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I knew I was. I just had to find the proof. “That’s about all I know.”
“Stop fuckin’ lying.”
“I’m not. I didn’t want to invade her privacy, so I looked through some files on her dad’s computer to understand why she was so closed off. I’ve been waiting for her to tell me the rest, and I haven’t gotten much so far. The only other thing I know is that I overheard a conversation in a bar that Austin has been trying to reach out to Paris, but she refuses to take his calls. I have no idea why she’s shutting him out, but I’ll give the guy credit. He saw an opportunity and took it.”
He must have been satisfied with my answer because he jerked his chin. “Say the word and—”
“No. I want to do this right, Sal. I want her to trust me enough to share her secrets, and even if she never does, I don’t care.” I crossed an arm over my chest and pressed on a knot in my shoulder. “I swear I fell in love with her across a room. I couldn’t care less about her past or what anyone thinks about her or our relationship because she’s mine, and everyone else can go fuck themselves.”
He studied me, and a faint grin pulled on his lips. “I’d call bullshit, but the first time I laid eyes on your mother, I was done for, so I’d be a hypocrite.”
“Exactly. Mom had secrets she kept from you until she could trust you and…” I trailed off at the look on his face. “What?”
He shifted so he could see his wife. “A week after I met her, I waited for Craig to leave a strip club, hooded him, hog-tied him, then threw him in the back of a van. I took him to the roof of his office building, then forced him to strip, tied him to a chair, put him on the ledge, then made him tell me everything he ever did to hurt you or your mom.”
The image made me smirk. “Did he cry?”
“Like a bitch. Pissed himself, too. When I was satisfied with his answers, I untied him, took his clothes, and left him up there.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
He sighed deeply. “That was the only time in my life I was out of control because I reacted purely on emotion. So many things could have gone wrong because I was unhinged. I didn’t want you to think that was the kind of man I was.”
“I get it, but I know who you are. I only wish I could have been there to see it.”
“Not proud of it, son.” He swallowed thickly and then cleared his throat.
“You don’t have to be, but I can relish in it.” I paused when an old lady walked up to the store so I could push the door open for her. Once she was out of earshot, I fisted my hands at my thighs. “He tortured her, Sal. He starved me. He deserved every fucking thing you did to him and then some.” The older I got, the easier it was not to let my past affect me. But that didn’t mean I didn’t still have my moments, that I don’t have scars, both internally and externally from the pain of what he did to me.
He didn’t respond to that. “My point is, I did what I had to do to make her safe, but it killed me to lie to her about what I knew. Once she trusted me and started reliving that nightmare, I had to pretend it was all new to me. I have never lied to your mother since, but some days, I can barely look at myself in the mirror.”
“You gotta let that go. Even if you came clean about it now, you know she wouldn’t be upset with you.”
“No, I don’t.”
I rolled my shoulders. “Right. I get it. Which is exactly what I don’t want to happen with Paris.”
“But I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“What?”
He crossed his beefy arms. “Do you remember what happened after that night Craig tried to break in your hotel room?”
It was a long time ago, but I remembered it like it was yesterday. “You scared him away and promised us he was never going to hurt us again.”
“Right. After that?”
“You stood outside our hotel room to prove it.”
“And every night when you were asleep, your mother kept the chain on the door, and when she could stop crying enough to speak, she talked to me through the crack. She told me all about you, everything he did to you, but she wouldn’t tell me what he did to her because she didn’t care. She just wanted you safe.”
That I didn’t know. “Are you serious?”
“If I was going to really nail his ass, I needed to know everything. So I did what I had to do. I couldn’t give her what she needed to trust me unless I knew what specific trauma she went through and what her triggers were.”
“Paris will hate me if she ever finds out.”
“Unless you tell her, she won’t. And what if she’s in danger and you’re not prepared to protect her because you were waiting for her to share her secrets? If her dad is even half as big of an asshole as yours, he’s sure to have something on her that he’s keeping close to the vest until he’s desperate.” He pulled his chin into his chest. “You know as well as I do that men like Craig, and all these motherfuckers who think their money can buy power, always have an ace up their sleeve. They don’t just let someone walk away from them.”
