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“My sister,” I answer, wondering if he’s going to end up exactly like Pirro.
She’s the only way someone can hurt me. I realized probably too soon how willing I was to feel pain and degradation in order to keep her safe.
I attempt to hold my head up high, but I know he can see the fear increasing inside of me. My hands grow clammy and my heart is threatening to beat right out of my chest.
“Tell me about her,” he insists, but it doesn’t feel like he’s threatening her. That may be because I’m so desperate to find a connection to someone else. I feel this constant urge to cling to any form of humanity that I can manage. I didn’t find one in Angel, so I don’t know why I’m looking for an ounce of that with Nash.
I cling to the memory of Angel talking about him being carefree, a smile always on his face. What happened to the two of us has no other recourse than to change us from the inside out. It’s not really fair to judge his rough exterior when I’m exactly the same way.
“She’s at college,” I explain, risking everything on the off chance that this man is actually a good person, that he won’t use this knowledge against me like Cortez did from the second he had me in captivity.
“They threatened her.” It isn’t a question, but rather a statement that he’s been capable of deducing from clues given along the way.
“They allowed me to call her once a week. The lie was that I moved to Guam to help with a humanitarian group offering medical assistance to those in need,” I explain. “The calls were just another way they controlled me.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“A nurse,” I correct. “I think I would’ve fought them if I didn’t have the threat of losing that connection to her hanging over my head. It was both a relief and a means of torture all rolled into one.”
He drops his eyes from mine, but I don’t feel the relief I was certain I’d feel.
“Who did they use with you?” I ask, needing to know what connection he had in the outside world that made him so willing to climb on top of me the way he did.
I swallow against the idea that it didn’t take much. Some men just have that bad person inside of them. Some are just waiting for a reason to act in certain ways.
I don’t know this man well enough to make an assumption in either direction.
“You,” he whispers, confusing my sleep-deprived brain even further.
“Me?”
He nods. “Pirro told me that he’d fuck you with his knife if I didn’t do it. ‘Hurt her a little or I’ll hurt her a lot’ were his exact words.”
“That makes no sense,” I say before I can stop myself.
His lips form a straight line.
“I’m some random woman. There was no reason to protect me.”
He shrugs. “I can’t fucking explain it. I’m not some fucking protector. I’ve never been the one to consider jumping in front of a bullet for someone else. I’ve never met anyone I was willing to do that for. But I knew from the moment the words left that sick fuck’s mouth, that I’d never be able to stand there and watch them hurt you.”
I focus on my hands as I twist my fingers together, unsure of what he expects me to say.
“I have no idea why I was so willing to compromise that part of me, to become something I hate in order to protect you.”
I know exactly what he’s saying. I did that very same thing to protect Alani. I victimized others to keep my sister safe, and it’s something I hated having to do but still can’t bring myself to regret.
“I saw victim after victim come into the emergency room at work with injuries for sexual assaults. I told myself I’d rather be dead than to live and tell about it.”
He looks absolutely horrified by my words. “Ayla, I—”
I hold my hand up to stop him.
“It wasn’t until I was faced with that choice that I realized how weak I was. I didn’t want to die, but I was willing to if it meant Alani was safe. I can’t say that things would be different even if she wasn’t threatened.”
He nods as if he may have struggled with the same ideas.
Chapter 26
Nash
She isn’t fishing for compliments. The woman doesn’t want to be commended for her strength and willingness to put herself in danger in order to protect her sister. She regrets it as much as she knows it’s what had to be done to protect the one she loves.
Knowing she isn’t expecting anything from me, I still want to tell her how brave she is. I want her to know the strength and courage it takes to make sacrifices to protect someone else, despite not feeling that way about myself for the things I did to protect her. Protecting her, doing what I had to, made me feel like the scum of the earth. I want to be punished for it. I need her to hate me for it because any level of forgiveness coming from her makes my skin fucking crawl. I don’t want her to understand why I did it. My reasoning doesn’t even sound like reasons, honestly. To my own ears, it sounds like an excuse to take advantage of the situation.
