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Letting out a heavy breath, he could hear how his presence soothed something deep in my soul. "The last few days have been almost unreal, but this... this feels real."
"What feels unreal?" he worried, knowing I'd been keeping things. His body rolled just a smidge in my direction to hold me a little tighter.
Unsure I could speak about it, I had to remind myself about what I preached to everyone else in my shoes. All the girls I told to take back their power by saying what happened to them. "I'm so angry," I began to cry.
"I'm so sorry for what happened to you, and I take full responsibility for not seeing his betrayal soon enough." He got choked up.
Shaking my head, I refused for him to take the blame. "You had no control over his actions. Only he did. I just hate that I don't remember it. I hate that I woke up sore because he raped me, and I can't remember it to come to terms with it."
"Do you want to remember it?" His faint voice reflected the suffering within either choice.
"I want to cope, but I can't. I just feel angry, lost inside my mind, hearing little sounds of his voice when I least expect it. He's haunting me, taunting me even in his death."
"If you were the social worker helping someone who went through what you did, what would you say?"
"We can't control other people and what they chose to do to us. We can only choose how we respond, victim or warrior mentality. Both survive, but they chose to either live in the fear and trauma or they live to let go."
"And how would you as the client respond?"
"How can I feel strong enough to find my warrior to let go when I'd been so weak?" Weeping more, I sniffled.
"What would you say to your client?" Guiding my own recovery session, Costas knew I had the knowledge within myself, but I had to choose to utilize it.
"Men overpower women every day because they have more muscle or use drugs against us. Our strength to move on doesn't come from physically being strong, it's our mental game. We have the strength within us to challenge those dark thoughts, but we have to call on them often."
"And the client?"
"How do I go on? How do I find purpose again?"
"Can I be myself answering this part?" He let his calloused hand caress my cheek as I nodded against his warmth. "Because you're my world, Millie. No one will ever tarnish your importance to me. Maybe you need to survive for yourself, but I need you to survive this for me too. Call it selfish, I hate I can't take it away, watching you suffer so silently."
"I know one way that quiets it," I whispered.
"Anything," he vowed.
"When you were inside of me," I admitted, knowing a sexual response was often a common denominator for rape victims. My hands lifted my dress for him to know exactly where my troubled thoughts took me. Sex could be my outlet until the anger lifted just a little more. Recovery took more time than any of us really had, but we couldn't live with the burden forever.
Not saying anything else, he slipped his boxers down, revealing he'd been hard this whole time. Helping lift my leg over his hip, he positioned himself between my legs and entered me, holding my thong out to the side. The fabric felt weird as he slowly rolled his hips into me, leisurely taking his time to fill the crevice like he could undo Mario's demise of my mind. Believing it too, I let him.
I let this man hold me, caress me, kiss me... until all that existed was the love between us. My hands kept gripping his shoulders to keep him closer as he broke the string between my legs to have better access. Costas rocked against me like we were a small boat in the massive ocean during the calm after a storm. He drifted with me, allowing my mind to get lost in his touch, crying over the things I couldn't change.
In this moment, I knew I'd survive the way I needed to, but I was fortunate enough to have men by my side to help me get there faster, listening to my needs. For all the women who didn't, my heart hurt even more. I wouldn't be whole for a long time, and I'd never be the same again, but as I let Costas drown me in his love, I knew I could still have a purpose in my own life.
Breathing his pine scent in, I let it encompass me. My lifeline to reality let me grieve my pain, mending me in the most intimate way. He let me use him to forget. Dragging my nose along his jaw, I kissed the base of his scar. "I love you, all of you."
"Always," he shivered in response, meaning every emphasis on that single word.
eighty-one
Draven
An itch sat below my skin, probing into a larger wound, blind to the average man. Tony understood it, but he did from feeling it too. The shift in the air became foreboding, promising our end or theirs, but one had to fall for the other to remain. Using my contacts, I kept watch over the movements I could track, spying on the corrupt city Sunshine hailed from. She didn't know the inner workings of her own home, but I did. I'd been raised in it from having my dual citizenship.
"Anything new?" Tony glanced over my shoulder to see if anything gave him peace of mind.
"An unmarked SUV arrived at the airport a few hours ago, and it picked up five people. My contact couldn't get close enough to see faces, but he noted one having more gray hair and a female stood among them in a dress and petticoat. His description has me believing it might be your mother." Handing him the phone, he read through the words that talked about slicked back hair resting in a tight bun.
"Well, we knew after what happened to Emilia and Mario. Not to mention discovering she’d been a mole under our protection too." His hand fisted around my phone like he planned to shatter it within his rageful grasp. I hurried to slip it out in time because we needed every communication possible for what might come. With our pitstop on the other side of the ocean, we were only a couple hours away from being there with the others. We couldn't bring weapons with us, and Chicago would be too hot for me to be collecting anything, so we made a stop in New York to save us a bit of grief.
