Page 6 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

“Adrien.” Erel waved up from the bulwark. “Hand her up to me.”

My hands tightened around the woman in my grasp.

A dozen guests were already hunched together on the main deck’s aft, leaning over the bulwark rail and staring at our unexpected guest and me on the swimming platform.

Overhead on the sundeck, more guests flocked to the edge.

Their pointed fingers made my skin crawl.

I gave a firm shake of my head. Erel frowned, his mouth opening and closing in shock.

Understandable—this was a first for me, too, at least the first time in years since I held anyone at all.

Her reaction, her panic, I related to it.

I remembered the same terror when I made it home after my own kidnapping when I was eight.

No one understood me then, but I did her. No one deserved to go through that.

When the deckhands placed her in my arms, I braced for the electrical shocks from her touch to my skin.

What I didn’t expect was for her to clutch me like a life raft, then burrow into me before becoming deadweight.

My black heart softened. Unwelcome touch and I had a difficult relationship, yet for the life of me, I couldn’t let her go.

I made her a promise, one I intended to keep.

She was thin, too thin. Her ribs poked against my arm.

Probably underfed. Bleached-blonde hair with dark roots stuck to her cheeks.

With her face tucked against me, I couldn’t see more than the swelling and bruising over her chin.

Black and blue bruises marred what should have been smooth olive skin.

Her clothing was torn, frayed, and drenched through, stained in blood from the color.

And the smell—she stunk worse than a barrel of overripe algae.

“Get me the doctor,” I yelled up at Erel.

There was a blue tinge to her wrinkled skin, which begged the question of how long she had been in the water.

It was only early May. The weather was decent and starting to warm, but the water remained frigid, especially as far as we were from the shores of the C?te d’Azur and Corsica.

Dressed as she was, it was doubtful she had made it far.

However, there was nothing visible on the open sea.

The Mediterranean glimmered back at me, mocking the puzzlement of the situation.

Where had she come from? And let’s not forget, she had spoken in English.

“Is she even alive?” a guest with a strong English accent in their French called from above.

“So gruesome,” a woman muttered in the crowd, high-pitched and nearly histrionic.

“I cannot get a good look,” a senator enunciated, poking his head above his female counterparts.

“Why would you?” His wife backhanded his vest. “Oh, the poor thing. Do help her, Monsieur De Villier.”

The crowd yipped, oohed, and awed like a pack of jackals preparing to pry flesh from bone. They flocked by the droves along the bulwark, each tossing their opinions and advice as though I gave a shit.

My jaw clicked with frustration. Dozens of bodies blocked my path up the ladder past the bulwark gates.

“Out of the way.” People scurried aside.

“Stand back. Let them through,” Erel added, his arms spread in an effort to push back the greedy gossipers hedging closer for a better view. He bent toward me. “Michel is fetching Margaux as we speak.”

“Have her meet us in the staterooms lobby.”

The girl in my arms was a lucky one. As a close friend of my mother’s, Margaux—the family doctor—received an invitation to an otherwise closed event.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take her?” Erel asked again with concern.

“No.”

Through the passage Erel and my men created, I carried her up the passerelle through the pool deck.

“Did you see the state of her hair?” a woman whispered amidst the continuous commentary. “Dreadful. I’d rather die than be caught looking like that.”

“Poor choice of words, my dear.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“Now, now,” Maman’s voice called firmly from behind me.

Her heels clicked with purpose. Conversations quieted.

“The canapés have been served. Your drinks refreshed. I personally vouch for the grapefruit salmon gravlax and the foie gras with the black cherry chutney. However, those will be served in the dining salon. Come along.”

The lobby doors sealed shut behind me, effectively cutting off the inane chatter. Politicians and plutocrats were the ficklest of creatures. Dangle a carrot, and they stayed perfectly distracted.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I flinched. “A livelier soiree than expected, no?”

The contact seared into my skin, locking my muscles in place. My teeth gritted as I bore down the shockwaves of agony. Show no weakness, no hesitation, no pain . My father’s words repeated on a loop.

I glared at the fingers on my shoulder, then their owner, with a raised brow.

Gaspard Barrot, playboy heir to one of the biggest names in the boating industry and a trust fund baby barely out of training pads, the weasel.

It was only then that I picked up on the fruity tobacco smell.

This little prick was vaping in private quarters.

