Why?
The walls of this place laugh at me and all those childish whims I’ve clung to. Reality is as cruel as a searching hand, prodding into one’s deepest depths. There is no hiding from it. No escape.
Donatello didn’t even recognize me—not because he had forgotten his Safiya. I just don’t match the horror he conjured for her. His innocent little Safy’s suffering isn’t comparable to my own. Even after he threw me away, my pain isn’t good enough to impress him.
He can’t even recognize the scars of the wounds he inflicted.
Because in his mind? They aren’t gruesome enough.
I’d laugh if I had the voice to. Scream. Find a new knife and stab him again, and again and again until he saw me. Really saw me.
I am his monster.
Mischa’s grace changes nothing. Donatello ruined me far beyond any physical violation. He teased me with what love could be and ripped it away.
But Mischa and Ellen have shown me what love is. It is brutal, violent affection. The tears fall as I recall all the ways they’ve protected me without question.
How do I repay them?
I can’t even be their perfect, accomplished Willow Stepanova.
I will always be Safiya Mangenello. Unwanted, rejected, repulsive little Safiya, undeserving of Don’s love even then. And now, I can’t even live up to his memory of her.
I don’t know how long I lie here. Minutes? Hours?
As if from miles away, I hear the sound of approaching footsteps, but I can’t move. I can’t even lift my head to see just who is rushing toward me.
Because I know in my heart that whoever they are isn’t him. He left me again, truly left me. The little girl in Nicolai’s manor at least got an explanation. I don’t care…
This time, I get nothing but comparisons to a dead girl who no longer exists.
Even now, I’m not good enough for him.
I never was.
“I think it’s her,” a voice calls, distinctly male but unfamiliar. His steps race toward me, and warm fingers brush the hair from my face. “God, it is her. Send word to Mischa. Fuck…”
The horror in his voice triggers a wave of confusion until I realize I’m curled on the floor beside the desk, my face coated in dust. I don’t have my knife anymore, just a crumpled business card clenched in my fist though I don’t even remember grabbing it. My dress hangs off of me, my panties discarded nearby, my knees clamped together, my face damp with tears, eyes squeezed shut.
And the blood. His blood—I can feel every smeared drop, drying on my skin.
“She doesn’t seem injured,” the man nearby says, his voice wavering with relief. “From what I can tell, at least.”
I can’t move to reassure him, or the other worried voices that erupt nearby.
I can’t move at all.
“Here,” another man demands, “put this on her. Cover her up now, you idiot!”
Soft fabric drapes me. A coat?
“Are you okay, Ms. Stepanova?” the first man asks. “Can you hear me?”
“She’s in shock,” someone else declares. “We need to get her home.”
I’m a little doll again, callously thrown away, but I lack the rage that infected Safiya in the aftermath of Donatello’s betrayal. I don’t fight the man who bundles me into his arms and spirits me into a waiting van. I don’t bite at the fingers that gently wipe the grime from my face. I can’t even process the voice urging assurances into my ear.
“You’ll be okay, Ms. Willow. You’re safe.”
Without Donatello, I have never felt safe. If anything, I’ve rebelled against any feeling of stability or peace. I always held out hope for him, even out of hatred. He would see me. Acknowledge me. Let Safiya finally die avenged.
But Donatello never loved that girl I used to be. He couldn’t even see her shadow standing before him years later.
Only one man has ever upheld his promise to keep me. Protect me.
I don’t feel anything until I finally open my eyes and see him, standing on the steps of our family home. The van barely comes to a stop before I lunge for the door and scramble out of it. I run to him, but he’s already halfway to me, wrapping me in his arms so fiercely he takes me off my feet.
I break. The tears I’ve kept in until now spill down my cheeks. My shoulders shake, wracked with sobs I can’t voice.
But Mischa holds me tight, crushed against his chest.
“I’ve got you,” he says, his mouth buried in my hair. “I’ve got you. You’re home now. You’re home. I’ve got you...”
14
Don
The girl isn’t at Havienna when I arrive, Fabio in tow—but someone was. Someone strong enough to break through the front door. In the dust, several sets of footsteps allude to the presence of more than one person. All men, judging from the size. They primarily lead into the study with individual groups advancing further into the house. But fairly quickly, they must have left.
Taking the girl with them.
“She might have called her employer,” I suggest out loud.
Fabio doesn’t seem convinced. “There are at least five sets of tracks here,” he deduces. “That’s more than enough for a private team. Like one of the many Mischa has in his employ. I need to confer with my contacts, but if he’s miraculously found his daughter within the past few hours, then we know.”
Know what? That the little tigre who tried to kill me was really the daughter of a Russian mobster. The Russian mobster. A literal princess in her own right with no reason to want me dead.
At least none I dare entertain. Swallowing hard, I direct a question toward Fabio, “You said she’s a mute?”
He nods absently, manipulating his cell phone. “Much isn’t known about why. The man isn’t exactly known for his openness when it comes to his family. She is a musician, so I guess she can hear.”
Like Safiya, stricken as an infant with an infection that left her hearing intact
