“What?”
“I just don’t understand,” she says, her voice catching. “Why did you ruin my life if I’m nothing like the kind of woman you or Valentine actually want.”
I stare down at her, my hand frozen mid-air as I try to process what she’s just said.
“Why do you think that?”
“I mean, the ‘training’ you put me through for one,” she snorts. “Then there’s the corsets to change my body, the hair dye, the … shaving. To name just a few. Why didn’t you pick a someone else who already has all the things you want in a woman?”
My brow furrows.
“Evi, none of this has anything to do withyou. No woman can naturally live up to those kinds of standards.”
She blinks up at me in confusion and anger.
“How can you possibly say that? This haseverythingto do with me. It’s my life you’re putting in danger. It’s my life that’s been stolen from me. Even the choices I’ve been given haven’t really been mine to make.”
“Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean we meant for any of this to happen to you. In fact—” I quickly press my lips together, realizing I’m about to say far too much.
“In fact, what?”
“Nothing. This is what Valentine wants. That’s all. It has nothing to do with you. It could have been anyone who ended up in your place, but it just happened to be you,” I say.
Her shoulders slump, and I watch as she hangs her head in dismay.
“Then I must be the unluckiest girl in the world.”
I don’t say anything as I move to finish dyeing her hair.
Guilt tugs at me, the weight of the lie building in my mind, forcing me to grit my teeth against it.
Little does she know how right and wrong she is.
It couldn’t have been anyone. As much as we’ve tried to deny it, tried to block it from our minds and hearts, Eviisspecial.
Whether luck, or lack thereof, has anything to do with it remains to be seen.
Dante was right about her from the very beginning, but that doesn’t change what I’ve done.
It doesn’t change what must happen.
No, unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the end ...
For us both.
7
Seven
“Fuuuuuuuccccckkkkk,” I yell as loudly as I can, my voice echoing through the empty building.
Turning I smash a nearby vase before whipping out two of my knives and flinging them across the room. They meet their mark, entering the soft leather couch where they sit lodged up to their hilts in it.
Two more blades find their way into my hand as I hurl them at the same spot, each hitting a hair’s breadth from the previous two.
Storming over to the couch, I rip the knives out and re-arm myself.
I don’t know what to do.