Page 82 of Beautiful Villain
“Kill me.”
“Later.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
He checked the window latch like he was proud of himself.“It’s a modern day fortress.I upgraded.”
“You can’t keep me here indefinitely, Archie.”
He smiled like I’d said something cute.
“I can make you do a lot of things,” he replied mildly.“I just prefer it when you’re in an agreeable mood.”
I stayed still.
He studied me, dissecting the lines on my face.“You look different.”
“I was well looked after where I was,” I said.
No, said the quiet, traitorous voice in my head.You werethoroughly fucked.
Archie’s mouth curved.“No.It’s more than that.What did Gianni Cavalho give you that I didn’t, Mikayla?”
“He let me go.”
That gave him pause, though only for a fraction of a second.Then he laughed, soft and amused.
“Of course he did,” Archie said.“Saint Gianni always has his own agenda, and you walked straight into the middle of it.”
I opened my eyes and turned my head just enough to look at him.
There was no fire left in me.No fight.Just exhaustion so deep it felt carved into my bones.
“What did it feel like,” I asked quietly, my voice curling into something sharp despite myself, “when you killed my father?”
Something flickered across his face.
“Ah,” he said, almost pleased.“So that’s what has you so sulky.”
I pushed myself up a fraction, nails digging into the mattress.“What did it make you feel,” I pressed, each word deliberate, “when you were hacking him to pieces?”
I hadn’t meant to picture it—but Gianni had told me.About the arm and the way it flew through the window as a warning.And the probability that Archie had done worse to the rest of the body.
Archie tilted his head.“First,” he said mildly, “yourstepfather.”He enunciated it carefully, as if biology were a technicality that erased blood and years and love.“George was a real piece of work, Mikayla.I did you a favor.”
My jaw tightened.
“The man practically sold you to me,” he went on, unbothered.“What kind of man with a spine does that?”
The room went very still.
Something inside my chest folded in on itself—not grief this time, not even rage.Just a cold, hollow understanding.
This wasn’t a confession.It was a justification.And worse—he truly believed it.
“Did you at least bury him?”I asked.
