Page 20 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

“I heard a rumor,” Alizé said as she sauntered into the gym, dragging my men’s attention away from their sparring and exercising with her ridiculously short athletic wear.

“Not bad, Alizé. Looking good,” Erel added with a wink. He crossed to his locker and retrieved his towel, only then catching my glare. “What?”

With a roll of my eyes, I shook my head at his flirtation, knowing full well there was no attraction between them. I kept my rowing pace on the ergometer. A chill zapped down my spine as the warm breeze from the open windows swept over my sweat-drenched tank.

“Eyes where they should be. Back to it.”

The men snapped back to their stations, the soft clink and clack of weights picking back up along with grunts and groans.

Built off the main house, this gym was open to everyone on the estate for the required regular fitness upkeep I demanded of anyone who worked for me—family or otherwise.

Sparring bonded even the most stubborn of men.

It fostered mental and physical adaptability to tough situations while allowing for a controlled emotional release. Something I didn’t take for granted.

The mats were one of the rare places I accepted touch from others.

More than accepted, I thrived on it. The awareness of your partner, the strategy, the skill, the violence, the exercise.

Everything about it was about being in control of yourself and your actions while also honing your skills and pushing past your limits if you so chose.

You had a problem with someone, you took it out on the mats and dealt with it.

“So is it true?” Alizé parked herself in front of me, hand on her hip.

“Be more precise.” I huffed through another set of ten quick strokes.

“You and Tessa. Spending time together. Every night.”

Erel frowned. Great, I could already see the wheels turning in his head.

I kept my face even. “You have an unhealthy habit of meddling where you shouldn’t.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. This is good. We can spin this for the press. We’ve already got several requests for interviews. Some good publicity wouldn’t—”

“No interviews.” I released the handle and caught her wrist as she turned toward her preferred elliptical trainer. “I don’t like being toyed with. Family or not.”

“I would never do that.” That over-the-shoulder smirk of hers said otherwise.

“Not smart,” Erel singsonged, crossing us on his return to the leg press station.

“Don’t you have abs to maintain?” She waved him off.

“You’re poking the bear.” He settled into his seat, the machine clanking. “But hey, I’ll watch the train wreck.”

Alizé rolled her eyes. “Honestly, there had to be less annoying options for your second-in-command.”

I still didn’t release my grip on her wrist.

“Right, of course not,” she finally said with annoyance at my silence. “Two against one. You both have always been good at that.”

Alizé liked to talk for the purpose of filling beats of silence. I liked to create them and watch how they made people squirm. It was amazing how many people abhorred the quiet, to the point where they often gave themselves away just to avoid it.

“Even when Yannick was here, you made sure to make me the odd one out.”

“Everyone out,” I ground out slowly. Whatever she needed to get off her chest, our family business was not to be aired.

Weights dropped. Machines jangled and clicked into their reset positions. Velcro on gloves and bracelets tore and crackled as they opened and closed. Then footsteps pattered through the gym and thumped over the mats as everyone filed out of the room.

“You too, Erel.”

He raised his hands in surrender but gave a look that said we needed to talk, and yes, we did, but fuck, I wasn’t ready for that conversation. He exited last, shutting the door behind him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, I released my sister and vacated my spot on the ergometer. On my feet, I towered a good half a head over her.

“Is that what this is? Is this woman your revenge over hurts past?”

Her chuckle was bitter and dry. “Don’t flatter yourself. You and Erel might have made me the third man out, but you never hurt me.”

Like Yannick —the words went unsaid. Even before Yannick’s and my kidnapping, he was a bully. After our escape, thanks to Erel, he had a lot of pain to deal with and took it out on those around him, his twin sister included.

“Then what is this, Alizé? What do you gain?”

“Hopefully, you. I want my brother back.”

My brow furrowed, and Alizé tapped her fingers along the bars of the closest equipment.

“We’re still living in the past, you and I,” she said quietly. “I want that to end.”

“If only it were that easy.”

She shook her head. “I remember the day you and Yannick were kidnapped like it was yesterday. I can still taste the pistachio ice cream I dropped in the kitchen when I heard you both were gone. More than seventeen years later, and I can still hear Maman’s wailing and remember how much it made me shake with fear.

