over as I escaped that boat. The lack of screams. The flames. “Is anyone else…”

“No, you’re the only one still alive.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The contract stated no survivors.”

I couldn’t breathe. “Why?”

He huffed. Again, the paper rustled before another scratch filled the void. “It was the job.”

“Why did I survive?”

“Luck.” He snorted. “If there is such a thing. It was my bullet you caught. Seems it passed through Bogdani and lodged into you. Quite ineffectually.” Asshole. “I got distracted. One of my men needed help. So, lucky you. You lived.”

“I don’t feel so lucky.” My stomach churned and bubbled.

“You did land right back into my lap. So maybe not so lucky, after all.”

Something scraped along the table in a circular motion. Liquid sloshed while ice clinked against glass.

“The job’s not finished while you breathe. So, petite rescapée .” Little survivor. He gulped down whatever drink he had. “There’s not really a choice.”

My breath hitched. “This is cruel.”

I hated his mocking snort. My lower jaw quivered.

“I was in and out of it for almost three weeks. You could have ended it at any time. But you had to wait until I was awake? Until I knew death was coming for me? That’s messed up.”

“I need to know what you know.”

His voice was so steady, as if he hadn’t just torn me apart and stabbed me with the pieces. How could he act so calm when the status quo I’d been riding since waking up and realizing how empty of meaning my world was was cracking and crumbling?

“I don’t fucking know anything!”

Grabbing one end of the table with my hands, I upended the damn thing. My side throbbed, but I was too angry to care. The table crashed against the floor with a loud bang. Glass smashed. My chest heaved. My arms shook.

“Get that through your thick goddamn skull!”

His chair creaked, then scraped along the floor. Then he was there, his body against mine. His fingers dug into the sides of my chin and squeezed.

“You know my name. Tell me how?”

I grabbed his wrist and tried to wrench myself free, using my other hand to shove against his hard chest.

“I didn’t know your damn name until your sister told me yesterday,” I screamed. “Ask the doctor. I have amnesia.”

“So she says.”

“You don’t trust your own doctor?”

His breath was hot and silky against my cheek, fanning so close I imagined his lips only inches away.

Were his breaths trembling? He angled his body closer, all warm and firm.

His hold on my face loosened, enough for his index finger to trace over my lips.

They parted for him like fools as his finger slipped inside and pried my bottom lip down.

Rough, callused, and yet uncharacteristically tender.

My tongue swept out of its own volition and gave it a lick.

“What is it about you?” he whispered.

Across the room, the door slammed open.

Adrien released me suddenly, shoving me back into my seat and sending flames of agony rippling up my side, and yet I didn’t go far with the way I clung to his wrist with one hand and his shirt with the other.

“ Patron, on a entendu —” Boss, we heard—

I ducked my head at the sound of the new male voice and let go of my captor completely.

“Get. Out.” His tone was dark and foreboding.

Footsteps retreated, then the door clinked shut.

Meanwhile, I tried to catch my breath as my stomach roiled with embarrassment.

I fidgeted with the velvet lining of the armrests.

The table grated along the tile as my jailer righted it back into place.

Glass clinked as he probably picked up the pieces of whatever glass had fallen and broken.

Paper crinkled and crackled next. Finally, quiet settled.

“Now, we’re going to start this over. Starting with your name.”

I kept my head down and ground my teeth. When was he going to get it?

“Your name, or do you still not remember even that much?”

I hated how he said that, like I was deficient if I didn’t. It made my face heat with shame.

“Tessa.”

“What?”

“Your sister suggested Tessa.”

He chuckled humorlessly. “Of course she did.” His chair shook as his weight plummeted against it. “ Putain, mais qu’est ce qu’elle m’énerve avec ses merdes. ” Damnit, she really annoys me with her shit stirring.

There was a story behind that, I was sure of it. Regardless, the name Tessa was growing on me. It fit, even though I wasn’t quite sure how.

“That name not good enough for you?”

A grunt, that was all I got. Lovely, so we were back to the silent treatment as he went back to doing whatever he was doing with his papers.

I sat there waiting, not quite sure for what.

At the same time, I wasn’t ready yet to return to my bed, where he and everyone else who wasn’t a doctor, therapist, or nurse ignored me.

In my boredom, I pressed my fingers to my pulse point on my wrist. The steady thump thump resonated throughout my entire body. My heel picked up the rhythm and tapped against the chair leg. I got a flow started, the beats crisp, the tempo rising and falling.

“ Ma petite rescapée un peu perchée .” My slightly crazy little survivor. “ Pourquoi cela m’est-il si difficile? ” Why is this so difficult for me?

I ignored him, too absorbed in how right following the tempo felt.

I wished I was holding something—what wasn’t quite clear—but there was this distant echo over my collarbone and beneath my chin.

The fingers on my right hand plucked the air.

My other foot swished across the floor, back and forth, before adding in a stomp.

Over and over, I did it, getting lost in the tune that was slowly composing in my head.

Before long, both my feet slid, tapped, and stomped along the floor until something crumpled beneath one of my stomps and stabbed into my heel.

I hissed on a soft cry, my music cut off. Slowly, I bent over to retrieve whatever it was. Paper. At least that was what it had once been. It was folded over and over with crevices and points and patterned into a shape I couldn’t quite decipher.

“Origami,” I whispered with awe.