We finally understood the full extent of what she had endured. The depth of her trauma made so much more sense. Every muscle in my body was tight, flooded with anger, worry, and stress.
I needed to see her. I could tell Silas felt the same. So we went straight to her room, dismissing Officer Yuri, who had been monitoring her inside the safe house.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” I muttered, clapping him on the back before moving past him.
“No problem, sir,” he said, nodding and returning to his post outside.
Lena was exactly where we’d left her, buried beneath the ever-growing pile of nesting materials we’d been supplying her with. Her head popped up at the sound of us entering, sleepy eyes widening when she saw both of us.
I rushed forward immediately, dropping to my knees beside the mattress. Silas lingered near the door.
I reached for her, then stalled when she flinched. My hand hovered between us, suspended.
“I know what you were trying to tell us earlier,” I whispered.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Marco didn’t knot you during your heats,” I continued. “He tied you up and made you go through them alone. Every. Single. One. Is that right?”
For a long moment, she didn’t move.
Then her small chin dipped, and her gaze dropped to the floor.
"Is that why you killed Jacob? You didn't want him to tell us? You were ashamed?"
She shrugged, not able to meet my gaze.
"How did you survive?"
A whimper slipped past her lips.
My hand remained suspended, an offering of comfort, but I didn't force it on her. A purr rumbled from my chest.
"I'm so sorry that happened to you," I whispered.
She still didn't look up.
"I'm going to tell you something Lena. Something only Silas and I know. I'm choosing to trust you to keep our secret, now that we know about yours."
She looked up finally, eyes moving between us both. Silas' jaw worked overtime, teeth grinding, but he didn't try to stop me.
“Marco Belini killed our mother.”
The words hung between us.
A sharp gasp slipped from Lena’s lips. Her eyes went wide, breath catching as if the air had been knocked from her lungs.
I didn’t look at her when I continued. My gaze drifted somewhere past the room, past the mattress, past the present...
We were dirt poor after our father left. It was just the three of us after that, Silas, me, and our mother, trying to survive in a city that didn’t forgive weakness.
The west side was loud, crowded, and always hungry. Work was scarce, especially for a single mom with twin boys in tow, and what little she could find barely kept us afloat. Our mom, determined to keep us fed, took whatever jobs she could get: cleaning, waitressing, mostly long hours and cash under the table. It still wasn’t enough. We went hungry often.
But then she met Enzo Bellini.
I still remember sitting in the back of a battered cleaning van, my knees pulled to my chest, my stomach aching with hunger. Silas sat beside me, already harder than most boys his age, already angry at the world. We tried hard not to be seen.
Enzo noticed us anyway.
