Page 74 of Beautiful Villain
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
He nodded once and turned, already barking orders into his phone, the machine moving before the words were even finished.
I paused at the edge of the hall and looked back toward the front of the house—toward the gates, the road beyond them, the empty space she’d carved by walking away without looking back.
“You think you won,” I murmured, Archie’s name burning on my tongue.“You have no idea what you just started.”
Then I turned away.
The war wasn’t over.
It had just stopped pretending it wasn’t real.
31
Archie
Ialways knew she’d come back to me.
Not in the sentimental way men like to romanticize—no fate, no soul-deep pull nonsense.I knew it the way you know gravity exists.The way decay always finds the softest part of the wood.
Mikayla was never made for cages.Not even the pretty ones.Especially not the kind Gianni Cavalho preferred—the ones that paraded as protection but were more like control.Men like him liked to tell themselves they were being kind.That if a woman was wrapped in enough safety, she’d forget she wasn’t free.
She wouldn’t.
There were only ever two possible endings.Either Cavalho would eventually decide she was too much trouble and dispose of her quietly—efficient, bloodless, disappointing—or she’d do what caged things always do.
She’d test the bars.
So when my phone rang that morning, I wasn’t surprised.
Delighted, yes.Mildly smug, absolutely.But surprised?No.
“Mikayla just walked,” one of my men said.“Out the front gates of the Cavalho estate.Alone.”
I let the word roll around my mouth.Alone.
Now that was interesting.
I didn’t move right away.That’s the trick, you see.Everyone expects men like me to rush.To lunge.To bare teeth the second opportunity presents itself.It’s how they comfort themselves—by believing monsters are predictable.But there is nothing predictable aboutthismonster.
I had my men check that it wasn’t an act.No cars waiting nearby.No Cavalho guards watching from a distance.No sudden movement meant to look accidental.Just Mikayla, a backpack on her shoulder, and a long stretch of road ahead of her—like she was daring the world to stop her.
Gianni had let her go.
That earnedhima point.Pity it would cost him everything.
I followed her from a distance, my car quiet and unhurried, like a shadow she didn’t notice.I stayed close enough to be there, but far enough not to rush her.She walked like someone who had already given up arguing with herself—her steps steady but empty, moving forward more out of habit than choice.
She didn’t seem to be runningtowardanything.
Perfect.
I watched her put distance between herself and the Cavalho estate, each step loosening his grip and tightening mine.Every metre she walked alone rewrote the story in my favor.I could already see the angles.The optics.The narrative.
