She heaved in a slow, lung-filling breath. She could answer his question or not. It’s not like he’d take the cases away from her if she didn’t.
Do I want him to know?
She pushed off the sofa, pulled a bottle of Santini Brandy from her kitchen cabinet, along with two snifters. A finger’sworth in one, two in the other. Back in the family room, she handed him the fuller glass, sat beside him, and sipped the top-shelf liquor. The sweet flavor ignited her taste buds, and she savored it before swallowing it down.
Turning toward him, she crossed her legs. “You sure?”
After sipping the brandy, he cemented his gaze on hers. “One-hundred percent.”
“There’s a part of my past you never knew about,” she said. “This is hard for me to talk about, but I have no expectations when it comes to you. None. If this dredges up why you dumped me, it’s on you this time.”
“Got it,” he said.
Pausing, she questioned how far back she needed to go.
Tell him… everything.
“After my mom’s killing spree, I was left an orphan. One set of grandparents and a grandmother were deceased. My other grandfather lived in Montana, but he couldn’t take me. I was sixteen, so I went into the foster care system. The first home was fine, but I was a total mess over the loss of my parents. One minute, we’re normal. The next, my parents were dead, along with your mom. She was my travel soccer coach, and I adored her. She was a terrific coach and mentor to all the girls on the team.”
Slash had never told anyone the full story, not even Elsa. She’d pushed it from her mind. Looking back, it was her survival mechanism kicking in. Heaving in a breath, she hugged herself.
To her surprise, Carrera took her hands and held them in his. His warm hands made her feel safe.
“The first foster mom sent me back when her time ended. The next home started okay. The man and woman—I thought they were married, but they weren’t—had three foster kids living there. Two boys and a girl. Jilly, the dancer from Blue Suit.”
He nodded.
“After a few weeks there, I heard weird noises in the middle of the night. I wasn’t sure what it was. Sounded like whimpering and muffled voices. That monster was raping Jilly.”
“Ohgod,” he bit out.
“It went on like that for a while. I found out he was molesting all three of them. I tried talking to Jilly, but she shut me down. One day, on the way home from school, she warned me that he was coming into my room that night. She told me to run. I wanted her to come, but she had two weeks until she turned eighteen. She said she’d been on the streets, and she wasn’t going back.”
“Where was the woman who lived there?”
“She worked nights at the hospital. On the nights she was home, he wouldn’t do anything, or he’d bring one of them into the basement.”
“Jesus,” he murmured.
“After Jilly warned me, I took off. I had my car, so I slept in that. My mistake was that I continued going to school, showering after gym class. It didn’t take long for social services to catch up with me, so I bolted. I drove from Winchester to Alexandria. I was homeless, sleeping in my car. I needed a job, so I went into DC, got a job stripping. I had a fake ID. I figured the owner knew I was young, but he didn’t care. The men liked me, and they spent more money whenever I danced.”
Normally rock solid, she started trembling. She tossed back a mouthful of brandy before covering her shoulders with the throw blanket.
He stroked her back. Tender caresses that helped settle her down. “Do you want to take a break?”
“Let me get this out,” she said. “One night, I was propositioned. Not a hand job, not a blowjob. Fucking. I said no. The owner encouraged me to help out one of his regulars. I toldhim I’d think about it. I didn’t want to have sex with him. Plus, I was a virgin.” She paused. “Well, you know that.”
He dipped down, dropped a kiss on her cheek. His encouraging smile spurred her on.
“One Sunday, I was supposed to work the lunch crowd at the strip club. I couldn’t go in. I knew if I did, that customer—or some other creep—would expect sex. I was walking down a beautiful residential street in Alexandria, thinking about my messed-up life. How I’d planned to get a soccer scholarship, and how my dreams had gone to shit, all because I asked my dad to watch me play soccer with my travel team.”
On a huff, she threw the blanket off her shoulders and steeled her spine. “When I passed this pretty chapel on the corner, I heard singing. It was lovely.” She smiled at the memory. “Like the angels were beckoning me inside. I remembered that after church, people usually gathered, and there was food. I was starving.”
“Did you go in?” he asked.
“I did.” Tears filled her eyes. Unexpected, unwelcome emotion that she couldn’t stop. “Elsa was helping to set up lunch. She lit up when she saw me and asked me to help. After I did, she made me this huge plate of food. And I’m not talking cookies. It was a meal. I wolfed it down while she sat with me.”
Tears rolled freely down her cheeks, and Carrera gently brushed them away with his thumb.
