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“Having your own private pity party, yeah?”
I put my bowl on the night stand, before turning to glare at Cain.“Pity party? I could barely speak. My throat was almost crushed. I had to have intensive surgery on my leg to remove a fucking brand. Not to mention all the bumps and bruises. Am I allowed to rest and heal?”
Cain rolled his eyes and flopped onto his back before letting out a huge yawn.
“Look, thank you for helping find me. I really can’t express my appreciation enough. But I don’t know who you think you are, coming in here and trash talking. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
Casually, Cain rolled toward me, propping himself up on his elbow.
“Enlighten me, princess.”
I leaned back against my pillows, looking away from his eyes that were searching for pieces of my soul. I hadn’t talked to any of the guys about what had happened, not in detail. I was still waiting for any sort of results from my exam, to tell me if the worst had happened and I had even more to be ashamed of.
“Look, we don’t really know each other. Wouldn’t it be easier to tell a stranger the truth, someone that has no reasons to judge? And wouldn’t it feel good to talk to someone?”
“I’ve talked to Ash,”I said.
“Have you, really? Seems she’s just as lost as everyone else on what is going on in this room, yeah?”
He wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t interested in confirming that for him. Ash was there when I was examined, but I hadn’t really talked to her about it. She had tried, been the best friend I needed. I just wasn’t able to form the words to tell her what happened in that warehouse.
“That’s what I thought,”Cain said, as if he was reading my thoughts.
“I’m not ready, ok?”My voice was stronger, though not quite able to yell, even though I badly wanted to.
“If you stay in here, in the dark, not talking to anyone, you’ll never be ready. Everyone in this house is just waiting for you.”
With those parting words, Cain rolled off the bed in a smooth motion and walked toward the door. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized he had left the curtains wide open and hadn’t even closed the bedroom door. I just stared into the hallway, wondering where the guy got off with trying to push me around.
I slid out of bed and tried to decide if I was going to close the door or the windows first. As I stood in the middle of the room, movement at the door caught my attention and I turned to find Oliver standing just outside my room. His eyes were hot as they roamed my body and I was reminded again that I was wearing nothing but my camisole nighty that barely covered my ass.
I didn’t think I was ready for that kind of attention, but Oliver’s gaze caused warmth to lick within my cold interior. I fought the urge to cover myself and just motioned for him to come inside. He didn’t say anything, just stepped forward and shut the door behind him. I went to the window and pulled the curtains mostly closed, but still allowing a little light into the room.
When I turned back, Oliver was relaxing against my pillows. I didn’t hesitate. I climbed under the blanket and laid against his chest. His arms came around me and I sighed.
“You sure this is ok, baby?”He asked.
I nodded, nuzzling my face against his shirt and then moving up under his chin. It was more than ok. I wasn’t entirely ready to talk, but I wanted their comfort, their nearness. I wanted to belong in their world again, to know that they wanted me and cared about me. There was no knowing how long that would last, but I wanted to soak up what I could while I was free to do so.
“I want to help, just tell me what to do,”he said.
“You’re doing what I need right now.”I pressed a kiss against his chest and laid my head back down.
We laid in silence for a few minutes. Oliver’s hand rubbed up and down my back and I let my hand rest on his abdomen. It felt like a surreal, normal moment and I didn’t want to do anything to disrupt it.
Oliver was the one to break the quiet.“I know Gideon has told you stories of when we were kids and the world we grew up in. We saw many illegal things, dangerous things, immoral things. Some of them we participated in. We knew it was wrong, but it was the world we knew. We never realized it was possible to change our fate.”
“And you did, as soon as you had the opportunity,”I said.
Oliver nodded, his face lowered into my hair.“We did. Sometimes I still have to think about what we did. The number of lives we hurt by dealing. The women we saw come and go from the apartments Randy and his men had. How we could see how bad the life was for them. But we didn’t do anything, didn’t stop the things we knew were happening. When I think about those things, I feel guilt. Ugly, deep rooted, guilt for my hand in those things.”
I tried to imagine my Oliver, the fun, silly, handsome man, doing things that made him feel ugly. I imagined a younger version of him, working in the dark underbelly of the city, just to make ends meet. It was hard to think about him, taking the drugs he dealt, being high and out of control at times. I couldn’t see him as someone that was a threat to others, or that didn’t do the right things for the people around him.
However, what I didn’t feel was ashamed or disgusted by him. That was a life he was forced into, what he was born into, without a choice or say. When he was old enough, he, along with his brothers, created the life they lived now. They became thepeople that I knew they were. The strength to overcome their origins was something I admired and appreciated.
I knew why Oliver was talking to me about this now. He was trying to tell me he knew what it was to be ashamed. But I wasn’t sure I was able to admit to him what had happened to me, even once I could admit to myself that it wasn’t my fault.
“You were practically children, then. You turned things around and you do wonderful things now with the power you have,”I said.
