by Lana Sky
I copy his surveying glance and disagree. The reckless destruction is unfathomable if you view the assembled buildings as a city alone.
As a chessboard, however, everything becomes clearer. Amused, I realize it’s the way he taught me to see the world. From the perspective of a game player, the various locations around Hell’s Gambit could serve as squares and territory.
Pieces up for grabs.
He frowns, stroking his chin as the fading sunlight plays off the panes of his face. Despite the city churning below, I realize that we’re secluded. Alone.
But I don’t feel the need to run.
I watch him instead, taking the chance to observe him in devastating detail. His eyes serve as a window into his mind like no one else’s. I hate that. I can see the gears in his brain turning, the various parts coiling and connecting like the world’s most complex musical instrument. Madness is his art form, one he plays expertly, unconcerned by how the result might be interpreted by the outside world.
Watching him, I almost forget… The hate I should feel, the pain he put me through. None of that matters from the mindset of a predator. Such a creature is too ruthless. Selfish. Chillingly analytical.
But there’s always a method to his madness, like a wild animal working off its own internal instinct. What could be seen as malicious by an outsider, is merely an act of survival.
“It’s clever,” he says finally, his voice melding with the roar of the wind. “Create a diversion that will redirect most of the city’s resources. The police and fire departments will be stretched thin. So, who benefits?”
He re-enters the suite rather than reveal an answer. A glass bar cart is his first destination, and he fingers a bottle of liquor from the small selection. Frowning, he eyes his hand as if he didn’t even realize what he’d been reaching for.
“Come here.” Turning to me, he inclines his head and the mask I’m used to returns.
I falter, and his eyes turn to glass. Coldly reflective, they glow orange as he starts toward me. Every step is slow and deliberate, resonating against the dark flooring, somehow louder than the city’s noise. Louder than my own heartbeat.
Once close enough, he captures my chin against his palm. His thumb sweeps along my jawline, up to my hair and back, lingering at the corner of my mouth. I know exactly what he’s doing.
Retracing the same motions of Mateo Saleri.
“I could have killed him.” His tone is so casual that it takes my brain a second to register the violence in those words. The answering shiver in my belly warns me he wasn’t boasting.
Kill a man just for touching me?
Not out of a misplaced sense of justice or protection, either. Just pure selfish greed.
Only he can have me.
Only he can touch me.
I don’t know if it’s the location, far from any other structures that might trigger past memories, but here nothing is tethering him to the old Donatello. He’s a stranger, eyeing me through fathomlessly dark eyes. A man who strips me down to a creature I’m not used to embodying.
Not Safiya.
Not Willow.
Just a woman in his possession.
“No one,” he says thickly. “No one looks at me the way you do. Like I’m a monster, a villain, and the sheep.” He draws away, turning back to the bar cart. “Like I’m worthy of your pity but nothing else.”
He rips the lid off the bottle and fills a shot glass. Raising the container to his eye level, he inspects the liquid within. Then slowly and deliberately, he sets it back down, bracing his hand beside it.
“We need to talk.” His voice taints that simple statement, turning it into something else. A darker form of a taunt. A dangerous request. A dare. “Not about the past,” he clarifies, approaching a leather couch positioned before the window.
He collapses onto it, leaning his head back against the cushions. I copy him, claiming a nearby chair. As his stare meets mine, it lands with physical intensity, more violating than his hand could ever be. I feel it like a grasping touch, reaching through my skin for whatever lurks beneath. Blood. Bone.
My soul.
“I want to talk about you. The new you. Willow Stepanova.” He toys with the syllables of my name, tasting them one by one on the tip of his tongue. “What made you choose music?”
It’s a seemingly harmless question with a dangerous answer. The short retort would be that I loved to play on my family’s piano—the one Mischa bought as a playful joke, promising Ellen that their children would have a future beyond the blood and violence he traded in.
