Page 39 of Beautiful Villain
A sound ripped out of me—half sob, half laugh, completely broken.
“I didn’t want to humiliate him,” I cried.“I didn’t want him dead.I just—I just wanted to live without destroying myself to keep someone else comfortable.”
My face folded.My body followed.
I bent forward, arms wrapping around my middle like I could hold myself together if I tried hard enough.Tears poured out of me now, unchecked, soaking the front of my robe.My breathing went erratic—hiccups snapping through every sob.
Gianni moved closer on the couch.
I barely noticed until his presence was right there, solid and warm.
“Your stepfather made a mistake,” he said quietly.“It wasn’t fair to put that burden on you.”
I shook my head violently.“I should’ve stayed.I should’ve?—”
“No,” he said.Firm.Unmovable.“You didn’t run from a man.You ran from a death sentence.”
My chest stuttered.
“Your father wrote it,” he continued.“Your fiancé intended to enforce it.And you refused to serve it.”
I looked up at him through tears so thick I could barely see his face.
“You don’t think I’m selfish?”I asked, voice wrecked.
“I think,” he said, “you were raised to confuse obedience with love.”
Something inside me gave way.It just… broke.
I started crying in earnest then—ugly, gasping sobs that shook my whole body.My face twisted.My shoulders collapsed.I didn’t bother wiping my tears anymore.There was no dignity left to protect.
And then his arms were around me.
Careful at first.Then firm.
He pulled me in, solid and unyielding, one hand pressing between my shoulder blades, the other anchoring me to his chest.I cried into him without permission, soaking his shirt, shaking so hard that my heart threatened to give out.
He didn’t shush me.He just held me while I fell apart.And for the first time since I ran, I let myself believe that surviving didn’t make me cruel.It just meant I was human.
14
Gianni
Ihad seen grief before.
I’d seen men collapse when empires fell.Mothers wail over bodies that were no longer whole.Brothers go silent in ways that never reversed.I knew what loss looked like when it arrived loud and violent.
This was different.
Mikayla didn’t scream when I told her.She didn’t shatter all at once.The horror came in waves—slow, crushing, relentless.Her face went slack first, like her mind had slipped loose from reality.Then her breath caught, sharp and shallow, over and over, like she was trying to outrun the words I’d said.
When it finally hit her, it was brutal.
She folded in on herself, hands clutching at her chest as if she could hold her heart in place.The sob that tore out of her wasn’t loud—it was broken.Animal.It scraped its way up from somewhere deep and ugly and refused to stop.
She blamed herself as she cried.
That was the worst part.
