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My jaw was clenched so hard that my head was pounding. “After?” I ground out through gritted teeth.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He beat me. With his bare hands. I…um, like I said, I don’t remember much. I blacked out after a while. They, um, they said I broke three ribs. I think he might have used his feet, too.”
Fuckingfuck. He was going to die for what he’d done to my girl. “That motherfucking sick fuckingbastard. I’m going to fucking kill him and take my time doing it.”
“He can’t touch me now, Zayde. It’s okay. I’m safe. I’m here with you.” Her hand stroked across my racing heart. “After that, he had me shipped off to Switzerland because he couldn’t stand to look at me anymore. And I, well, I wasn’t in the best mental state at the time, either. It was thanks to Joe that they even paid for my treatment. He fed them some lines about it reflecting badly on them if it ever got out.”
“He needs to pay. He needs to pay so fucking badly for hurting my girl. Death isn’t good enough for him.”
“Your girl?” There was a hint of a smile in her voice, and it calmed the rage burning inside me, just a bit. Enough that I could take a breath. She pressed a kiss to my jaw. “I know this is a lot for you to hear. I’ve had almost two years to come to terms with it, and you’re only just hearing about it now. But he’s behind bars, where he belongs, and I finally felt safe enough to come back because he’s gone. I’m here. I’m okay.I’m with you.”
“Yes, you’re my fucking girl. But he needs to pay. I need to have a word with Creed. Accidents happen in prison—” I cut myself off. What if she wanted him to live, despite everything he’d done? I couldn’t be responsible for another death of someone in her family.
It seemed like she could read my mind because she moved to lie on top of me, looking down into my eyes. “I know you want to kill him. But he’s locked away, and just knowing that he’s paying for his crimes…it makes me feel that I can move on. I got the courage to face my past because I know he can’t hurt me anymore. It’s…it’s enough. I don’t want anyone else to die.”
Fuck. It would have to be enough. If that was what she wanted.
She lifted my wrist, kissing the underside, her lips tracing across the faded scar that ran part way up the inside of my arm, hidden by my tattoos. “Will you tell me? Only if you want to.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you want. I don’t want to hide anything from you.” I’d lay myself bare for her, give her all my secrets, so she knew just how important she was to me.
We’d discussed my scars in the past, but I hadn’t told her the story of this one yet. I forced myself to remain detached as I shared the story.
“It was my ninth birthday. Birthdays didn’t mean much to me, as you know. You were the only one that ever gave me anything that meant something.” Her parents held her on a tight leash when it came to money, but material goods weren’t important to me, and every year, she’d given me another part of herself. Another secret. A small token of her love, like an interestingly shaped pebble or a poem she’d read at school that reminded her of me, and she’d copied it out on notepaper. When we were older, she’d given me her body, as well as her heart, and I cherished it.
“You deserve so much more than that, Z.” Lowering my hand, she tilted her head up for another kiss, her lips so fucking soft against mine.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “The point was, I wasn’t expecting anything, but at the same time, I was hoping that my mum might remember. Stupid, huh?” A soft noise of distress escaped her, and I stroked my fingers through her hair, soothing her. “I walked into the kitchen…it must’ve been around seven in the morning or something. My mum was in there, bending over the table with this bearded man right behind her. I wasn’t really aware of what was happening at the time, but looking back on it, I think they’d probably been on an all-night bender. Both of them were high as fuck, and I can remember my toe catching on the edge of an empty vodka bottle that was lying on the floor. There were needles in front of the fridge, and the fridge door was wide open. All that was in there was an open carton of orange juice, lying on its side, and the juice was running down the shelves and onto the floor.”
I paused. Even staying detached, it was so fucking hard to talk about this. I tightened my arms around Fallon, reminding myself that that part of my life was behind me, and I had my girl back where she belonged.
“My mum just gave me this bleary stare, like she wasn’t focused on me. I whispered that it was my birthday, but she didn’t say anything, so I said it louder. She said, ‘Can’t you see I’m busy? Go back to your room.’”
Fallon’s breath hitched. “Zayde. How—how could she—”
“I know, baby. Let me get through the rest. For some reason, I kept standing there, staring at her, expecting her to acknowledge my birthday or something. The man she was with straightened up and came over to me. He leaned down to me, right in my face, and his breath smelled like a fucking brewery. His words were so slurred I could barely understand him, but I know he said, ‘Get out of here, kid, unless you want to watch me pound your mother into next week.’ Then the fucking bastard kicked me in the stomach.”
“Hewhat?”
“I was so unprepared I went down like a sack of bricks, smacking my head against the door, and they both laughed.”
“Fucking hell, Zayde. You werenine years old.” Fallon’s voice was full of horror. She curled into me more tightly, her lips pressing against my skin.
“Yeah. I was…fuck. I shouldn’t have even been shocked, but I was. I was winded, and my head was pounding, but I managed to get out of there. I thought I was going to throw up, and I knew if they heard me, I’d be in even more trouble. So I was looking around frantically for something to distract me from the nausea, to keep me quiet and fuck…my head was all over the place. I made it back to my room and curled up into a ball to make myself as small as possible, and I don’t know why I did it, but I just put my nail to my arm and dug it in. And then, yeah.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” she whispered shakily.
“You don’t have to say anything. It’s over now. I’m here. Yeah, I have good and bad periods, but I’m here. I’m here.” I was saying the words for myself as well as for her. Reminding myself that I’d made it through.
Fallon lifted her head, and her luminous blue eyes met mine, her gaze so open and so fucking full of emotion it made my breath catch. “I know. I’m here, too. And I’ll be with you through the highsandthe lows.”
The way she was looking at me.
Right then, I was one hundred percent certain that no matter what had happened in our past, everything between us was going to work out. We were in this together.
TWENTY-TWO
Fallon was still sleeping when there was a loud banging on my door, followed by a shout. Somehow, she slept through it, and after throwing on a pair of boxers, I cracked open the door, taking one last look back at my angel with her blonde hair spread out all over my pillows before I faced whatever shit was going down.