They would have the freedom to be musicians, as he put it, the furthest profession from that of a mafiya leader that he could imagine.
The long answer, on the other hand, is far more complex, seeded in reasoning that has little to do with convenience and everything to do with him. Not Mischa. Not Gino. Him, the man who taught me that I didn’t need a voice to speak.
Who always seemed to hear me...
Until he simply chose not to, that is.
Music is more powerful than any form of speech, too beautiful to be ignored. Too grating. Too boisterous. Donatello Vanici made me feel silenced, so I found my own voice. A way to make myself heard, no matter the number of people in the room. No matter if anyone listened or not.
I defied his last act of brutality against me.
Through the keys of a piano, I learned how to scream—but now, I can’t even fathom how to put it into words. How do you convey something so abstract, so childish? You can’t. In a way, I feel muzzled all over again.
“I know why.”
I’m not looking at him, eyeing the view from the window instead.
“Those pretty little notes can’t be overlooked,” he says gruffly, and my eyes begin to sting bitterly. I blink and blink, but the sensation only grows. “No one can ignore the girl at the piano, even if she herself is silent. That’s why you play. Isn’t it?”
I’m on my feet, returning to the balcony. The cool wind hits me at full blast, whipping my hair around and distorting the wails of the sirens still blaring from the west side of the city. It’s welcome noise, and I almost think I’m safe.
But even the outside world can’t drown him out.
“Was it Mischa…your father’s idea for you to go abroad? To Vienna, right?”
Despite every cell in my body warning me not to, I look back and find him still seated, watching me from the shadows bathing the room. His expression is neutral, but I don’t trust the question. It has to be a trap in some shape or form.
“I doubt you enjoyed it,” he suspects, and I blink again, my lashes fluttering to obscure my view of him. “You had to mingle with sheltered little socialites and people who couldn’t dream of belonging to the world you left behind. Why not stay in Hell’s Gambit?”
Why? I turn back to the view, exhaling slowly.
“Because the entire fucking world could never feel as large as this city feels small,” he says, speaking for me. “A claustrophobic little hell where everything you do and feel is magnified. A cage. But the people around you? They might as well be on another planet. They can’t see what you do.”
From the corner of my eye, I see him extend his hand before him, grasping at the air.
“Fucking bars.”
Mischa would deem his assessment bullshit—the words of a man so wrapped up within himself that everything revolves around his own point of view.
“You know I’m right,” he scolds when I turn away. “It’s not the city you were running away from, was it? A safe perfect family has safe, perfect expectations—even if your father runs the goddamn mafiya. Your life is far different than someone without two fucking cents to rub together. They’re like weeds, able to grow out in the open while you get smothered. Am I wrong?”
He is. He… He isn’t? Confusion muddles my thoughts. I can’t think.
“Look at me, principessa.”
When I do, his grin is an expression torn between smugness and pain. �
��I tried to do the same damn thing to Vincenzo.” He stands, crossing back to the bar cart.
I don’t know why I follow him, re-entering the suite as he lifts the still-full glass again. He inhales near the rim, and I get the sense that he’s purposefully torturing himself, playing some kind of internal game. How long can he withstand the urge to smother his emotions?
He sets the glass down unsteadily, causing some of the liquid to spill over the rim. This time, his fingers linger around it.
“You know what I wanted to be when I was a boy? Rich,” he says with a harsh laugh. “I didn’t care about the why or how, just the end result. I wanted to be powerful. Too big to fuck with.”
He smirks at the thought, leaning against the wall, his gaze fixated on the past. Gradually, his smile fades.
“I never sought more, because I never had more. I wasn’t smart like Vincenzo. Without this life, I would have been nothing. Though who knows, it might have been a better life...”
The pain in his voice startles me, so raw I can almost feel it, chafing against the part of me conditioned to hate him. I’ve never heard him talk like this. Openly. Drunkenly, without ever having to imbibe a sip of alcohol.
