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She takes a deep breath before straightening her spine. “To talk to Nessa.”
Chapter 8
“I’ve been thinking,” my father says as I step out of the hospital building. My body feels numb after everything that just happened. I don’t know how to fix it, and I don’t really know if there’s even a point. All I’ll ever do is hurt her.
I look up at my father, and he must notice how much I’m not in the mood for his shit. “Alright, I’ll just cut to the chase then. If you want to share her then that’s up to you. I’ll support you. But I want you back in my life again. I want to try to be…” He looks down then, something he hardly ever does. It shows defeat and submission. “Better?”
“Are you just saying that so you will get your way?” I ask, needing to know if this is all just some messed up way to get me to marry Evie.
“Not at all.” He walks up to me then and I’m able to see the exhaustion pulling at him too. “I’m not going to pretend that I like it or that I have any control over it whatsoever, but if this is what you want, I’ll stand by you. Lev said something to me yesterday and I think he had a point. I don’t want to keep making the same mistakes, and I definitely don’t want you to end up making my mistakes either. So, what can I do?”
He’s offering me an olive branch, so I take it. He needs to make Evie believe he’s telling the truth. He needs to make us all believe it.
“You have to tell her the truth, all of it. And you have to let her come home with us for the break. I’ve already had it worked out that we will all leave in three days. Evie should be better then and able to move to oral medications. The break will last four weeks. Two weeks for her to heal and two more for her to get her strength back. I don’t know where we will go from there, but that’s for her to say. She can come back here or go on the run from her uncle. I don’t really care, but I need you to understand that wherever she goes, we all go too.”
He nods without missing a beat. “I can do that, son. I can do that for you. We will find a way to make this work.”
“I need a nap and a shower. I also need to eat and check on Lev, so we will go talk to Evie later tonight. I plan for us all to meet in the morning to come up with a plan that we can let her be part of, so I need you to have her convinced by then.”
He pats me on the back. “Message me when you want to go talk to her. I won’t go near her until you give me the green light.”
I eye him warily. He’s not normally this agreeable, but maybe for once, he actually does feel bad about ignoring me for the past nine years. I don’t have the energy to fight him or question his motives or go over a plan. I don’t even know if I have the energy to make it back to the suite. I put my hand on his shoulder, hoping he understands the gravity of the words I’m about to speak.
“Thank you.”
Chapter 9
I’m still shaking, but I can finally tell what is what. When Alexi mentioned forcing me to go home with his father, it was like every nightmare of mine had come to life. All those nights of dreaming about him finding me, kidnapping me just to torture and kill me flooded my mind and I couldn’t tell if I was seeing Alexi or Boris. My eyes still feel foggy, but I blame that on all the tears and the fact that I’m apparently withdrawing from a slew of drugs.
Damien doesn’t let me go. Each time I slip in and out of consciousness, he’s holding me just as tight as the last. Him forgiving me was all I needed to know these men were it for me. The problem is, though, I don’t really know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I want or need. I don’t even know what I want my name to be.
That’s the funny thing. You search your whole life for the truth, wanting it, craving it. You seek revenge, and then it all gets taken away from you with just a few words.
Fuck my uncle. Fuck. Him.
The frustration and helplessness finally gives way to all of the damn anger, and I swear it’s like a dam breaks in my soul. This time when the shaking starts, it’s for a whole new reason.
“Shhhh, Little Shadow, it’s alright. I’m here. You’re safe,” Damien whispers, trying to ease the ache put in my heart from finding out that everything I’ve known for the past eleven years was a lie.
“Am I?” I question him. I need him more than ever to just lie. I’m not someone who needs people, but since he started waking up with me with the night terrors, I realized I don’t know if I could ever really let him go. And now that we’ve all been tied so closely together with everything that’s happened, I don’t know how to picture a life without all three of them in it. However long that may last.
I push myself to sit up in his arms so I can face him. “This is where you tell me he’s right, isn’t it? That you tell me I don’t have a choice, that it’s the only option.”
Damien cups my face in his hand and touches our foreheads together. “We will always give you a choice. You have a choice, but I think you know we aren’t above badgering you until you make the right one,” he says with his usually smug grin I’ve come to love.
I huff a laugh at that because he’s right. If Damien knows how to do anything, it’s how to get his way with his stupid smirk and puppy eyes. It’s pathetic.I love it.
“I don’t know how to learn to trust anyone else right now. How can I trust Boris? How can I trust that this all isn’t some trap he set up?” I ask, needing him to tell me how to move forward because I’m so damn stuck right now.
“You don’t have to trust him, Little Shadow. You just have to trust us. Trust that Alexi knows his father and wouldn’t make this decision lightly. Trust that after almost losing you once, Lev would rather rip his own heart out of his chest and offer it to you before he ever went through that again. And trust that these hands,” Damien lays his hands in my lap like an offering, “they will never turn their back on you again. They’re yours. You said you wanted my monster, that you once believed he would protect you. He’s yours, I’m yours. I will fight for you with every ounce of strength I have until the very end.”
Fuck, why am I so damn emotional?I chalk it up to the withdrawal as I angrily wipe away the tears streaming down my face, and as if reading my mind, Damien confirms my suspicions with a light smile.
“Withdrawal can make you sensitive. It’s okay to cry.”
It bothers me that it feels like he’s speaking from experience, and he doesn’t even give me a second to ask before offering me another truth. One I feel like I haven’t earned.
“A few months before we arrived, I went on a bender. My father was unbearable, life felt empty and hollow, like it no longer had a point. I was so sick of it all and I finally tried to give up. I thought maybe if I drowned in the liquor then at least it would be my choice and not his. Alexi found me and forced me into a program. I started talking to his therapist.”