She never used to cry. Never used to yell at Papa either, but she blamed him for this.

He wasn’t much of a worrier before then.

He never panicked, but that month you and Yannick were missing, he was the worst version of himself. ”

“Your point?” I didn’t want or need a trip down the worst memories of my life.

“You came back changed. Both of you. People always think that if you have a twin, there’s this instant connection and closeness between you.

I call bull. I never had that with Yannick.

He was already a little too dark before, but after, he was worse.

So much worse. You, though, you were the best of us before that happened.

You needed me, and I loved you for it, petit frangin .

” Little brother. Her smile was rueful. “Maman used to tell me how I would sit next to her and help hold up your bottle until you drank every last drop.

I held your hand when you learned to walk.

I helped you read your first words. I helped you with your homework and taught you how to make crêpes.

But all that changed when we got you back.

“You didn’t want me anymore. You didn’t want anyone. The only one who could ever get through to you was Erel, and even then, it wasn’t super easy for him. But for some reason, for me, that was okay, because he was a boy, and he wasn’t taking my place in your life.”

“I don’t want to rehash the past. It happened. I moved on.”

“Except you didn’t. You avoided it. You ignored it. You suffered quietly. Until Persetta came around. Suddenly, you were smiling and playing again. You wrote to her and entertained her when she visited. You went to see her. You hugged her. You loved her.”

“I didn’t.”

“Quietly, you did, and god, I hated her so fucking much for it.” Alizé wiped a tear roughly off her face. “With her, you were almost whole again. But not with me, never with me. My young, stupid brain thought she’d stolen you from me, and I wanted her gone.”

I held perfectly still.

“She was innocent.”

“I know that now, but I was young and hurting and looking for someone to blame. And Yannick, he made it so much worse. After the car crash, he screwed with my head, you know.”

I frowned. The T-bone car crash Alizé and her best friend Lea were in at seventeen was an unfortunate event she couldn’t have prevented.

“Yannick knew the words to say and how to push to make me feel worthless and ugly and bitter. I was already blaming myself for Lea’s death, and he just piled on the guilt and hatred, and you weren’t there for me.

Only for her. Maman and Papa never even realized how low I got because all their focus was always on how to make Yannick and you better.

He liked to use my deepest darkest secrets against me, and I didn’t even know that’s what he was doing at the time.

It didn’t matter how old I got. I felt trapped, day in and day out, with no one else to talk to.

“I didn’t know what Yannick had planned that day. I swear. I had no idea that he would transform my confessions into his own twisted fantasies against her. I never would’ve said anything had I known how much he hated you and that he planned to take it out on Persetta as revenge.”

“She could have died.”

She nodded. “I know. I’ve regretted every word so many times.”

“ Mais bordel , you were twenty-three! You should have known better.”

“It was only supposed to be a conversation.”

“More than a fucking conversation happened!”

“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped. “I do. I know. I’ve paid my dues for my part in that mess.”

Through her arranged marriage, she meant.

When Yannick tried to stab Persetta that day, I fended my older brother off the best I could, but I was also trying to keep the peace, throwing him off without ever trying to hurt him.

He was my brother—sane or not—and I was a big reason he became the way he was.

If I had just killed that man as my father had ordered me to, the man’s brother would have been too late. Papa and our men would never have been distracted. Yannick and I never would have been kidnapped and tortured for a month.

That made Yannick’s attack on Persy my responsibility. No matter what I told him, no matter how many times I shoved him off, he kept on coming at her. His eyes gleamed with hate and rage. He would have killed her. Renzo Iannelli saw it and did what I couldn’t. He stepped in and snapped his neck.

The promise of war between the De Villiers and the Iannellis was declared.

Had we lived on the same continent, it would have come to a head with more than just a few failed assassination attempts to show for the conflict.

My father didn’t wait for the worst to happen.

Instead, he planned against it by arranging Alizé’s marriage to the heir of the Boston Irish mob.

“I always wondered why you never put up more of a fight.”

She winced and shrugged. “Hindsight and all.”