Page 33 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

“Mammina, look what Adrien sent me.” I skipped through the dining hall.

Mammina sat at the piano like a queen, chest high, the curls of her dark hair spilling over her bare back, her dress bodice tight-fitted, and the A-line of the dress floating around her ankles.

She glanced over her shoulder at me, a smile curving her lips.

I loved how I looked more like her every day.

My excitement dimmed at the sight of the new dark-purple bruise peeking out from the neckline of her dress, and I stumbled a step.

“What is it? What did he get you, cuoricina mia ?”

She liked to pretend she was clumsy. Babbo liked to pretend he loved us, but I heard the fights. I knew better than to step in. A broken wrist when I was eleven and a broken arm a couple of months later had taught me that. After that, Mammina made me swear not to again.

It had gotten better after Renzo negotiated for Babbo to keep his hands off her by dropping his cut fifty percent, but it still happened every so often. I hated it. I hated my father for doing it, and sometimes I hated Mammina for letting him.

I couldn’t look away from that bruise as I held up the gifts Adrien sent me for my thirteenth birthday.

The first was the gold necklace already around my neck from Maison Chaumet, with a butterfly pendant shaped with diamonds.

It gleamed in the sunlight, and the detail was so fine, it was probably the most beautiful thing I owned.

I doubted I would ever take it off. I loved it so much.

The second was a red origami butterfly with flappable wings. I think I loved it even more than the necklace since I knew Adrien made it himself. He called me his butterfly, and now he’d gifted me two. But looking at my mother’s latest bruise, I wasn’t sure I could enjoy them as much as I wanted to.

“They are beautiful.” She caressed the back of her fingers against one of my cheeks. “What is wrong, carissima ?”

“Do you think Adrien will hit me too?”

Her face fell, her eyes going glassy, and her hands caught me around the shoulders. “Never. He would never hurt you. Yours is going to be a love story for the ages.”

“How do you know?”

“Can you not feel it? Siete anime gemelli .” You are soulmates. “No matter what, I know he will always treasure you, and that is why I know you will be safe with him.”

I bit and chewed on my upper lip. “Would you and Babbo get a divorce?”

She briskly faced the piano once more. “Hush.”

“If Babbo wasn’t a don—”

“Stop.” There was no strength to it.

“If there was no famiglia, would you? Renzo could help. I would too. You don’t have to be with him. You don’t have to let him—”

The piano fallboard slammed shut.

“Enough!” Mammina’s eyes darted around the hall, her chin trembling. “You cannot say such things. Ever.”

“I was just—”

“Do not! You have to be his perfect tesoruccia . Always.” She got to her knees in front of me and gave me a shake. “Promise me. Promise me, Persetta!”

The delicate edges of her face blurred, then the piano and the room.

The colors warped, swayed, then finally settled.

We weren’t in the dining hall anymore. A pool of red stained the alabaster entrance tiles, growing larger and larger around the dead body of Mammina’s bodyguard, Giorgio, or Gio as I called him.

My father, my real father. I hadn’t known. I thought he was just nice to me.

Someone was screaming. Someone was begging between sobs. Strong hands kept dragging me back. Pulling and hurting. My ears were ringing.

Mammina lay broken on the ground, blood dripping from a cut to her cheek.

“Do not do this. I beg you, Elio.”

Babbo’s heels nudged her forcefully in the belly. “Mistakes made must be fixed.”

“Stop it,” I yelled, thrashing in the hold of Babbo’s men. “Get away from her! You’re killing her!”

His glare pierced through me. “You never did have anything of mine. I should’ve seen it sooner.”

“Please,” Mammina begged between sobs.

“Choices have consequences.”

The jerk of his head was minuscule, but the hands binding me caught on to the signal. They dragged me back toward the darkness. I screamed and yelled and kicked.

“Tessa,” a man’s voice said. Not Babbo’s. Not the men holding me prisoner.

Mammina’s shrieks echoed my own, no longer begging. She tried to come after me, but Babbo beat her down again, yelling over her cries.

“Tessa, wake up.”

I kept getting pulled farther and farther away. The darkness was creeping closer. I fought. I tried so hard, but no matter what I did, the arms around me were too strong. Too powerful. Too much.

The world shook. I was in a car. I was blindfolded in a cargo hold. Shoved before the blinding lights of an auction house. I was back on that boat.

A prick of pain on my arm shocked me. A pinch.

“Listen to my voice.”

