MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 71 - Seventy-One: The Rancid Meal

//CLARA// 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

I must have drifted off. The brain has a funny way of checking out when the reality of being tied to a chair in a damp cellar becomes too much to process.

I woke to the violent clang of metal hitting stone.

A silver tray slammed onto the floor in front of me, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the small space. The meal—if you could call the grayish, lukewarm sludge that spilled over the rim a meal—sprayed across the floor, some of it splattering onto the hem of my ruined silk skirts.

The smell hit me then, sour and rancid, like meat left too long in summer heat mixed with the metallic tang of cheap tin. I stared at it with a disgust so deep it actually bypassed the hollow ache in my stomach.

Silas stood above me, lantern in hand, watching my reaction with the detached interest of a man observing insects. I looked up, glaring at him through the tangled mess of my hair.

"Eat."

"Is this the part where I’m supposed to be grateful? I’d rather starve." I rasped out, sounding like my voice had been dragged through gravel. "Because I’ve seen stray dogs in the Bowery eat better than this shit. Honestly, Silas? If you’re going to play the villain, at least get a decent caterer. This is embarrassing."

Silas just sighed, a long, weary sound, and kicked the tray aside. It skidded across the floor, clattering against the damp wall. He crouched in front of me, his movements calm, unsympathetic.

"In case you didn’t know," he began, his tone dropping terrifyingly, "the entire city is in disarray because of your disappearance. It’s quite the spectacle, really."

He leaned in closer, and I could see the cold spark of triumph in his eyes.

"Your precious friend, Mr. Whitfield?" he continued, watching my face with sickening attention. "He has been taken into custody. Of course, that was only after your dear uncle beat the absolute hell out of him in the middle of a public street."

My stomach didn’t just drop. It bottomed out.

Oliver. I could see the scene playing out in my head like a slow-motion train wreck.

I had told Casimir I was going to meet him. I had said there was an emergency with the Linotype. Of course Casimir would go to Oliver first. Of course he would demand answers. He would have accused him. Threatened him. Hurt him. And when Oliver could not give him information—when he said he had sent no letter, when he realized someone had used his name—

Casimir would have seen red.

And Oliver, poor, innocent Oliver, had been dragged into a nightmare he did not create.

His business. His reputation. His future. All crumbling because of me. Being associated with the kidnapping of a Guggenheim ward is a death sentence. By the time the police are done questioning him and the papers are done dragging his name through the mud, Oliver Whitfield won’t have anything left to be saved.

"Your business is fraying at the seams before it could even soar," Silas continued, as if reading my thoughts. "All those connections you cultivated, all that capital you raised evaporating like morning mist. The investors are pulling out. The suppliers are canceling. Everything you built is crumbling."

It felt like he’d reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. The physical pain of the ropes was nothing compared to the sickening realization that everything I’d built for myself being incinerated in a blink.

"You son of a bitch!"

I spat at him.

The saliva landed on his cheek. He did not flinch. He did not wipe it away. He just looked at me with those flat, dead eyes.

I wanted to lunge at him, to tear his throat out, but my body felt like it was made of lead. My head was woozy, the lack of food and the chemical hangover turning the world into a blurred, spinning mess.

"You miserable, pathetic bastard," I hissed, the words jagged and toxic. "You’re nothing. Nothing but a—"

The words dissolved into curses, into the filthiest language I knew—words that shouldn’t exist for another century, words that felt like acid on my tongue. I called him a spineless, bottom-feeding piece of shit.

I told him he was a cowardly, necrotic parasite who was too much of a pussy to take on a real man, so he had to hide in the dark like a diseased rat. I poured every ounce of vitriol I possessed into his face, hoping the sheer vulgarity of it would stain him.

I thrashed against my bonds, feeling the ropes bite into my wrists, my ankles, welcoming the pain because it was something I could control. It was something real in this nightmare.

Silas waited until I ran out of breath, until my curses degenerated into ragged, pathetic gasps. He didn’t look offended. He looked amused.

"Such a colorful vocabulary for a Guggenheim ward," he whispered.

His hand shot out, fingers tangling in my hair—greasy now, matted from days without washing, from sweat and fear. He yanked my head back, exposing my throat, forcing me to look up at him.

"I am a man collecting a debt," he whispered.

"Kill me," I whispered, the last of my bravado finally shattering into a jagged, pathetic plea. "If you’re going to do it, just fucking kill me and get it over with—"

"Tempting," he murmured, smooth as a funeral shroud. "But no. That would be far too merciful. And I am not feeling particularly merciful today, Miss Thorne."

He shifted, the lantern light catching the glint of the bone-handled blade. Before I could even gasp, the cold edge of the knife was resting against the hollow of my throat. I froze. I didn’t even dare to breathe as I felt the sharp, steel bite against my skin.

He didn’t press hard, but he began to draw a slow, phantom line across my neck, a terrifyingly gentle caress that promised a slaughter. Then, the blade traveled upward.

It dragged a chilling path over the curve of my jaw, then up, tracing the line of my cheekbone. My skin prickled, a thousand tiny alarms screaming in my blood as the steel finally came to rest on my temple then he drew it down through a section of my hair.

"I want him to see you in his dreams," he whispered. "And I want him to realize he was the one who sharpened the knife."

The words hung in the air, cold and final, and I felt them settle into my bones.

With a sudden, violent pressure, he dragged the edge down. I could hear the dry, rhythmic crunch of the steel eating through the strands. He was working one-handed, his other fist still gripping my skull. Strands tumbled down my shoulder.

When he finished, he let go of my head and held up the lock. It looked like a dead thing, dark and limp against his pale fingers. Without breaking eye contact, he brought the hair to his nose.

He inhaled deeply, a long, shuddering draw of air that made his chest expand, his eyelids fluttering closed as if he were tasting a holy relic. The silence in the cellar was absolute, broken only by the sound of his ragged, satisfied breathing.

I felt my skin crawl so hard I thought it might actually slide off my bones. It was the most intimate, violation-level creepiness I had ever experienced.

He looked at me again, his smile appearing like a crack in a tombstone.

"No wonder he was so taken by you," he murmured. "Now, Miss Thorne... the games begin."