Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
It takes all my effort to remain where I am. I kneel so that we’re eye level, at least, but though she looks in my direction, it’s like she’s staring through me. Into the past.
“He used to…” she shudders.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
“It’s really not.”
“I’m sorry–I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just listen.”
I nod. After what she did for me last night, helping to soothe the hell in my memory, the least I can do is the same.
“He used to…” She lets out a trembling breath. “This is harder than I thought it’d be, but if I don’t tell you, you won’t get it. You won’t understand how I can twist him. How I can make him vulnerable to you–to us.”
I want to speak, but I stop myself, waiting. She deserves my patience.
“He used to tell me…” She pauses again, then forces herself to go on. “He was going to marry me one day. That he was waiting until I was eighteen, then he was going to make me his wife. He’d say it in secret when Mom wasn’t around. He made it seem like I should be grateful. He said he’d always had a soft spot for me, and he wasn’t going to be ashamed.”
“Did he…” I can’t even say it. She looks so small and afraid, so unlike my Keepsake, so different to how she usually is.
She glances at me sharply, and I realize my mistake.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, miming zipping my lips.
She smiles shakily, then stares at the floor for a long time like she can’t look at me as she goes on. Her pain radiates from her, agony twisting through her perfection. It has no place there. It makes me want to roar, to hurt something or someone.
It makes me want to turn back time and be gentler with her last night. It was her first time, and I snapped–we both did. But now I’m hearing this—
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
“Huh?”
“You just got a really, uh, sort of scared look on your face.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Dom.”
Saying my name in that purposeful tone is enough to let me know she deserves the truth. “I was thinking about last night. Your first time. I was wondering if I should’ve been gentler with you.”
A wicked smile replaces her unsure expression. “Do you think you could have? You seemed out of control to me… Anyway, that has nothing to do with this. You don’t have to give me special treatment because some freak had weirdo ideas about me.”
I sit beside her, take her hand, saying nothing. Together, we sit in the silence for a time before she goes on.
“He never did anything to me, except he would make me sit on his knee and tell me about our apparent future together. He didn’t cross any lines apart from that one. Nothing like you’re probably thinking.”
I wait, then she chuckles, nudging me. “You can talk now.”
“It’s enough,” I tell her. “It’s fucking evil.”
“I’m telling you because I need you to see. I know I can twist him. He’s probably told the club he wants me back so I can mule more drugs for him, but that’s an excuse. He wants me because he thinks he owns me, that I belong to him. It’s always been like that. He’s warped in the head.”
“My entire purpose is to keep you safe.”
“To keep me safe, you need to let me take a risk. If I don’t draw him out, he’ll keep attacking your businesses. He’ll leak that video of me. Worse, now that you’ve freed his women, as he calls them, he’ll go out and find more. You need to help me do this.”
“I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
“Unless we end this, we’ll never know if we can have a real relationship,” she counters. “We need to be together–freely, without this… this mess hanging over our heads.”
There’s a part of me, a roaring beast who wants to drag her back to the garage and into the underground panic room, close the door, keep her there, make it so she doesn’t have to face the evil of the world.
“I can see it,” I whisper. “That fucked-up man filling your head with poison, twisting you against your own best interests. If we do this, it won’t be with the cops. It will be with the Family. He’ll die, Keepsake. I’ll make sure of it myself. Understand?”
She looks at me coldly. “Do you think I have a problem with that?”
I brush the hair from her face, lean in, and tenderly kiss her on the cheek. She turns her face and pushes her lips passionately against mine. She bites my lip, then grabs my arms and climbs into my lap.
“Don’t treat me like I’m made of glass now, Dom. Not because of this. That’s not fair.”