“V-Vittoria?” the girl calls from the bed, her voice thin with worry.
I step toward the bed, but Vittoria moves fast and blocks me.
“Don’t.”
“You have one chance—just one—to tell me how this happened and convince me not to end her,” I say.
“Lucian—”
“Onechance.”
She bares her fangs at me. “Fine.” Then, after closing the door and blocking Kayla from view, she says, “The girl…became someone I care about, if you can believe it.”
“I can’t.”
She ignores me. “And I knew if I told you, you’d either forbid it or, worse, mock me for it. So I kept it quiet.”
She’s right. I would have done both those things because with the way Vittoria is, I have to keep limits on her younglings, otherwise she’d raise an army of them and bleed Tenebris dry. Not to mention she was my harshest critic when it came to Nell and also with Elliot.
“I thought loving a human was a weakness,” I say and cock a brow.
She grunts. “See, this is what I mean.”
“But am I wrong?” I ask. “There’s a saying about glass houses and throwing stones.”
“Fuck you. I told you I had my reasons.”
“So you want me to believe that you turned Elliot’s friend because you actually have a heart?”
“Is it that shocking to you?”
“It is,” I say.
“Yeah, well, things happen. What else do you want me to fucking say?”
I grit my teeth. I should be furious with her. Iamfurious. And really, I should kill Kayla just for Vittoria’s insubordination, and if it were anyone else besides Elliot’s friend, I probably would have. But erasing Kayla from this will only makes things worse. Not only that, but it’s not what Vittoria did that I’m consumed with—it’s Elliot. Her hurt, the fire in her eyes, the betrayal she feels so completely. I can’t take my mind off the way she looked at me when she left, convinced I’d manipulated her in the worst way possible.
“You may have just pushed Elliot straight into Santiago’s arms,” I mutter.
“Me?” she says with bite. “Don’t pretend it’s not your own failures she’s punishing you for.”
My own failures.
I run a hand over my face, and my memory latches onto something else—the words she spoke before she stormed off.
Elliot thinks I’ve betrayed her. She thinks I’ve used her, controlled her…lied to her.
The phrasing, the venom, the way her mind worked through the betrayal… Santiago. This entire thing reeks of him.
The only people who could have told her about Nell are him or Vittoria. Vittoria wouldn’t fucking dare, but Santiago…he’s wanted Elliot since the moment he laid eyes on her.
He’s always tried to take what’s mine, always circled my life looking for leverage. He knew Elliot would never choose him willingly.
And if he couldn’t kill me in the fire, he’d settle for something worse. Destroying me by breaking her heart.
I’m going to have to find her. Tell her what really happened. Admit to my faults in the past.
Elliot deserves to know what kind of monster chose her.
