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“It didn’t even hurt. I’m…let’s… just, just please let’s get out of here.” He nods and bends down to cut the last restraint. He somehow scoops me up into his battered torso.
“You’re bleeding,” I try to say in protest.
He clenches his jaw. “So are you.” He picks me up, this time wrapping me around him in a hug, like you’d carry a little toddler. Although I weigh a million times more, and I’m disgusting. And I don’t care. At all. I melt into him, wrap my legs around his waist and cry into his neck.
He takes me up the creepy back stairs, through the house to his room. He keeps going to his master bath with his room-sized shower. He starts the water and sets me down outside the glass door. I reach for the buttons on the top of my romper, but my hands are shaking too badly to grasp. Mark takes over.
“I can—“ I start.
“Eleanna, I swear, if you don’t let me take care of you, I will explode. I will go back downstairs and kill my little brother. Please. Just, please.” His voice cracks. I drop my hands. He peels off my romper and bra and underwear without really looking at my body.
He opens the door and leads me into the warm spray. He still has all his clothes on and they’re getting soaked through. The water at my feet runs red so I close my eyes. He takes my head and angles it to wash the blood off my neck and chest. I feel his thumb run over the cut. He sighs, relieved.
“I need to go fix my bandage. Just stand in the spray and don’t think about any of it. Think about happy memories with your sister, think about the bakery you’re going to open. Just stand here for a few minutes. Keep your arm out of the spray if you can remember.” He kisses my forehead and then leaves.
I do what he says. I can’t think of many happy memories. I shake and cry and grunt out in frustration. I hit the wall of the shower with my good arm, I rake my hands through my hair. What has happened to my life? I have been burned, knocked out, and now sliced open. All because of Mark.
Mark.
He was in agony. He was livid for me, insane at seeing me hurt. He bled and bled and bled. Then the way he beat his friend, his rage…I will never forget that as long as I live.
Clearly some part of him cares for me. There is something real there, a sense of duty maybe, to protect me as his wife. Definitely his commitment to shielding innocents and women and children. He seems to respect me now, instead of seeing me as a frivolous, weak little wife. Now he thinks I’m strong and capable.
But he is broken.
He and his best friend just beat each other. Beat the crap out of one another as if it was just a day on the job. I hate it. All of it.
His whole world is a twisted, dark tragedy. One I’m a part of. One my family caused.
He’s wrong about me. I’m not strong enough.
I try to move my mind out of that horrible room as the spray grows colder. I turn up the heat. The only thing I can seem to set my mind on is what comes next. Deceiving my family. Divorcing my husband. And starting a new life.
All of it sounds awful.
But I will just do it, somehow. Like I did in the room. I just did it. I handled it. Like in the past with whatever my hand could grab to protect myself. I will handle this. For the other innocents, for the victims, and for me.
It’s time I do something for myself.
And I’m getting out of this hell.
CHAPTER 40
Mark
“Are you sure you don’t want to see the video? His big head hitting the concrete really sealed the deal,” Gailo tries to joke. I hit him on the backside of his head. He takes it.
“I’m sure.” Eleanna says. She sounds terrified. Like I feel. This is it. She’s leaving me. With all the power. One look and she could end everything, for all of us.
I stare at her in the dim cement hallway. He’ll lead her through the steel door that descends to a tunnel. The path resurfaces in the garage of a house we own a few blocks over. Gailo will drive her to Fausto’s himself, so she’s got someone with her.
We took the night to sleep. Well, she slept. I know because I watched her like a stalker. We ate and we went over the plan with Robbie and Gailo. She’s been quiet. She ate a little bit, at least.
She’s barely looked at me today and I can’t blame her. It’s unlike her, though, and I fucking hate it, so I try to catch her eyes every few seconds. But I get it, I do. I am an ugly grizzly beast in an even uglier world, and she shouldn’t look at us. Shouldn’t have to touch us, be with us in this filth.
But she is. Thanks to her sick family.
And thanks to me.