“Most men claim that they did what they had to. For a sick mother or their papa’s surgery, or to save a puppy. They had to sell their soul and pay the devil for a cause well beyond themselves. But me?” He sighs as if the weight of the world rests on his shoulders, a crushing burden. He’s ground down to almost nothing, enduring only through sheer pride. “Me? I wanted this life. The devil never had to twist my arm, you see? He always had a better offer than anything else this world could give someone like me.”
He lets that statement hang in the air. His voice echoes off the walls until it’s as if a hundred various Donatellos are speaking all at once.
Me?
The devil…
“People like Fabio and Vincenzo have to rationalize it away. The greed. The violence. The hate. They can’t accept the fucking truth—at the end of the day, me and Mateo Saleri are one and the same.” He extends his hand, crooking a single finger to beckon me closer.
My heart skips, my palms moistening with an unmistakable response—fight or flight. He has a way about him unlike anyone else. An ability to switch from patient to predatory within the blink of an eye.
From vulnerable to vicious.
“Do you want to know what Mateo Saleri sees when he looks at you?” he asks as I stop just beyond his reach.
Sighing, he pulls away from the wall, easily bridging the distance between us. His hand returns to my chin, cupping my jaw entirely. Tension makes his fingers shake, betraying the restraint he’s using to keep from gripping a fraction harder. From hurting me.
But he can’t. Without warning, his nail bites a hair’s width deeper.
“Do you?” he murmurs, staring deep into me. Through me. “He sees a commodity. A body he can buy and sell. A rabbit ripe for the slaughter. But do you want to know what I see?” He draws his hand away, his brow furrowed, and swipes at his own chin, disrupting the stubble there. “I see a little wolf, snarling, snarling… Too angry to decide whether or not to bite. Attack. So, I give you permission—bite me.”
His tone is so earnest I think he meant that. Hit him. Hurt him. Give him anything he can use to fight against. He wants more from me than he ever gave.
He craves violence—when I don’t even have a scar to show for what he’s done.
“I wasn’t lying,” he says offhandedly, returning to the bar cart. “When I made you that offer. Atonement. Have you made up your mind yet?” He picks up the drink, bringing it to his lips. “How to best make me suffer—”
I reach out before I even realize it just as he tilts the rim, intending to drink from it. My hand is on his, the tension like lightning. Each ripple and coil of muscle plays through my skin, and I’m painfully aware of just how tightly he’s gripping this glass.
He badly wants to drink the alcohol within. Not out of habit, or to relax. No. He just wants to hide from me. This is his newest version of drowning me out—altering his mental state if he has to.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t resist as I pull away, taking the glass in my hand. I can see in his gaze what he thinks I’ll do. Set it down so he can take it again. Play keep-away like Fabio does. Try to save Donatello from himself.
Because this vice? It’s his chosen weapon. Punishment via self-destruction.
Him. Him. Him.
It’s always about him.
Until I make it about me. I picture his reaction to Mateo Saleri, and it’s the only thing I see as I throw my head back and swallow everything in the glass.
It’s fire. I sputter as my throat contorts to expel every drop while my lips clamp together, selfishly trying to keep it down. As my heartbeat thunders against my eardrums, I realize why they’re ringing so painfully—someone is shouting directly into them.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Everything. Being near him destroys everything I thought I knew about the person I’d become. My entire being narrows down to a shadow he seems determined to ignore. Denying him is the only way I have to make him see me.
I would laugh if I could as I wrench away from him, stumbling toward the balcony, my eyes burning, teeth bared with malice. My thoughts are a jumble, dangerously impulsive.
If I jumped, would he see me then?
Or would he still find a way to make himself the victim?
“Stop.” His voice is in my ear, his arms around me, and my body goes limp.
For a rare, painful second, it’s as if I’m the center of the universe—just as long as his focus is on me. Every little thing I do is under a microscope, nothing missed by him. Every breath. Every shudder. Every dangerous thought I’m only partially aware of thinking.