That voice. His voice. Warmth cradled around me. The hands that bound me released. Light touches flitted down my arms and over my hips. Everything smelled of him, that comforting, clean, woodsy scent. A calming pressure settled against my stomach.

“That’s it. I have you. You’re safe. Breathe.”

“Adrien?” My throat ached from screaming.

Shallow breaths rasped out of me as I reached out to his hand lying on my stomach. Strong, calloused, and firm. His bulk surrounded me like a cocoon, sheltering me. One of his thighs pinned down my own. I should have felt trapped and caged, but all I felt was protected and cared for.

He shushed me. “You’re safe. It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t though.”

Cicadas were singing. The waves were washing up the shore in the distance. The last whispers of the memory whizzed away. He was right. I was safe.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I wasn’t sure I could, especially after the way I cried against him last night. I gripped the arm he had around me tight so he wouldn’t let go. Tears trailed sideways down my face to the pillow.

“My father.”

“You remember?”

I nodded. “He’s the reason I was on that boat. I think he sold me to punish my mother. I think he hurt her.”

He stroked my hair lightly away from my face and whispered, “I’ll kill him.”

A surprised snort escaped me.

“I will. Do you doubt me?”

“No,” I said, smiling softly. “I know you enjoy that stuff too much to joke about it.”

“Oh, you little…” His fingers dug into my sides and tickled me.

I writhed around, curling in on myself, then flexing, unable to stop from laughing and snorting.

“Stop, stop,” I begged between chortles, trying to pull his arm off me.

“I might have found my newest form of amusement.”

“Don’t you dare.” I heaved in gulps of air.

He chuckled, and I couldn’t help but pause to listen.

It was lighthearted, the way the old Adrien from our childhood used to be with me, and yet it was deep and full, like the life he must have led without me.

Why didn’t he know me? Why didn’t he recognize me?

What happened to us? It made me hesitant to ask.

What if revealing who he was to me broke this budding thing between us?

Knowing what I knew now, I didn’t think I could take it if he threatened my life again.

His forehead pressed against the back of my head, and my breath hitched.

His exhales fluttered against my nape, sending shivers down my spine.

I arched my back for more contact, more safety, more security, but mostly just more of him.

The outline of his hard body. The bulge against my ass cheeks.

The heat and weight of his arms. I wanted that kiss again, the connection he could give me.

“Why are you here?”

“It’s my bedroom.”

It took me a moment to register his words. The mattress was softer than the one I fell asleep on earlier. The sheets were silky to the touch, and the scent of his cologne was practically infused in the air. Definitely not that quiet, sterile place I’d been sleeping in before.

“Why am I here?”

His arms squeezed tighter around me, his lips finding the back of my head.

“This is where you belong.”

“You’re giving me whiplash,” I whispered. “I need you not to push me away again. Please. If you’re saying this, if you’re doing this, I need you to mean it.”

“I do. I’ve made my choice.” He gently nudged my face back toward him. “You’re my choice, Tessa.”

I twisted around in his arms. Even as hope sparked in my chest, I couldn’t help but question those words.

My palm landed awkwardly on his chest, the cotton of his shirt doing nothing to hide the sculpted feel.

He caught my wrist but didn’t pull me away, so I let my hand trail up to his collarbone, then neck.

His hand fell away and drew a path up my shoulder and down my spine to grip my ass.

I moaned softly as my fingers roamed up his chiseled jawline, covered with a short stubble beard.

They danced through the hairs, soft yet scraggly.

I pressed my body closer to his, soaking in everything he could give me. More, I wanted so much more.

“Does killing get easier?” I asked. I felt invincible with him so close. Nothing could touch me, nothing but him.

“And whose life are you planning on ending?”

“Don’t worry, you’re safe,” I teased.

“Now I’m even more curious. Who other than I has your attention, ma tigresse ?” My tigress.

I flushed at the new nickname, the one that matched the origami piece he left in my room two days ago. Is that how he saw me? Strong, independent, ferocious?

“My father. You offered, but I want to be the one to do it. I want it to be slow. I want it to hurt. I want him to suffer for everything he put me through. For all the pain he inflicted on me and my mother.”

“And I’ll be at your side, every step of the way.”

My breath hitched. He understood. It brought me comfort I didn’t know I needed.

“Do you think my brother and mother are looking for me?”

“Do you want them to find you?”

“I don’t know. I’m not the same person they knew. Maybe they won’t accept that. I don’t want them to think of me as a victim. I don’t need or want their pity.”