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“But?” I snarled.
“I also found a few articles on your wife. The interview you both gave of how she came into your life. A slave you fell in love with. A girl who returned to you even when you freed her.”
Fuck.
That article had been Tess’s idea and one I’d spent a fuck-ton of money suppressing ever since. My role in slaughtering traffickers relied on them being confused on who I truly was. Sure, it didn’t hurt for them to see things online stating me as a wholesome family man. Someone trying to do the right thing. If anything, it helped form the persona that I was a straying son of a bitch who liked to keep broken women and cheat on his meek little wife, but I would prefer not to have criminals think the way to ruin me was to take Tess.
That’d already happened.
It’d almost killed me finding and saving her.
The heart of the man who took her still rotted beneath a rose bush outside.
And despite all my efforts to find her, fix her, and love her the way she needed me to love her, she’d shut down, shut me out, and put me through absolute fucking hell.
I traced one of the faint silver scars on my face from when she’d whipped me. A whipping that’d taken all my strength to endure but it had brought her back to me.
I’d chosen love over loneliness and some dark part of my heart nudged me to listen to this man.
I knew what it was like to hit rock bottom.
To feel so alone that death lured like a welcome utopia.
Forcing myself to relax a little, I softened my snarl. “Seeing as you know so much about me…let’s talk about you.” Steepling my fingers and resting my elbows on the wingback arms, I looked him up and down. “Henri Ward. Is that your real name? Where are you from? Why are you here? Tell me in as few words as possible why I should tolerate you in my home and why I should trust a thing out of your mouth.”
Silence fell as he shifted uncomfortably. His lips twisted as if he chewed on words and discarded them before selecting a few and saying, “My name truly is Henri Ward but that surname was one my mother randomly created, not her true one. I can’t tell you what that is because I don’t know myself. All I’m asking for is…can I have your vow that you’ll listen with no judgement? The whole journey here I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. That I’d follow the usual expectations of conversation between strangers, even if those strangers share blood. I wasn’t going to blurt out my life story or every sordid mistake I’ve ever made. I mean…who does that? Who barges into someone else’s house and vomits up their worst confessions? But…” He shrugged. “If I can’t be honest with my brother, then who can I be? Chances are you won’t want a thing to do with me anyway, so what have I lost by speaking the truth for the first time in my godforsaken life? I can’t tell a therapist. I can’t tell a friend. I definitely can’t tell a lover. I’ve got no one else and…well, that makes you uniquely qualified for me to—”
“Get on with it,” I snapped. “I despise ramblers.”
He hung his head. “Rambling? Christ, I’m trying to be honest for the first time in my life. I need…fuck, I need…” He sighed and looked at the floor. “I-I tried to kill myself last month.”
I sucked in a breath, shooting a glance at the library doors to make sure Tess stayed away like a good esclave.
“Go on,” I said quietly.
He didn’t look up, preferring to keep his eyes on the swirling, rich patterns of the carpet. “I’m…I’m sick.” He growled under his breath. “No, that’s wrong. I’m diseased. Not physically but spiritually. There’s something broken inside me. I’ve felt it ever since I hit puberty…fuck.” He laughed coldly. “That’s a lie. I’ve felt it for far longer than that. Even when I was a boy, I felt different whenever I’d see violence in a movie or watch lovers have a quarrel in public. I’d get hot and tight, and I didn’t understand what the crawling, gnawing sensation was until I had my first wet dream.”
I waited for him to gather his thoughts, not making it any easier on him. I might not care what he had to say, but I gave him the quietness he needed to spill his confessions.
“I dreamed of blood,” he breathed.
It was my turn to stiffen.
His story so far sounded eerily close to mine.
“I dreamed of fucking a girl and hurting her.” He winced. “I woke and found my sheets a mess. And ever since that day, I can’t get those fantasies out of my head. I hid from them for as long as I could. I had a girlfriend in high school—for a couple of weeks at least. But she dumped my ass when she got sick of my lack of interest. I’d burn in shame whenever she’d reach for me because her innocent, gentle hand only made me soft.” He wiped his mouth. “There I was, a fifteen-year-old guy, and I couldn’t get it up. But whenever I’d break my self-control and watch porn late at night, I’d get hard as a fucking rock.”
“What sort of porn?” I asked, surprisingly unshocked at his forthcomingness.
He didn’t raise his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this stuff. I’ve lost it. What the hell am I doing—”
“Keep going.” I crossed my arms. “I’m listening.”
He flinched and didn’t reply.
I stayed quiet, letting the temptation to unburden himself outweigh social niceties. Finally, he cleared his throat and muttered, “I’d watch bad stuff. Choking. Breath play. BDSM but…not the role-play kind. The real kind where the tears are real, the pain is real, the blood is…real.”
I unwound my arms and gripped my knees. I reneged on what I’d just said. “You’re right. I have no idea why you’re telling me this. No one in their right mind would come to a stranger’s house and confess all the nasty shit inside them.”
