He claws at my hands, his face turning purple. Good.
“Alaric,” Kasimira says softly. “Don’t kill him in the house. It’ll stain the carpet.”
The joke surprises a laugh out of me, but I don’t release my grip. “You’re right. The blood would be hell to clean up.”
Marcus makes a gurgling sound.
“Please,” he gasps when I loosen my hold slightly. “I’m her father?—”
“No. You’re a parasite who sold his daughter to save himself.” I drag him toward the door, his feet barely touching the ground. “And parasites get exterminated.”
Benedetto appears in the hallway as if summoned by telepathy. He takes one look at Marcus and opens the front door without being asked.
“Throw him off the property,” I order, shoving Marcus at him. “And make sure he understands what happens if he comes back.”
“With pleasure, boss.”
I watch through the window as Benedetto marches Marcus to the front gate, their conversation brief and clearly unpleasant. Marcus looks back at the house once, but whatever he sees in Benedetto’s face makes him scurry toward the road like the rat he is.
When I turn back to the sitting room, Kasimira is collapsed in a chair, sobbing like her heart is breaking.
“Hey.” I kneel beside her chair, unsure how to offer comfort. Physical violence, I understand. Emotional devastation is foreign territory.
“Why?” she chokes out between sobs. “Why does he only want to use me?”
“Because he’s weak. And weak people take the easy path, even if it destroys everyone around them.”
“He’s my father. He’s supposed to protect me, not sell me.”
“I know.”
“Two years of hell, and he thinks I should be grateful.” She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “He actually thinks selling me was doing me a favor.”
“Some people are broken in ways that can’t be fixed.”
“I used to think he actually loved me.”
“Kasimira—”
“But he never did, did he? I was just an asset to be liquidated when he needed cash.”
The raw pain in her voice makes my chest tighten. I’ve seen her defiant, furious, and passionate. But this broken vulnerability is new, and it does things to my protective instincts that I’m not ready to examine.
“Look at me,” I say.
She meets my eyes, tears still flowing.
“You’re not an asset. You’re not a commodity. You’re not something to be bought or sold or traded.” I reach out to brush a tear from her cheek. “You’re a person. A brilliant, strong, valuable person who deserves better than the family that failed you.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. And anyone who thinks otherwise can answer to me.”
She leans into my touch, and I pull her against my chest, letting her cry until she has nothing left. Her tears soak through my shirt, but I don’t care. If holding her helps heal even a fraction of the damage her father inflicted, I’ll hold her all night.
“You’re going to be fine,” I murmur against her hair. “I promise. You’re going to be fine.”
20
