Chapter 91 The Beast You Made
❄︎ Viktor ❄︎
The first thing I saw when my eyes opened was warm light bleeding through the curtains. It was the kind of sunrise I never had the luxury of noticing before her.
Rosalind lay across me, her cheek against my chest, one leg tangled with mine as if she was staking her claim on me even in her sleep. Her breathing was soft and threaded with little snores she would deny if I ever told her.
She had stayed last night when the migraine hit me. Carving me open like a blade. She’d moved immediately, bringing me water and painkillers.
And when she’d asked if she should call a doctor. I told her no, and she didn’t press it. She had simply stayed.
My mind went back to the flashes of memory that had almost split my brain the previous night:
Paulo and I.
Two young boys clinging to scraps of hope.
Planning to run from New York, to vanish into our mother’s hometown in Italy.
A small, nameless and safe town, or as close to safe as we could imagine. We had talked about jobs and new names.
Freedom from our overbearing and ruthless father.
For one night, we believed in it.
And then the betrayal came. The very man who promised us new identities ran straight to our father to report us.
The dream burned to ash, and we woke up in the basement cells. A week without food. A week without water. A week of Darko’s promise that he owned us down to the bone marrow.
That was before the last night I remembered. The night Paolo was forced to…
I closed my eyes as the image stopped short. It was as if my brain was shielding me from the worst of it. Maybe that was mercy, or maybe it was torment.
Still, the fact that I remembered anything at all meant my mind was desperately trying to fix itself by making connections.
I carefully slid my arm out from under Rosa, and she murmured something but didn’t wake up. I lingered a moment longer just looking at her.
The way her lips parted slightly, the faint crease between her brows even in sleep, like she was still fighting battles in her dreams.
I bent down and kissed her forehead, thinking about how she had given herself to me completely. Not with words, but with her body, her eyes, and her decision to stay.
She was mine.
And I would spend every day proving to her that choosing me wasn’t a mistake.
I’d picked up her hand, idly brushing my thumb across her fingers, when I noticed it. A small notch I’d missed before.
Her right ring finger was a prosthetic. It was perfectly made, but false all the same. My brows drew together before I could stop them. What happened to her? When? Why hadn’t she told me?
I lifted it to my lips, kissing the artificial finger as if it were flesh.
“Later,” I muttered under my breath, though she couldn’t hear me. Later, when she was awake, she would tell me.
The shrill buzz of my phone broke the silence, vibrating on the nightstand. I reached for it quickly, stealing one last glance at her sleeping face to confirm that the ringing hadn’t woken her.
The caller ID showed Adrian’s name.
Of course. No one else would dare call me this early. I slid off the bed, careful not to wake Rosa, and walked to the window before accepting.
I watched my compound spread out below, silent in the dawn light.
Adrian’s voice came through my ear, heavy with a tone that had me straightening before he even finished his first word.
“I’ve got bad news and bad news,” he said flatly. “Which one do you want first?”
My jaw ticked. “Just spit it out.” I snapped.
My head was already buzzing with enough pressure to play guessing games.
Half of my memories were gone, but the weight of running this empire had only doubled apparently.
Adrian didn’t waste time. “Did you notice the cut on the murdered woman’s shoulder at the club?”
“Yes,” I bit out.
“I think it was incomplete. And it matched the symbol we found on the lone shooter outside the restaurant.” His tone darkened. “And your totaled car’s dash cam revealed the same symbol on the vehicles that ran you off the road. Whoever they are, they’re connected.”
A cold coil of recognition stirred in my skull.
It was faint, but fleeting.
My fists clenched at my sides. “And? Does this information end with names or locations?”
“No,” Adrian admitted. “That’s the thing. Every lead hits a wall. And the murdered woman, she has no identity. It’s like she doesn’t exist.”
Rage pulsed through me.
I wanted to punch the wall and to put a hole in it just to feel something break beneath my hand. But Rosa was asleep in the other room, and I didn’t want to wake her for this. I forced my fury down, slowing my breathing.
“What’s the other piece of bad news?” I growled.
A beat.
Then: “Check your laptop.”
I turned back to Rosa, and tugged the blanket up over her shoulders.
I left quietly, shutting the door behind me. In the master bedroom, I opened the laptop already humming on the desk.
The file Adrian had sent waited.
With one click, the screen lit up with words and numbers that froze me in place.
My phone creaked in my grip as anger surged in my veins. Disappointment burned hotter underneath it, betrayal and failure warring inside me.
My teeth clenched together.
“Adrian,” I snapped into the receiver. “My office. Now.”
I didn’t wait for his response before ending the call. My gaze stayed fixed on the screen, bile rising in my throat.
It was a black-market listing for the Grand Marlow Hotel.
Four days until auction.
I hissed against my fist. Then the fury broke loose as I flung the laptop against the wall. It shattered, the pieces raining to the floor not unlike the pieces of the broken mirror the previous night.
My knuckles whitened with the force of gripping the edges of the desk.
I bowed my head, my breathing ragged, trying to cage the beast inside me before it consumed everything.