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“A knife wound.” My heart started pounding as I neared the ledge I was about to jump off by telling her. I owed her, though; she’d opened up about her abuse… “From my dad.”
She gasped.
“He didn’t always take it out on my mom.” She went to move, but I tucked her forehead back to my neck. “Sometimes, if I screwed up and he was going for her, I’d get in the way. I hated seeing her pay the price for my mistakes.”
“What was the screw up?”
“Got a B in geometry.”
She huffed. “AB? As in almost an A?”
“Dad demanded perfection in everything. He came from…chaos, so I think it stemmed from there.”
“Chaos?”
“His mother left when he was a baby, and his dad…was pretty absent. Alcoholic…mentally ill. And, well, Dad had to fend for himself since he was young.”
“When you say mentally ill…”
“Probably untreated or undiagnosed schizophrenia or any other smattering of mental illnesses. Had they been treated he might have had a chance…well, he eventually ended up institutionalized. Died shortly after.”
“How?”
“Killed himself.” My heart started hammering at the memory of Mom telling me about Dad’s life. “Dad’s reaction was control…perfection. No room or tolerance for errors. Anyway, when I got bigger, I tried to get in between them more. Save her from the injury.”
“Why didn’t you guys leave?”
“We tried. He…always found us. And that punishment for him finding us was always the worst.” I closed my eyes at the images trying to flash before my mind. The blood. The violence. “That’s why I stayed close, going to community college so I could be near Mom, but with me out of the house, I thought things would get better. Nothing there to egg him on.”
“Didn’t matter, did it?” She shook her head like she knew what I was talking about. Hell, maybe she did.
Hopefully not. She’d seen enough violence with her attack. I’d hate to find out her parents were abusive. And I certainly hoped it was nothing like Dad’s abuse.
“It was when Mom called his Sergeant, looking to get some help for Dad, that he went nuts. Almost killed her. Right in front of me.” I combed my fingers through Lina’s silky hair, and the contact settled me, making it easier to talk about somehow. “He bolted, leaving Mom to die on the kitchen floor. But during Mom’s time in the hospital and recovery, that’s when we found out what really happened overseas. Why he’d come back so broken.”
“What?”
“They won’t tell us all the details, but something happened on a mission, and he lost his entire team. A mission gone bad evidently. But as a result, he cracked. He’d come back more violent and unrealistically paranoid. It was bad. I remember the nights I’d slept outside the house in my truck, worried for Mom. Even though I was out of the house, she didn’t leave him, and I’d always wondered why. I understand the cycle so much better now, but… I couldn’t do anything.” I’d hated that feeling of powerlessness, too. I was so big, could fight, but couldn’t face off with my dad because I knew it’d hurt Mom in the end.
“Oh my gosh, Hunter.” She coiled her arm around my stomach and hugged me closer. It was almost as if she knew I needed to say this without looking into her eyes. “How is he not in jail?”
“That’s the kicker. He was in special forces, so he has mad skills to stay invisible. Add that to the psychopath genes and it spells disaster.” The authorities had come close a few times, even pegged him with a few bullets. But when faced with a man trained to survive in the harshest conditions and had oodles of money at his disposal, it got complicated in a hurry. “But he has to slip up sooner or later.”
I wanted to tell her everything; about my handler, about witness protection, but I couldn’t. One, that would be a lot for her to hear. It could really overwhelm her, scare her away. I didn’t want her to have any setbacks. Two, I needed to check with my handler to see what my options were, if I had any. I’d never wanted to tell anyone this badly before.
Lina shifted within my grasp, and I could tell she was going to look up, so I steeled myself for the emotions her eyes would evoke. They always made my insides churn with hope. With…love.
Instead, she moved enough that she kissed my neck, right where my scar was. The numbness associated with the damaged nerve endings muted her soft lips, but the notion made up for that. She kissed a trail behind my ear as she shifted even more until she could pull me in a full-on hug.
“Thank you, Hunter,” she whispered, “Thank you for telling me.”
God, I loved this girl, no, thiswoman. This fragile, broken, yet infinitely strong woman had totally and completely rocked my world. She’d only seen violence when it came to men, and I vowed right then to show her love could be something filled with happiness and tenderness.
It was funny to think I could show her that, considering I was filled with so much violence and anger. But when I was with her, none of that surfaced.
Then again, it was usually just the two of us. It might be a different story if she was ever threatened or in danger. Hell, who was I kidding? There was nomightabout it. I attracted trouble like a magnet, so it was only a matter of time, especially now that she was making her way out of her house.
That’d be the real test.
