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“Not an option.”
“I know.” There was the smile I’d hoped for earlier, small and wry but there all the same. “It seems my family won’t let me. And if you can stand to look at me after I locked you away like a controlling barbarian—”
“I can.”
“Then I can force the words out. An explanation is the least I owe you. I notice you have a key in your possession but have yet to unlock my cuffs; I assume you’re leaving me locked up until I get this off my chest.”
I stroked his bearded jaw with the backs of my fingers. “You assume correctly.”
His eyes lightened a shade. “Not going to force me to talk at gunpoint?”
“Maybe if you’re well-behaved,” I joked, earning a raspy laugh from my husband.
“It hurts to look at you,” he admitted quietly. “And to touch you. Partly because of the way I treated you, and the fact that any sane woman would run a hundred miles away. I’m a walking red flag at this point.”
“I’m not sane, and you’ve always been a red flag. Lucky for you, I’m colourblind when it comes to flags, so you’re a pretty carnation pink to me.”
His answering laugh was stronger this time. He dipped his head and kissed my cheek, lingering for long moments. I swore I could feel his smile etch itself on my skin.
“You’re determined to rid me of all my burdens, aren’t you, Vasya?”
“I am.”
He sighed, the sound a release of pain—or a fear I’d walk away from him at this first sign of him being less than perfect. He should have known better.
“Keep talking,” I encouraged, glancing at his computer and frowning at the email—normal—and the paused video of a greying-haired man in a sharp navy blue suit strangling a man several years younger than him—normal for a Marshall I guess?
“Leverage,” Damien explained without prompting. “I’m calling in favours to find Finch’s hiding place. Figured the least I could do after this morning was kill the last threat to you.”
“I’ve been thinking about killing him, too,” I admitted, sliding my hand around the back of his neck and stroking his weak spot with my thumb. He let out a long breath, melting under me. “This looks more like blackmail than leverage,” I pointed out dryly.
“Semantics.”
“Now,talkto me, Damien. I’m here, I’m listening, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Or uncuffing me,” he drawled.
I stayed silent and kept my eyes on him, waiting for him to open up, which he did with a hesitant sigh.
“When you were taken, it raked up a lot of things I thought I’d dealt with, processed, and healed from.” He dropped his eyes, his mouth a thin line. “I was wrong.”
“That’s where the nightmares come from,” I guessed quietly.
He nodded, scraping his teeth over his bottom lip before he begrudgingly continued, “I told you my sister and mum were killed. I didn’t say—I was the one who found them.”
“Damien,” I breathed, frozen in surprise and deep, slicing pain for a moment before I threw my arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. “Oh, god, and then when I was taken, I told you what Finch had threatened to do to me—of course it raked up losing your mum and Willow.”
My mind jumped from thought to thought, horror blooming inside me, spreading further and faster. I held Damien so tightly, enraged with protectiveness. I might have been small and physically weak, but there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my husband.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his uncuffed arm wrapped around my back, pressing me tight to him like he needed the closeness as much as I needed to offer it.
“I didn’t want to go back to that place. Talking about it, thinking about it—I’m right back there, bursting into a shitty little house owned by the Whitlock family. I cansmellit, the stink of the place fucking branded on my nose and—I don’t want any of it to touch you. I want to keep you pure, keep our marriage untouched by this poison.”
“I can handle it, Damien. I watched my dad shot my mum in front of me when I was a kid, and if I can handle that, if I can remember it and not completely break, I can hear what happened to your family. What happened toyou.”I turned my face to kiss his cheek. “Keep talking.”
“I hate that you went through that, especially with your piece of shit brothers as your only support.”
