Page 62 of Wicked Villain

Zoya gave me the run-down of the family before the wedding so I’d know who’s who. She told me about Lev’s brothers and his father, but she never mentioned his mother. This woman looks so much like him. Is she his mother?

And who is the little girl?

I’m compelled to pick up the picture for a closer look, but the moment I lift it, my gaze falls on the file beneath.

CORRADO D’AURIA.

Papa.

Finding this file in here shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, yet somehow, it does.

What if all the answers to the questions I’ve been asking are inside?

I need to know.

Both Lev and Papa have refused to tell me, and Mama is just as much in the dark as me.

It would be foolish to have those answers within reach and ignore them.

I open the file and find another photograph inside. This one stops me cold.

Papa, Mama, and me.

Papa’s eyes have been gouged out, and DEATH has been scrawled in heavy red across all three of us.

I don’t need to ask who did this.

Lev.

This is his endgame.

God… he wants the three of us dead.

My heart jumps into my throat and stops beating, then a tremor clamors down my body.

I stare at the photograph in the file. I’m frozen, though my eyes keep darting from Papa’s missing eyes to the word Death.

This…

It feels exactly like the horror stories I’ve heard about Lev.

And how stupid of me. After last night, I dropped my guard. I shouldn’t have done that.

I came in here looking for paper. As if everything is normal and I’m not a damn prisoner here. I was going to write my notes down for the pieces I wanted to create for the craft fair. Now that sounds like something a deluded person would do, given the situation.

There is no comfort for me, or a moment’s breath. I foolishly thought that signing the contract and marrying Lev would keep my mother safe.

I was wrong.

I have to do something. This all tracks back to Papa. All of it. Lev can have him, but I won’t let him hurt my mother.

“Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Karsavin?” Zoya’s voice jumpstarts my frozen body, startling me.

The file falls out of my hands and hits the floor, sending the documents and picture inside sprawling out around it. The picture of the woman and the little girl is there, too.

I look at Zoya, wanting to tell her I wasn’t snooping, but she can see I was. It won’t matter if I tell her I merely happened upon the file. She caught me with it. Reading it.

She walks inside, eyes still on me, waiting for an answer.