13
SCAR
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound of fists connecting with flesh or bags resounded through the gym space as I walked in the front door. After all these years, I still saw the chair in the main entryway. I still saw Franco Bellandi standing over me, waiting to welcome me into a new life that I’d never asked for and that I’d never thought could be my future.
Waiting to give me a new purpose after the loss of everything I knew and the only thing I’d ever loved.
The gym had become a safe haven in the months that followed Cesca’s death, a place where I’d gone to train my body and quiet my mind when the demons wouldn’t be silenced. I’d understood my butterfly when she said sometimes she just needed to feel something and that anything was better than emptiness. There was nothing like the rush of pain and endorphins flooding through your bloodstream to end the eternal numbness of daily life.
The real question was: why was she numb? Why did she need to feel that rush in the first place when the life she’d lived should have been safe and sheltered?
I didn’t have the answers, and even a day after being with her the questions nagged at me incessantly. I couldn’t get the scars out of my mind, the image of her imperfect skin, marred by her own hand. If it had been someone else who hurt her, I would have hunted them to the ends of the earth and made sure they suffered every bit of pain they’d made her endure.
What was I supposed to do when she’d done it to herself? How much could I really punish the woman that I never wanted to hurt? I couldn’t, especially not when she seemed to thrive under my command.
Irina would take everything I gave her and still beg me for more. She was dangerous. To my body and to whatever remained of my humanity.
I needed the pain just as much as she did. That was why I was here.
Ryker jumped down from the center ring, his opponent heaving a relieved sigh before he limped off. Matteo’s enforcer was only at the gym on rare occasions, as most of his time was spent with the worse-for-wear occupants at his warehouse, or following the woman he stalked in his free time.
I understood it too well lately.
“Haven’t seen you here in a while,” he observed, nodding his head and grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“Been busy,” I agreed, stripping the shirt over my head. The guys in the gym had all seen me often enough that they knew better than to stare at the scars covering my body. They stole brief glimpses when they thought I wasn’t looking, piecing together the puzzle of my past scar-by-scar, until they thought they knew the whole truth.
They knew nothing.
“So I heard,” he said with a grin, hoisting himself back into the ring. I followed, the wordless communication between us falling into its natural place. Ryker understood. He might not have been on the receiving end of the kind of childhood I’d lived, but he was familiar enough to have a better grasp on it than most people.
His family had been the violators. The abusers who took children from their beds in the night and sold them into a life of slavery, who trained them to be mindless objects for someone else’s entertainment.
“Shut up,” I groaned, not wanting to go into the details about my butterfly with anyone just yet, let alone the one man who saw straight through my bullshit. He’d try to tell me I deserved her. That I wasn’t too dirty to put my filthy hands on her the way I had.
He’d try to convince me to give it a real chance, never understanding that we would be doomed before we even started.
“Wasn’t going to say anything. Don’t think I have to,” he said, moving to the center of the ring. I followed, raising my fists to block the first swing he threw my way. Ryker was a strong fighter, probably the strongest we had in terms of brute strength, but his size and muscle mass slowed him down.
He was shorter, stouter, whereas I had longer arms and legs and could move faster. Most days, I had the advantage in our fights.
This was not most days. I hadn’t gone to the ring wanting a win under my belt. I hadn’t wanted to be victorious and have bragging rights.
I wanted to have the fucking shit kicked out of me, to jolt me out of the place in my head that told me I’d done something wrong. That I’d defiled someone I was meant to protect and tarnished her with my touch.
Ryker landed the first blow against my cheek after I didn’t even try to block it. Pain flooded the area immediately, and Ryker paused on his pull-back to narrow his eyes on my face. “I see it’s one of those days, huh?” he asked, delivering the second punch to my other cheek.
Most of the other guys would stop when I didn’t try to defend myself. They’d refuse to be a part of the toxic cycle, but not Ryker. He knew what I needed and how it helped to keep me functioning.
And he always delivered.
He landed blow after blow to my torso, leaving me with aching welts that I knew would bruise. I struck back often enough to make it a fight, to give him the sparring session he needed, in return for not stopping.
He freed me from the cage inside my mind, giving me the physical relief I needed until there was only clarity.
I couldn’t be what Irina needed, not when I was guilty of the very same crimes against myself as she was. I’d asked her to come to me when she needed pain, but what was I going to do with that? Was I going to bleed her myself and watch the deep red run along my blade and know that the latest of her scars was there by my hand?
I didn’t think so, even if it did appeal to the darkest part of me. Causing her pain wasn’t on my list of things I wanted to experience with her. She needed help, from someone far better equipped than me, and I just needed to get out of her way long enough for her to find it.