Nausea creeps up my throat at the mention of her young age, but I swallow it down…only to remember the storm a week ago.
The chrysanthemums were more than well on their wayto dying, and if that’s what she marked her birthdays with, no wonder she punched the porch steps. I’m gonna make damn sure she has something better for the rest of her birthdays. No more dying chrysanthemums.
“Things weren’t too bad at first. But then came the looks. Then the touching.”
“Jesus Christ,” I rasp. A consuming rage and a violent need to protect the young, innocent girl my wife once was from the man who abused her burns in my veins.
“It’s okay, Warren.” Mara pats my hand, and the small touch brings the bitter taste of guilt to my tongue. How is it she’s the one comforting me when it’s her nightmare of a story? “It was a long time ago.”
But now her tone turns flat and distant. As if this trauma had happened to someone else and not herself. “And then the first nighttime visit happened. By the time he lost me in a poker game a few months later, I understood all too well what happened when a man decided he wanted a woman.”
Hazy black film darkens the edges of my vision. “But you weren’t a woman yet, and he damn well knew it! You were just a girl. An innocent young girl left in his care. How could he do something like that? You weren’t his to gamble away.”
“At least he didn’t hurt me as bad as the ones who won me.”
I dig my free fingers into my other thigh to keep from punching the stump. More men. Men who need to die for how they treated my wife. But first… “Is he still alive?” Because I’m going to kill him for what he did to my sweet Mara. For violating her innocence and dooming her to a life of misery at the hands of men who had no right to take from her.
She huffs in laughter, but there’s no amusement in it. “I doubt it. He also had a bad habit of marking cards.”
Disappointed at his potential escape in death, I press a kiss to her hair for whatever comfort I can give. If only I could have found her sooner and stopped all of this.
“After that, I was passed around from owner to owner for the next four years. All of them men who used me or offered me to others. Some of them…I didn’t even know their names. Joe was my last real owner. When I learned I was pregnant, he told me I could give the baby up for adoption to a respectable family. Like a fool, I believed him. He sold Emmaline off right along with me even before she was born.” Mara’s voice never breaks until the mention of our daughter, and the raw pain in her voice is my undoing.
“I need to hold you.” As easy as I can, I wrap my arms around the both of them in protection and force myself not to squeeze. They’re here now, and that’s what matters most. “Need to hold both of you.”
Mara relaxes into me, but only slightly. The weight of her story is still heavy on her shoulders. “I should have known it was too good to be true. Money was all he thought about, and selling us both to Crowley would be more profitable to him than forcing me to get rid of the baby. Men say anything to a woman because hearing what she wants keeps her happy and obedient,he’d told me.” She buries her nose in our little girl’s hair and inhales deeply as if to gather strength. “None of the men in my life have ever been kind, but some have been crueler than most. And the man who…who fathered her is not a good man,” she whispers. “He would never be a good papa. Not to her and not to anyone else’s baby.”
I stiffen. Is, she said. Not was. He’s alive, so that rules out Joe, Chance, or Crowley. “Who is he?” I grit out. Right hand to God, I’m gonna cut his dick off before I kill him.
“At least, I think he’s the one. It’s…” Shame enters her sad blue eyes before she hides them from me. “There were three I thought it could be, but I wasn’t sure. Not until she was born and I saw the mark.”
The mark…the mark.
I fish Emmaline’s little fist from her blanket and run a thumb over it. My sweet, innocent little girl grabs my finger with a strength I swear no other baby this size has. “This one?”
She nods. “He has one in the same place.”
I close my eyes and drag in a rough breath. Everything’s beginning to make sense now. This is why she had a hard time looking at Emmaline after giving birth. How could she not? To look at such innocence and then see the man who raped her… Gut-wrenching agony builds until I can’t take it anymore. I need to know who this cocksucking fucking son of a bitch is. “His name. What’s his name?”
Her spine almost curls in on itself as she tries to make herself smaller. “Montgomery Blackwood.”
“The poker player who wears the black gloves?”
“Yes.” My ears strain to hear her. “He doesn’t like people to see it.”
But she’s seen it. Likely in the worst of circumstances. I’ve seen the man in a game or two, and even though he slicked his hair back with the finest pomade and dressed fancy with his tailored suits and cane, he always reminded me of a snake. I always just thought it was because he probably played tricks with the cards, but now I know better.
“He doesn’t even need the cane. It’s just to make people feel sorry for him and let their guard down. And for punishments.” She trembles in my arms. “If he ever sees Emmaline, he’ll know. I have dreams of him stealing her from me.”
“No.” The angry refusal erupts before I can stop it. Standing us up, I turn her to face me, and the pure miseryetched on her features cuts my heart. “He’s not gonna lay one filthy hand on either of you. I won’t let it happen.”
“But how?” she pleads. “How will you stop it?”
Jaw set harder than flint, I cup her cheeks and thumb away the liquid pain that slips down. “I’m gonna kill him, wife.”
Knowledge can be powerful.
It can also be painful.
