Page 45 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

Five Years Ago

Moonlight lit up the water. The warm beachy air twirled through my hair as Adrien and I strolled through the sand, my sandals in one hand, my other itching to hold his like we were more than friends.

He never had before, but I was going to make sure that changed tonight.

Maybe I’d even get him to press a kiss atop our joined hands.

“What did you wish for?” Adrien asked.

I smiled at him. We asked each other that every year, after we blew out our birthday candles, whether we celebrated together or not. Fifteen years of wishes in my life, and this one was the most significant yet.

“I wished that you’d kiss me. I want you to be my first kiss.”

I had chickened out last year and never asked, but I wanted him to see that I was growing up, that I was old enough for this, for him. I’d kept myself for him, virgin lips and all. None of the boys at school held my interest. Only him.

Adrien and I were the best of friends, but I wanted more, so much more than that. I wanted him to see me as more than just an obligation to marry when I came of age. I wanted to be beguiling and sexy like those women in the magazines I’d found in his bedroom last year.

He stopped walking. “Persy.”

“For my birthday.” He couldn’t deny a birthday wish. It was one of our rules.

“Persy, you’re still a kid.” My heart broke a little. “You can’t ask this of me.”

My lower lip wobbled. “We swore.”

Back when I was eight and he was thirteen, but we’d never failed the birthday wish pact before.

He tossed his head back and grunted low and long. When he looked back down at me, he seemed to have decided something.

“Come on.”

He held out his hand, and I grabbed it giddily.

It wasn’t quite the handholding I wanted, but I loved knowing I was the only one he let touch him easily.

He led me up shore, kicking up sand at weird intervals.

Finally, he picked up a thin stick. With a flick of his finger, his lighter clicked on, and soon the tip of the stick smoked from a fast-burning flame. He shoved it in front of my face.

“Blow. Make a new wish.”

I drew back from him, confused and hurt. “No. I already made one. That’s the one I want.”

“You’re not getting that. Make another wish.”

“No. It’s a really easy wish. You’re going to be kissing me a ton in three years anyway. I’m just asking for one. Do you not…do you not want me that way?”

“Do you hear yourself? Of course I don’t. I’m a grown man.” He tugged at his hair. “You think this is what I want?”

“I’m going to be your wife.”

He tossed the burning stick to the sand, and its flame went out.

“I’m not a plaything for you, Persy. Grow the fuck up.”

He rushed away from me.

“Adrien, where are you going? Really? Come on. It’s not like I’m asking for much.”

I tried to follow after him, but he had already started up the rocky trail back toward his parents’ estate, where our two families barbecued. I slipped on one sandal, then started on the next.

“He left you all alone.”

I gasped, spinning around with only one sandal on. Yannick towered over me. Although I loved when Adrien did that, his older brother just gave me the creeps. He had this way of tightening his jaw and teeth while smirking that gave his glares a cruel edge.

“Must not care for you that much.”

“What do you want, Yannick?” My gaze flitted over the darkened shadows of trees in the hope someone else was around. Up on the trail back to the house, Adrien’s darkened outline grew smaller.

“I want him to suffer.”

I frowned. “He’s your brother.”

“And you’re his little toy.” His head contorted to the side like a bird and crept closer. “I’ve been watching you. You make him laugh. You make him happy. He doesn’t deserve that. What happens if I break you? Will it break him?”

I backed away slowly, hissing when my bare foot landed on a sharp rock. I schooled my face and straightened my back just like my brother Renzo taught me. Never show a predator your fear, he always said.

“Why would you want that?”

“I’m owed his pain. I think Alizé is right. With you gone, he’ll finally understand what he caused.”

He lunged. I screamed, whacking him across the face with my shoe. He didn’t slow. I barely pivoted around, reaching for the wooden trail rail, when he grabbed me from behind and shoved me to the ground.

When Babbo slapped me or when he punched Mammina, I always knew he wouldn’t take it too far. Yannick, though, was unhinged. He liked to brag about how long he kept traitors and thieves alive and how loudly they screamed.

I yelled and begged as Yannick stabbed me. Once, twice, three times. Until finally he stopped.

The bloody knife clanged to the stones beside my head.

I heard grunting and yelling. I recognized Adrien’s voice, begging Yannick to calm down.

I tried to reach for him, but he was too far away.

Why wasn’t he with me? Why wasn’t he knocking his brother unconscious to come to me?

Did I really mean so little to him? Was I really just a kid he was stuck with because of a contract? Didn’t he love me like I loved him?

My brother charged in on a roar. His poor French made him stand out as much as the hate resounding in his voice.

So much yelling and shouting. I was so tired and weak, my body completely sapped.

I tried to stay awake just so I could reassure them I was okay, but neither reached me before the world went dark.

Four Days Later

I woke up in the hospital with my mother, father, and Renzo at my bedside.

Mammina was crying on Renzo’s shoulder while Babbo paced the room.

The one person missing was the person I wanted there the most, but Adrien never came.

Mammina said he showed up the first day, stayed an hour, and left.

That was three days ago. Three days without seeing me.

Mammina tried to excuse his behavior away, but she, too, was distraught.

Babbo was spitting and fuming about all the bribes and money paid to get Renzo out of police custody.

He kept cursing the “crazy” French for their ridiculous two-year provisional pretrial incarceration period that the De Villiers were trying to get a judge to sign off on.

Renzo had just been released from police observation that morning.

Everything hurt. Everywhere ached, my heart most of all. Yannick was dead. Killed by Renzo as he came upon the scene—me, stabbed and bloodied—Adrien, barely restraining his brother. It tore at me to remember what happened.

Adrien walked away from me. He left me unprotected, and now he wasn’t here with me.

I needed him. He’d promised I’d always be safe with him.

He’d promised he’d always be with me in one way or another.

It felt like he’d broken two promises all at once.

As hurt as I was, I didn’t realize back then how that marked the beginning of our unraveling.