Her eyes flashed with terror for a second, as if she knew what I was going to say before I said it. “He what?”
“He’d come to my room at night, talk to me about girls, how I’d soon be a man and would need to know how to please them…and explain how they’d please me, too.”
She gulped, her eyes turning red. “Let me guess, he’dshowyou.”
Revulsion seared through my skin, bubbling up like burn marks. “He’d spray his fucking cologne on me, telling me it was a sexy thing that would turn any girl into alurida troia, and he’d, like a dirty slut, suck me. Then he’d make me do the same to him, telling me it’d make me better at pussy eating, so I did.” I could still feel his fucking taste in my mouth.
Her hand flew to her chest. “Jesus, Dom. How old were you?”
“Seven.”
Her brows drew together as soft whimpers escaped her mouth. “He used your innocence. He made you think it was okay.”
“He was teaching me to be a man, and he’d stop beating us on those nights, so…”
“He made you want it,” she sobbed, “because it was better than the alternative.”
That was what I thought. If only I’d known… “When I grew up a little, and my questions turned into suspicions and later anger, he brought me gifts. Expensive cologne bottles like his, watches, designer shoes and clothes that made me look more of a man than a kid. Sometimes he took me in his car to teach me how to drive, promising me he’d get me one when I was old enough. But his most precious gifts of them all were porn movies, lots of them.
“He’d play them on in my room and make me watch with him. The movies were all about anal, and he’d tell me how a woman’s ass was much tighter than her cunt, and I’d have to try it or I’d be missing a lot. Then he’d say it was okay if I wanted to touch myself in front of him. He wouldn’t tell Mamma, and it’d be our little secret like before. Until one day, watching, touching and sucking weren’t enough for him.”
She squeezed my hand, a tear rolling down her cheek. “Oh, Dom.”
“At first, I fought, but he was fucking stronger. When I threatened I’d tell someone, he threatened me with Mamma. Every time, I said no or tried to fight, he beat the shit out of her and made me watch. Then he’d burn me with his cigarettes and carve nasty words on my body with his knife before he’d gag and rape me.
“When nothing would make him stop, I tried to beg. Needless to say that didn’t work either. You need to have a soul to listen to a child’s pleas to stop hurting them, to fucking stop splitting their ass with your filthy cock. Arminio didn’t have one.
“I remember the pain and the gag he’d shove in my mouth to stop my screams. He didn’t like them, but he still wanted me to moan like a good bitch that enjoyed taking his cock. With each one of my screams, he’d cut me deeper or burn me more times than usual…or fuck me harder. That way I learned if I didn’t scream, the pain would be less.”
Nicky shuddered with sobs and fell to her knees in front of me, holding both my hands now, kissing them, her tears wetting them. “Please tell me you killed him.”
“I did, but it wasn’t soon enough.”
Her bloodshot eyes stared at me for an explanation.
“When he started raping me, he didn’t do it in the house. He’d take me to a private apartment or an underground sex dungeon so Mamma wouldn’t notice. One day she followed us, though.”
“Oh no. She confronted him, and he hurt her?”
“Yes. She stayed in the hospital for two weeks because of it. The second she could talk, though, she cried her eyes out, wishing I’d told her, blaming herself for everything. Then she told me I didn’t have to protect her anymore and asked me to take her to Giovanni so she could tell him everything herself.”
“But if she told him, why didn’t he help? Why did you have to kill your uncle yourself? Giovanni was your capo and fucking father. He should have done it. He should have stopped his brother from raping his own son.”
The anger and hate I’d felt for Arminio didn’t begin to compare to those I had for Giovanni. “Because he owed Arminio for keeping his secret and giving his son the Lanza name. Besides, he was Giovanni’s enforcer and brother. Giovanni couldn’t just kill him without a good reason he could tell the rest of la famiglia. Telling the truth wasn’t an option. It’d have exposed too many secrets. He’d dismissed her that day with a promise that he’d have found another way to take care of Arminio’s problem.”
“Which was what?”
“Life didn’t give me the time to know. Mamma couldn’t bear the thought of being the weakness Arminio used to get to me. She couldn’t wait for Giovanni either.” My jaws tightened so hard they could shatter. I growled at the memory, at the pain that numbed everything but the beast growing inside. “She went to kill him herself, but he gained on her. I tried to save her, but he held a gun to my head. She begged him to let me go. She begged him to kill her instead.”
“Oh my God,” she whimpered. “Oh my God!”
“He wouldn’t kill her, though. He didn’t want to lose his leverage, and at the same time he wanted to punish her for ratting him out, so he tied her and fucked me right in front of her.”
“No, no, no,” she moaned, blubbering.
“Mamma couldn’t take it, couldn’t live with herself. The next morning, she took her own life.” My voice cracked in the end. I squeezed my eyes closed for a second, pushing down the raging pain I’d longed tried to contain and failed. “Everything I did was for nothing. My pain and shame and guilt were for nothing. I failed to save the one person I cared about.”
Nicky rushed up and held my head to her chest tight. “No. It’s not your fault. You did everything you could to protect her. The only way you knew how. You were a kid. You didn’t know any better.”
