I can find him alone. Unguarded.
To do what?
Silver on my dresser catches my eye, and I lunge for the object, testing my thumb over a sharpened edge. Eli’s knife.
“Will…” His voice, trembling with alarm, grates on the anger, making me falter.
I turn to find him watching me, his blue eyes fathomless in the dark. “What are you doing?”
Guilt chokes me for the fear in his gaze. I have to take care of something, I sign to him. Please, just cover for me.
“Cover? How?”
A part of me knows this is wrong. My fingers are moving anyway. Make a distraction.
Pushing past him, I reenter the hall, heading for the staircase. A figure walks by, too perfectly timed to be real. I’m imagining him, storming past two guards stationed near the front door. In this hallucination, I hear him clearly. “We’ll return to the hotel.”
Rather than descend the main staircase, I skirt around to the servant’s wing and out a door that leads to the side of the house. The fact that I run into no one is a testament to the scale of the party Mischa planned. It feels as though everyone, from the servants, to the security detail, is positioned outside to manage the flow of guests.
Only one car awaits out front now; however, its headlights painting the driveway gold against an ebony sky. I crouch behind a row of hedges, inching forward until I’m just paces from the manor’s entrance. The car is close enough to touch, a black luxury model.
As if on cue, two men exit the front of the manor and approach the vehicle. The tallest of the pair gestures for the driver and hands him a large box that the man promptly brings to the trunk.
He opens the compartment, placing the box inside, and I don’t know what possesses me to grab a rock from the lawn and throw it. The skittering noise draws the driver’s attention, and he walks toward it just long enough for me to slip from between two hedges and climb inside the trunk entirely.
Admonishments run through my mind. There’s no way no one saw me. What the hell am I doing?
When footsteps approach, I tense in anticipation, knowing I’ll be caught.
But the lid slams shut instead, and the sudden darkness has the effect of a bucket of ice water being dumped over my head.
I’m in the same car as Donatello Vanici.
The knife is in my grasp, and I cling to it so tightly it hurts—but I don’t drop it.
Instead, I channel another set of memories from my childhood. Mischa, shouting at me as we trained in the yard, his warnings unrelenting.
“Never let your guard down, Mouse! No matter how exhausted you are, you fight. You win. Now move!”
With his voice in my head, I feel a strength I’ve never experienced before, giving me the sense of mind to strain through the dark and get my bearings.
I’ll trust this protector over the other two who failed me.
I’ll take his words to heart.
I’ll fight.
And I will win.
8
Willow
We don’t travel far from the manor, though every passing second might as well be an eternity. In the dark quiet of the trunk, there is nothing to ground me but the endless motions of the vehicle and muffled snippets of noise. Eventually, a lone shred of logic seeps through the splintered thoughts circling my brain—we could be headed anywhere.
I can’t hear any coherent conversation from inside the car—just murmured voices. One overpowers the other, deep and rich. My entire body stiffens in response to it, and I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches.
He is so close…
He and Vincenzo, a boy I never thought I’d see again. The sight of him hurts the most. Beneath all the festering rage and hate, there is only pain when I think of how our relationship used to be. My Vinny. He is so tall now, embodying his uncle even in stature in a way he never could with his huge eyes and awkward glasses. Does he even remember the little Safy who used to follow him around with the devotion of a puppy?
Did he even care when Don tore that girl away from their world?
I feel strange. Lost. Empty. Like I’ve ripped off a mask I’ve been wearing for so long, I’d forgotten it wasn’t my real face. Without it, I’m someone nameless devoid of a real identity. A waif with her blond hair falling from its elegant coil, draping her shoulders with random strands.
There is no order to my appearance. No retinue of security or staff to reinforce my supposed importance. Willow Stepanova is an untouchable idea in this moment, and though it hurts like hell to admit it…
I will never be her.
Safiya is growling, thirsting for revenge. That scared little girl from my past is scratching at the boundaries of my control, desperate to be unleashed. The longer I’m so close to these snippets from my past, the harder it becomes to restrain her.
I’m sweating with the effort, tightening my grip over the knife. Finally, the car slows to a stop, leaving me trembling in the aftermath. As if from underwater, I hear the doors opening and the slam of them closing again.
Soon my panting is the only noise to fill the silence. I can’t tell if the driver is still nearby, waiting to retrieve the box placed here beside me. Jealousy is an irrational thing to feel, but it crawls through my chest as I make out the professionally wrapped gift. There are no flaws marring it like the presents Donatello once gave me—he didn’t do this himself. So desperate to make an impression on Mischa’s daughter, he procured only the best.
What gift would he think might impress such a girl?
I finger a corner and then rip at the glossy blue wrapping paper. Beneath is a white box, and inside it, a mirror bright enough to reflect what little light there is and reveal my shadowed reflection.
An inhuman
