Promise to Keep (Vow To Protect 2)

This time, I pull the blankets to get a better look, and my heart stops dead in my chest. Frozen. I’m sure I look as frozen as I feel on the inside too. “I…”

No. I’m not ready to get into this with him. I thought I’d have a little time to prepare, figure out how to break it to him in a way that won’t get me tossed out or, worse, killed by his own hand.

While I’ve never felt unsafe when I’m with him, his temper is lightning quick sometimes. What if he reacts before thinking, and there’s no way back?

I swallow hard, trying to get more words out before he starts demanding them. “I…don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth.” His tone is calm and even, despite the rigid set of his shoulders and the tightening down his abs. “I only ever want the truth from you, Valentina. I thought I made that perfectly clear.”

He grabs the photo and moves it to the bedside table, facedown. I try not to flinch when he climbs up onto the bed beside me. He reaches out, but I can’t let him hold me, not with these secrets between us.

I shuffle backward as fast as I’m able, my throat still clogged on the words I need to say. All of them backed up and unable to break free. “I can’t…I don’t…” I know it’s not enough…not anywhere near enough to explain anything to him.

Tears build now and flow down my cheeks. I ball my fists and turn away. I’m so fucking tired of crying. It’s the only thing I seem to do well.

“Valentina,” he snaps.

Of course, he’s expecting my attention, my obedience, but I can’t give it to him. Not in this, not yet at least. We need more time to solidify things…springing this on him would only make it worse.

I’m shaking, and I wrap my arms around my middle as if I can keep myself in one piece by sheer force of will alone. “Can you accept that I’ll tell you the truth, but just not now?” I whisper. “I promise to tell you everything but give me a little time to get my bearings.”

It’s stupid because asking him for mercy is like asking the ocean to stop beating at the shoreline.

“Valentina,” he says again, his voice no less of a lightning strike against my skin for the softer tone.

I try to pull away some more, put the width of our very large bed between us, but he doesn’t allow it. His hands are on my arms, dragging me back across the sheets toward him before my feet hit the floor on the other side of the bed.

“I told you before, you won’t run from me. You won’t leave me. And you won’t shut me out…in any way,” he says as his fingers dig into my biceps.

I barely get a second, and I’m tucked into his lap. My legs go around his hips before I can even think about how bad of an idea it is.

“You don’t get to push me away…not when I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I’ve held up this end of our deal, and now it’s your turn. You belong to me,” he hisses. “You are mine and only mine. To protect, to keep, to give away if I so choose. Remember that, Angel. You are mine. Keep pushing me, and I’ll be sure to show you the depths of the ownerships I’ve purchased in blood.”

I swallow hard and tuck my chin. “What do you want from me?”

His fingers lift my face to force our gazes together. “Everything, Valentina Doubeck, everything…and then when you think you’ve given over every inch of yourself, I’ll show you how much more you have to give. How much more I have to take.”

I blink at the force of his words. And the way his voice breaks on the end like he is barely holding himself together.

Even under threat, my body molds to his perfectly, as if I were always meant to be right here, aligned against him. Fit together like two pieces of a cracked and ruined whole.

He slides his hands around to my back, his fingers splaying wide to clutch me tighter against him. At least in this position, he can’t do much to harm the baby or me. Not without warning. It has to be enough.

“I’m not sure where to start,” I whisper, my voice growing stronger with each word. “The beginning is further back than you probably think.”

“Take your time. Neither of us has anywhere to be. Tell me everything,” he ordered. And his tone is nothing less than a dictate. One I have no choice but to obey.

I try not to fidget as I begin. “When I was small, life wasn’t so bad. I mean…when my mother was alive. Things at home weren’t awful. Even my father wasn’t the awful man you knew him to be. But everything changed when she died. It was like her death sucked the humanity out of him. Worse, he blamed me for her death even though I’d been caught in the blast as well. I only survived because she shoved me under a piece of furniture to be rescued by the fire department. The moment they handed me over to my father afterward, I knew he would have traded my life for hers in a heartbeat.”