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I rested my head on his shoulder, his words making my eyes burn. I’d grieved alone. Mum had been the one who loved me, who was gentle and kind and took care of me. Without her, I’d learned to take care ofmyself,and only appreciated when I got older how wrong that was. Only truly realised how bad that was when Damien showed me what real love was, and how unfaltering and unconditional support should be.
“I’ve got you now,” I replied, and any pain I might have felt at lacking a biological family never formed. I’d been alone for years; losing Dad, Artur, and Mark only brought relief, not grief. “And your family.”
“Our family,” he corrected, kissing my temple.
“Damien,” I chided gently. He was so afraid to bare his tortured soul that he was taking every distraction.
He inhaled a long, slow breath. Haltingly, he resumed his story. “They were already gone when I found them. They were… no one should die the way they did. In pain, violated, knowing someone they loved had gone through the same hell they had. Mum would rather have taken on a whole firing squad by herself than let anyone hurt one of us. It must have—must have destroyed her, what they did to Willow.”
I held him tightly, letting him talk, equal parts relief and pain tangled in my chest.
“I killed everyone in that cesspit, but I was too late to save them.” He bowed his head, his voice rough. “I was too fucking late.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Dr. Korte said the same thing.”
“Smart man.”
He exhaled a jagged breath. “I keep seeing them, over and over. In my sleep, when I’m awake, when I close my eyes. I see their bodies, all the blood, the cuts—”
I didn’t know what had been done to them, but my imagination gave me a picture anyway, and I held Damien tightly enough to hurt him. I wanted to wrap my whole self around him, wanted to cradle his soul in my soul, his heart in my heart. His pain was mine and it fucking hurt.
“I see you, too,” he choked out. “Right there with them, with the same injuries, the same pain on your face, the same empty eyes and I—I can’t take it, Vasya.”
“That’s not going to happen to me,” I swore to him, kissing the side of his head, his temple, his cheek. “I promise. Look what happened to Artur and Finch’s henchmen. They wanted to hurtme, wanted to deliver me to him, but I shot them. And I’ll shoot anyone who tries to hurt me.”
“Nothing can stop men like them,” he replied, his voice a wasteland of pain.
“Nothing can stop women like me. I’ve been through hell—I lived there for most of my life—and I have no intention of going back. I’m a survivor, Damien. I’m not afraid to get rid of anyone who stands between me and survival. I know your mum and Willow must have been strong too, but … there’s something missing in me.
“Not a bad thing,” I rushed out when Damien began to speak. “It’s what means I can hold a gun without being scared of it, and how I can shoot someone without it keeping me up at night. It’s why I saw all the people you killed that first night and I was scared you’d hurt me, but I didn’t run screaming at the sight of the massacre. Whatever that thing in me is, it means I won’t hesitate to kill to defend myself. No one’s going to kill me. You should be more worried about cleaning up all the peopleIkill,” I added wryly, earning a soft breath of laughter.
“My fear won’t listen to logic, Vasya. I know you have your gun but that doesn’t empty my head of those bloody images, or stop me seeing you murdered too. I don’t know whatwillstop it,” he said helplessly.
I feathered a kiss over his cheek, giving him a deep, searching look. “Will it be better when Finch is dead?”
He nodded, his hand sliding up and down my side. “It won’t erase what happened to Mum and Willow, but the threat to you will be eliminated. And don’t think I missed you sayingwhennotif.”
“I’m confident in us, and in our very dangerous friends.” Eli especially made my instincts blare with warning bells that something was very, very wrong with him. Whatever that was, itwould be useful for killing Finch. “So, blackmail and leverage? How else do we get Finch?”
“If blackmail doesn’t work,” Damien said, his eyes beginning to clear, grief softened by purpose, “we’ll have to lure him out with something he wants.”
“Me,” I pointed out.
Damien smiled. I wasn’t expecting him to smile. “You, or someone wholookslike you.” At my frown, he said, “Cameo. But I’ll only bring her in as a last resort. She’s… unpredictable.”
“I get the sense you chose that word carefully.”
“Very carefully,” he agreed, squeezing my hip. “You gonna unlock my cuffs now, my queen?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
He laughed softly, watching me with feather-soft affection.
“But,” I added, “I have conditions.”
“Name them, and consider them done.”
