Page 88 of Cash

“She’s never⁠—”

“Actually, no woman has.”

When the silence stretched, I glanced over at Stella. Body cocked to the side, cheek to the pillow with her hand shoved under it. I couldn’t completely make out her features in the dark but I could feel her eyes studying me.

“I get that need for privacy. Before Cara, I never allowed anyone in my house. After she was born, I used to visit Michael and Donna and stay with them. Before that, always a hotel. I don’t sleep well knowing there’s someone else in the house.”

A ripple of unease coursed through me at what that might mean.

“Did something⁠—”

“No. Never. But when you’re asleep, you’re defenseless.”

“And that takes trust,” I surmised.

She didn’t answer but I didn’t need her to. I knew I was right.

“I think it’s best if I leave⁠—”

“No.” My denial came out harsher than I’d intended but there was no use in apologizing now when I was only going to piss her off as this conversation continued.

“What do you mean, no?”

“No, as in you’re not leaving.”

“I know what the word no means, Captain. I’m asking you if you do.”

Smartass.

“No means no.”

The growl that left her throat had me rethinking the not fucking her part while she was injured. I could drag her ass into the bathroom and use the shower to drown out her moans.

“Damion won’t be⁠—”

“I’m not worried about that asshole. As soon as Kira gets me a location, he’ll never be a problem for anyone. Ever again.”

Stella moved. The bed moved. Hell, it felt like everything in the room moved as her mood shifted from mildly annoyed to red-hot pissed in a flash.

“You’re not taking this from me,” Stella hissed. “I didn’t endure years of him taking his leather belt to me to have you swoop in and take him out. He killed Michael and Donna. He changed the course of Cara’s life—took her mom and dad from her. One day the trauma of that is going to wreck her. Vengeance is mine. Mine. Not yours.”

I barely heard anything beyond, ‘I didn’t endure years of him taking his leather belt to me.’

Years.

Not the hours that he’d had her.

“Years?” I growled as I rolled to my side.

Stella remained silent. The longer she held out the tighter my jaw clenched. Just when I thought I was going to snap she finally broke the silence and I immediately wished she wouldn’t have.

“The beatings started when I was ten. Before that, Damion was my…brother,” she started in an awful dead tone that was barely above a whisper. “Growing up the way we did, parents absent, nannies, cooks, cleaners, it was just us.” Stella sucked in what sounded like a pain-filled breath. The exhale sounded no less painful when she went on. “I loved him. He was a good brother. Then he wasn’t. In the beginning he used to apologize. After my father left the room, he’d cry and say he was sorry. He’d tell me he wouldn’t do it again. He’d take the punishment. But the next time would come, my dad would hand him the belt and Damion would follow orders. I can’t remember when he stopped saying he was sorry. But at some point, my father’s lessons took root and Damion no longer held me while I cried, he just followed our father out of the room to get his treat, leaving me to tend to my wounds the best I could. By the time I was a teenager, my father no longer accompanied Damion; he’d simply nod and Damion would excitedly drag me to my room.”

Another breath. Another excruciating exhale.

“There were times my father wasn’t even home, and Damion would grab me by the hair and tell me father had called in my punishment. By the time he moved out he was an expert with the belt. Yet every holiday he came home from college, he sharpened those skills. The last time he took me into my room I was seventeen. It wasn’t the worst beating he’d given me but with each slash of his belt I vowed it would be the last. He gave me twenty-seven lashings and when he was done, I promised myself one day he’d feel the bite of that leather strap, and it would be me who would dish out the pain he loved to inflict.”

Over the course of my life, I’d felt all the different shades of anger. From mildly irritated to red hot fury. But never had I felt it vibrate in my bones. Never had I felt it seep so deep into my soul I was certain I’d lost whatever humanity I had left. The urge to maim and torture had taken over. The need to unleash the devil within and make Damion bleed. Visions of Stella’s mutilated back danced in my mind’s eye. Gashes so deep they needed to be stitched. Her beautiful skin damaged and bloody. Desperation clawed at my insides—a craving to hear the fucker’s cries, a yearning to paint the walls and floor with his blood, a need to draw out his pain until he begged me to end his life.