He smells so good, a stench that merges with the distant hints of smoke…
Abruptly, he pulls away, and I’m cold again. The wind mercilessly batters my flesh as if to punish me for relishing his warmth at all. For wanting his notice even if I have to claw and scrape to get it.
I can’t scream.
So, I just snarl soundlessly like the little wolf he accused me of being.
“Get inside.” He grabs for my hand, but I pull away and make him chase me to the corner of the balcony. Suddenly drained, I lean over the railing and watch the world sway below.
Tears prickle my eyes, but I can’t even begin to decipher why. My emotions are alien, wild things crawling through me with whims of their own.
I feel heavy. Weightless. Like nothing matters but seeking my own stability—the only thing capable of grounding me.
And it’s him.
I hate that it’s him. Piercing, hollow eyes that make me feel alive even when I’m dangling over a devastating drop. His alarmed shout spurs my heart into beating faster, his attention a drug more consuming than any amount of alcohol. I’ve been denied it for so long…
And I’m owed it. Every piece of him I can take.
I meet his gaze and hold it, advancing step by step until I’m the one chasing him inside. All he can do is grit his teeth, unsure of my motives. I don’t even know my own aim. Relentless, I just keep coming until he’s backed against the wall with nowhere to move.
But I don’t stop.
I crash into the wall of his body as though I intend to go right through him. I think it’s his heat I’m after. His nearness should be repulsive, overwhelming…
But it isn’t.
It’s intoxicating.
There is no way he can’t see me now. Feel me. I don’t have to say a single damn word to gain his notice. I only have to touch him, running my hands along his chest, to know everything there is to learn about Donatello Vanici. And for once, he can’t block me out. I can’t be overlooked.
“Stop it!” He snatches at my wrist as my fingers creep higher. Up his throat, along his chin, following the same path he traveled on me. His eyes blaze, his nostrils flaring, and a part of me screams
in triumph.
Finally, I have the one thing I think I’ve wanted from him all along.
Acknowledgment.
Awareness.
Fear…
Everything.
Greedy for more, I wrench my hand away and grapple for whatever part of him I can reach. His arms. His chest. The proof is in his thundering heartbeat—I’m the one making him stammer. Feel. React.
In a way, I couldn’t as a little girl; I have his full attention. He can’t turn away from me.
Not now.
“I said stop!” He shoves me back, but my limbs aren’t fully connected to my brain. I go sprawling, fighting for balance like a broken marionette.
“Shit.” He’s near me again, his hand hooking around my waist to keep me upright. Reluctantly, he does so, making me sit on the couch, but I grip him tighter, my nails digging into the flesh of his arm.
He hisses through his teeth but not because of the pain. Because I’m pulling him closer, rattling his unshakable balance. He has to grip the back of the couch to keep from crushing me, but maybe that’s what I want to feel? His full weight pinning me down. His full focus.
All of Donatello Vanici.
“Fucking, stop!” He scrambles away, rising to his feet, but something in my expression keeps his gaze riveted to my face. I can see into his mind again, gleaning one new insight after the other. Horror. Disgust. More horror.
Because I’ve figured out exactly what it is I want from him.
His touch. His taste. I want him to mark me, and I don’t even care how. It isn’t fair that he’s the one with the scars to show for his pain.
I want a token of my suffering, too—a reminder to truly hate him for. To know deep in my soul that I mattered enough to scratch. Even to make him leave something behind that time can’t erase.
I want him to hurt me.
I need him to.
And I can see it written all over his face, finally out in the open—it’s the one thing he can’t give me. How else can he play the victim if I’m the one left bleeding?
“Stop.” He wrenches away, turning his back to me, and I go limp. Boneless. His rejection shouldn’t affect me the way it does. Like the world has been sucked away. In the absence of his warmth, I’m alone, but it’s a loneliness that extends beyond the physical.