Page 51 of The Villain

“Do you want to know what I think?” Cassian continues, drawing me out of my head.

“Not especially.”

“I think they took you and your mother. And I think they did this.” He rubs the little nub.

I try to pull my hand away again. “Let go. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Who are you protecting?”

“No one. You’re not making any sense,” I say, looking beyond him to the wall.

“Do you know what’s really interesting though, Allegra?”

I shake my head. “I don’t care. Let me go, Cassian.”

“That driver, do you know who he worked for?”

I grit my jaw, my breathing tight, my body cold and my heart hammering against my chest. “Let me go.”

“He worked for your father. Did you know that?”

My vision starts to go dark around the edges, my heart thuds, each beat heavier than the last like an army is marching across my chest. For a moment, I’m back in that car. Back in that room. For a moment, I feel the man’s hand like a vice around my arm half dragging half carrying me out in front of her. For a moment, I hear her scream.

“Your mother’s betrayal cost her her life?—”

“Stop!” I pull my hand free and this time, he lets me. I cover my ears. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t hear this. I shake my head. “Just stop!”

“Did he intend on it? That’s my question. My guess is he wanted to punish her for some transgression, but did he intend on killing her?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hiss through gritted teeth, my brain rattling in my skull the sound of blood pumping deafening, my heart thudding so hard I think it’s going to explode out of my chest.

“Then tell me.”

He watches me closely and I wonder how much he knows and how he knows and then I think he doesn’t. He can’t know. No one can. No one. The men involved in the kidnapping are dead. I saw their murdered bodies. My father is dead. Everyone involved is in their grave. Everyone but me. And I’m certainly not telling.

He takes my wrists and draws them away from myears. His hold isn’t hard. He’s being careful not to hurt me.

“Do you remember when you defended your father claiming he never raised a hand to you? Claiming that he wasn’t that kind of man?”

“Let me go!”

“What I don’t get is why you would defend him. He had you and your mother kidnapped.” I shake my head, tug to free myself from his grasp. I need him to shut up. I just really need him to shut up so I can think.

“Your finger? They wouldn’t have gone that far without his permission. Did you know that?”

“You’re wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything! Let me go!”

“Your father allowed it, Allegra.”

“Stop!”

“Hell, I think he ordered it.”

His words echo, bouncing off these too high walls, and the edges of my vision are fully black now, my heart beating too fast, my lungs not getting enough oxygen, my body going into flight mode. This time, when I tug, I manage to pull free and stumble backward with the momentum.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he continues, coming toward me, catching me before I fall. “Tell me. Tell me the truth. You know the truth. I can see on your face you know.”

He’s still talking, but his words make no sense because my brain can’t process them. I just need him to shut up. I need him to shut up and so I draw my arm back and ram the heel of my hand into his side, hit him exactly where I’d stabbed him just days ago.