I inhaled three deep breaths, took note of the two framed images on either side of his face, then imagined his slow death once.

It calmed me just enough not to gut him on my own boat.

I set the girl down on the white upholstered couch, a foolish color, now stained red.

“What’s wrong with her?”

I sucked in through my teeth. This motherfucking blaireau just couldn’t take a hint. Hands, arms, and suit coated in blood and seawater, I backhanded him for shock value, then shoulder-checked him against the wall and flicked open my knife. The blade gleamed as I twisted it beneath his chin.

“Ever touch me again,” I whispered against his ear, “and I’ll cut off your hands.”

Gaspard cleared his throat and rubbed at his baby-faced jaw. “My father will hear of this.”

“Your father won’t do shit, boy.” I only had five years on the twenty-year-old, but with my history, there might as well have been decades between us. I shoved myself off him. “Now get out.”

With a sneer, Gaspard tugged his suit down, fists balled. He wanted to talk back. God, I hoped he did because I was bursting with the need for release. To stab my knife through skin and sinew and then pummel his face into oblivion, anything to rid me of the jitters his touch caused.

He must have sensed the knife’s edge he stood on because his gaze dropped to the woman soaking my couch in blood.

“Nice tattoo,” he said with an odd flourish before scampering off.

My eyes glared at his retreating back until the double doors slid back in place. Now normally, I didn’t give a fig what ink someone sported—I had my own across my back and down my arms—but the way that arrogant little mama’s boy talked, something just wasn’t quite right.

The woman lay unconscious, mumbling gibberish under her breath, with the occasional low groan. Her inhales were heavy, slow, and wet. The beams from the recessed lights in the ceiling revealed every imperfection, every bruise, every injury mottling her skin.

A cut across her hairline still trickled blood, the area swollen and bulging.

While the skin around both her eyes was red and blistered, a bloody gash split down the right one, rivulets of watered-down blood creeping down her face from it.

Fresh blood seeped out of a wound to her side, darkening what remained of her dress.

Further down, there was the tattoo—a constrictor’s knot cinched tight around a burning rose.

I stared at it. Shit, shit, shit. I knew where she came from, and I was pretty darn certain, now that I was getting a good look at her, that this was the very same woman who took my prize from me.

Escaping my bullets, surviving the sea, just to land back at my feet.

Fate had a twisted sense of humor. I was always meant to be her angel of death.

I crouched at her side, lips pinched, my knife open and poised. My conscience pricked at me to hold off. A quick death, it was the best I could give her. It was what she was owed after enduring that stain on humanity, Bogdani. A real shame after that moment of connection we had.

“ Pardonne-moi, petite rescapée .” Forgive me, little survivor. It was the most I could offer.

The double doors at my back snapped open, and several sets of footsteps stepped in. Alizé, Thibault, Erel, and my chief of security, Michel.

“Guests are distracted and fed. Maman is making rounds,” Alizé stated loudly over the crowd’s cawing before the closing doors shut their voices out.

Her heels clacked against the hardwood. Her silver gown swished with her long, purposeful strides, forcing her peach perfume, one of her own creations, to waft throughout the room.

Her ash-brown curls bounced with every forceful step.

She commanded attention, just like our mother, a trait the De Villier women wore well.

“So this is our wayward guest? Oh, put the knife away, Adrien. No one’s going to attack her here.”

If only my sister knew. I rose to my full height. “Leave, all of you.”

My sister laughed. “And jump back out there into the frying pan? I don’t think so. Here, let’s put this over her.”

Alizé draped a throw blanket over the woman, covering her up from head to toe, including that tattoo.

“I didn’t think you had it in you to care for another,” my sister said.

“Where’s Margaux?” I asked Erel, ignoring Alizé. As the co-owner of Endgame, Erel deserved to know the mysterious woman on that couch was a loose thread, but disclosing that was akin to admitting failure. I never failed.

“With your mother,” Erel answered. “They’re coming.”

“I’m certain our brother has simply found another reason to excuse himself from social expectations.” I rolled my eyes at Thibault’s mocking condescension.

“Contrary to what you both believe, the guests never lack in seeing my face.”

“No, they simply feel blessed by the divine if you ever deign to address them. Fine speech earlier, by the way. Should I tell Maman to expect the visit of a priest and some communion wafers?”

