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Willow

The truth is, Donatello Vanici never loved me.

I was only a tool—and now? I’m his weapon.

“I’m going to bend you to my will, little bird,” he swore just days ago. “I’ll erase any identity you’ve had before me. As long as you’re here. You’re mine…”

Though, when all is said and done, I’m the one who agreed to marry him—and if he believes he holds the upper hand, he’s wrong.

He may have taught me my first lesson in betrayal, but Mischa instilled his own teachings in me—how to turn vengeance into an art form. The only way to defeat someone like Donatello Vanici is to play by his rules. To view the world as a game with a checkmate being the only goal.

Last night the rules changed. He may have set this war into motion, but I won that battle, using the one virtue that he sees as my weakness against him.

My body. My innocence. His lust…

Lying beneath him, I held the power for once—he admitted it himself, his voice raspy against my ear. “You like to exert control over me?”

Control is a strange way to describe it. What it felt like to have him watch me explore myself in a way I never have—and never before someone else. It should have felt wrong, the exact opposite of control.

Instead…

Flesh transformed beneath his scrutiny, becoming electrified against my touch. Raw. Alive. My throat constricts at the memory, and I have to fight to steady my breathing.

But you enjoyed it, some sinister voice in my head whispers. You enjoyed every minute of it…

I shrug aside any shame that threatens to descend. Maybe I had every right to enjoy it. After all, I utilized the same war tactic he himself praised all those years ago—What your enemy perceives as a weakness becomes your weapon.

Or, in this case, a double-edged sword. Because, for a second, I glimpsed something more elusive than his hate, and it haunts me. It’s easy to despise the caricature of him I’ve created in my skull. But the real man?

He’s a walking contradiction. Laughing menacingly one moment, moaning in agony amid the throes of a nightmare the next. I’m never prepared for the vulnerability he shields behind that mask.

He claims Safiya Mangenello meant nothing to him, but her name is carved into his chest—and yet he won’t even tell me why he sold her.

Sold me.

The answer shouldn’t matter. Damn him.