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Minute after minute he disembowels himself of the pain, the veins on his neck straining against his skin as he lets it go. Throughout it all, Leon keeps pouring the water over his body, whispering words of empathy, kindness, andlove. If it hadn’t been for everything I’d been through at the hands of these men, I might’ve lost my heart to them at this moment.
Instead, I hold onto it as fiercely as I hold onto Konrad, refusing to let it soften further until the man who hurt me eventually, finally, calms.
“Leon?Zero?” he says, blinking rapidly as he looks from me to Leon and back again.
“Thank fuck!” Leon exclaims as my arms drop from around Konrad’s body and I shift backwards in the water, the ripples disturbing the stillness.
“Why areyouhere?” Konrad asks me, his question coming out harshly as he twists to face me, grasping my shoulders.
Behind him Leon pushes up onto his knees on the ledge as he edges around Konrad, his hand clamping on his wrist. “I asked for Christy’s help. Don’t take your pain out on her,” he urges.
Konrad’s nostrils flare, and my teeth begin to chatter, my whole body vibrating with the cold as all the adrenaline that was keeping me warm, or at least oblivious to the cold, starts to wear off. “This place is sacred,” he counters, his fingers digging deeper into my skin. I can feel the swell of the water lap against my breasts as he shifts his body to face me. “You don’t belong here.”
“She belongs wherever we are,” Leon says as Konrad looks at him. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“It’s okay. I’ll go and wait over there,” I say, trying to edge backwards, out of his hold whilst the brothers continue to stare at one another in some silent conversation I can’t decipher.
“No!” They both say in unison, Konrad’s grip tightening as he returns his attention to me and Leon moves to sit behind me, trapping me between the two of them.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Leon says.
Fear slithers up my spine at his tone of voice, and the feelings of warmth I’d begun to feel towards these men begin to ice over. “Don’t,” I warn.
“You misunderstand me. I don’t want to hurt you.Wedon’t, do we Konrad?” Leon lifts me into his lap, and wraps his arms around my waist, his mouth pressing against the curve of my neck. His fingers caressing the bare skin of my arm gently. My body shudders from his touch.
Konrad blows out a long breath, his broad chest shuddering with the effort. “No.”
We fall silent as Konrad’s admission sinks in. I should feel relieved, but I only feel dazed. I’m fighting so hard to hate, knowing that I can’t be weakened by their softness, their gentleness, their past.
“She raped you,” I whisper. I don’t know why I chose this moment to remind him of what so obviously hurt him, but I do. My gaze falls to our reflection in the water. It ripples with our movements, distorting what I see, echoing how I feel. My head is all over the place.
“Yes,” he replies, forcing me to look at him again as he pinches my chin between his finger and thumb. “The last thing I remember is her sliding onto my cock. Then I blacked out. Where is she now?”
“Dead,” Leon says.
Konrad clenches his jaw then looks out over the water, but he’s not quick enough to hide the flash of pain, the regret, the anger. “How?”
“She hung herself…” I say, filling in the silence. Feeling sick at the thought.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because she knew what the repercussions would be,” Leon says heavily, as though it pains him to admit that truth. Perhaps it does now.
“When will it end?” I whisper, knowing the answer to that question only too well.Soon.
I find no joy in that, only a strange kind of emptiness.
“This lake has never seen an ounce of violence, and we don’t intend on changing that now,” Leon says, misunderstanding my question. “This is the one place our father’s influence never tarnished. There is no death here, only peace.”
My teeth chatter in earnest now as I shift position. My dress ripples underwater, the hem gently caressing Konrad’s knees now that he’s facing me fully.
“How did you find this place?” I ask.
“Leon found it when we were small, not long after the first time Malik forced us both to suck him off before he raped and killed a woman in front of our eyes,” Konrad says quietly.
“He forced you both to…?” My gut churns with nausea and bile burns my throat but I swallow it back down.
“Yes,” Konrad nods. “We were eight at the time.”