I rubbed the corners of my eyes and sighed.

Alizé crouched down and pressed two fingers to the woman’s wrist. “Well, she’s alive at least.”

“Yes,” I deadpanned, “because your genius was needed to ascertain that .”

Thibault chuckled. “I think that’s exactly what troubles our fearsome leader. What to do with her because she is alive.”

“She might have been better off dead,” I retorted. Either way, she soon would be.

“Pretend all you want, your heart’s not that frozen.”

“Shows how little you know me, sister.”

“It once wasn’t…” Thibault singsonged at me.

And look where that led . But I didn’t dare voice those words. They were forbidden, just like thoughts of her . That relationship, friendship, whatever it once was, was done and over with, far in the rearview without any chance for a U-turn.

Alizé brushed back the woman’s wet hair to reveal more of her bruised face. “She’s pretty, despite all this.”

I couldn’t help snorting.

“There’s something about her. I cannot—” Alizé leaned over the unconscious woman, ear pressed to her mumbling lips. “Quiet. Both of you, chut .”

We quieted just in time to catch a murmur from the sodden corpse on my couch. The voice was scratchy, no louder than a whisper. I didn’t catch a syllable, but Alizé sat back on her heels after a moment, unmoving, eyes wide.

“ Oh c’est pas vrai .” It can’t be true, Alizé whispered. She gingerly patted the squatter’s bloody face with the blanket. Such odd tenderness compared to moments before. “Erel, give me your coat.”

“What? I—”

“Just give me your damn coat.”

With a hesitant look, Erel shrugged off his coat. Alizé snatched it up, only to place it gently over the woman.

“Oy, that’s cashmere.”

“You can afford it.”

“What did she say to you?” Thibault voiced my exact question. This wasn’t like our sister, a woman who trusted others even less than I did.

“Adrien. What are your plans for her?” Her tone was hard as she stared up at me with fierce determination. “Adrien, I need to know.”

I raised an eyebrow. She knew me enough to know what my silence meant.

“No,” Alizé said firmly. She stood up with purpose, the silk of her gown now creased. “No, drop her off at a hospital in Saint-Tropez if you want, but not that. You’ll regret it.”

Those words dragged out between us, words no one dared say to me. I caught her arm as she stomped past me.

“This isn’t up for discussion.”

“She deserves better.”

“How do you reason that?”

I squeezed her arm tighter to stop the tirade already forming in her eyes. She shook her head. “I won’t let you do this. For her sake, and for yours. You can’t hurt her. You’ll never forgive yourself if you do.”

“What did she tell you?” I growled.

She expertly twisted her arm out of my grip. “Sometimes you can be such an idiot.”

“Careful.”

“You can be the big man all you want. But as your older sister, it’s my duty to make sure you don’t regret your lack of foresight. This is me doing that.”

With a pat to my chest, she sauntered past us, through the double doors that led upstairs to the dining lounge.

“Stay with her.” I pointed between Erel and the unconscious woman, then I stomped after my sister.

“I’m usually the one to earn that look on your face,” Thibault said, keeping stride with me.

I grunted. “You both earn your share.”

“You know, she’s not impulsive,” he added.

“Doesn’t mean she’s right.”

“Yes, a victim of a shipwreck.” Alizé’s voice crept through the hallway from behind the closed door ahead. “The poor woman is resting now. I can reassure you all, she will be provided the best care possible.”

Alizé’s words coaxed her audience. With a shove, the doors to the dining room clacked open against the bar.

A stool skidded aside. Dozens upon dozens of eyes swam my way, their gazes plucking at my skin.

Dresses glittered against the candlelight from the table centerpieces, while perfume cloyed the air in a riot of smells.

“Adrien, right on time,” Alizé announced with overdone panache.

“I was just about to make your announcement to our guests. We thank you all for your precious support this afternoon, especially concerning this gruesome event. My brother, Adrien De Villier, CEO of DV Bank and Holdings, ever the philanthropist, has made the solemn promise to care for the young woman who clutched our hull for dear life.”

Gaudy applause filled the room. My jaw clenched. My fingers itched to pry out my knife and stab through the nearest dining table.

‘You think this is a joke?’ I mouthed to my sister.

“If you would please raise your glasses.”

She winked at me, then grabbed a flute of champagne and raised it high.

“To my brother and DV Bank and Holdings.”