Scarred Regrets (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 5)

36

IRINA

Iopened my eyes when there was nothing but silence. Nothing but the rhythmic breathing of Samara sleeping in the chair next to the bed. She snored lightly, the tiniest trickle of noise escaping her nose with each deep inhale.

I peeled back the covers slowly, looking around the room in case I had missed Enzo’s return after one of the men had pulled him into the hallway to ask a question. Forcing myself up to sit with my good arm, I ignored the pain in my ribs.

If anything, it only served as a reminder that I was still breathing. That I was still alive to feel that hurt, even when I didn’t think I wanted to be.

Even when the world was so ugly I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

I scooted over to the edge of the bed, the splint I hadn’t even realized the doctor put on my leg making it awkward to lift it out until my foot touched the floor. Pain radiated up as I pushed myself to stand, but I forced myself through the agony. Leaning on the nightstand as I passed, I made my way to the bathroom.

The mirror gleamed in the dim lighting streaming through the small skylight, beckoning me forward. I risked the few steps between the nightstand and the bathroom vanity, gritting my teeth through the pain that managed to permeate the haze in my head from the drugs Scar and the doctor had given me.

By the time my hand landed on the counter surface, I was out of breath. I leaned over it, looking up at my reflection as I drew in deep breaths of air. My face was almost unrecognizable through the swelling, but it wasn’t that or the bruising at my throat that interested me.

I lifted the shirt they’d put me in until the bandages on my stomach were revealed. The white was stained with a fresh smattering of blood. I grasped the edge of the bandage, peeling it back from the sensitive skin surrounding the wounds.

The drying blood caught as I pulled back the cloth, drawing a hiss through my teeth. But I needed to see it, needed to see the words carved into my skin for all to see. I peeled it back slowly, until it dropped to the counter gracelessly.

The words at the top were smaller, covering my ribs in chicken scratch that was minor compared to the rest.

One Bellandi Whore

He’d crossed that out, as if he’d changed his mind as he was using me. As if being inside me made something else awaken within him, shifting him from simply taking from someone else, to claiming what he thought was his.

The next words were bigger, deeper. Those were the ones where the doctor had stitched me back together, but even the stitches crossing the wounds couldn’t hide the horrific words he’d sliced into my skin forever.

Darragh’s Pet

My skin was swollen around the wounds, pink and irritated next to the stitched-up flesh that seeped blood where I’d popped a stitch or two in my exertion to get to the bathroom. I touched a trembling hand to the marks, to the name that I would never be rid of, even if he was gone.

“You shouldn’t be standing,” Enzo said, closing the bedroom door behind him as he stepped back into the room. With a soft smile, he peeked at Samara sleeping, but something more melancholy stole his features as he took a few more steps toward me. “Let’s get you back to bed, Iri,” he added, holding out a hand for me to take.

I stared at it, unable to reach across the gap between us and accept his help. The thought of his hand in mine felt like a disgusting betrayal, like I’d sully a good man with the filth that I’d stained myself with.

I shook my head finally, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip as I turned away from the bathroom counter. I took the first step toward the nightstand, wincing as pain shot up my leg. Enzo moved, catching me when my leg buckled beneath me.

He scooped me into his arms with ease, lifting me off my feet and carrying me back toward the bed while I shook my head from side to side and tried to fold in on myself.

I couldn’t let my skin touch him. Couldn’t sully him.

“Hold still,” he said as he set me down on the bed. His hand touched my bicep, sliding against my bare skin as he helped me to lie back.

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. “Dirty,” I added, my breathing ragged and hoarse.

His face softened, his brow furrowing as he pulled his hand away and tilted his head to the side. “You aren’t dirty, Irina. God, you aren’t even close.” He tugged the blanket up to cover my legs as he spoke, glaring down at the wounds on my stomach where they bled onto the fabric of the shirt. “I’m going to get you a fresh bandage.”

“Okay,” I whispered, turning my head away from him as he moved toward the bathroom. I closed my eyes, drifting off into that place between awake and asleep.

The trip to the mirror had taken more out of me than I thought, and I forced my eyes open to stay awake. Dreaming was an impossibility.

Dreaming was a nightmare.

I slept anyway, dragged back to the depths of my own personal hell by a body that was too weak to stay afloat.

* * *

Iwoke with a start to the feel of hands on my body. To the memory of men touching me as they watched Darragh have his way with me.

To the memory of their fingers gliding through the blood coating my legs, brushing against the most intimate part of me while Darragh…

My stomach heaved.

I lurched from the bed, falling to the floor as I vomited up bile from my empty stomach. The pain shooting up my leg and arm was unbearable.

Samara and Madison jolted from their seats, dropping to their knees on the floor next to me. Samara grabbed my hair, pulling it back from my face as I gasped for breath and fought through the surging nausea. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she murmured, holding it in a makeshift ponytail at the back of my head. “You’re safe.”

My body heaved. My lungs burned in my chest. Tiny blood vessels in my face burst, warmth washing over my skin as I tried to slow my breathing.

“What do you need, Irina?” Madison asked, rubbing soothing circles over my back.

I glanced up to her icy blue eyes in her sweet, heart-shaped face, thinking over the words. Aside from ending the misery, there was only one thing that had any appeal for me.

“Shower,” I muttered.

“Okay. We’ll help,” Samara said, sliding herself beneath my good arm and helping lift me to my feet. Madison pressed in at the other side, wrapping an arm around my waist and doing her best to avoid the arm with the splint.

They sat me on the edge of the tub, turning on the shower and then coming back to help me maneuver my arm out of the splint temporarily and get the shirt off over my head. I cowered in on myself the moment I was naked, hating the feeling of eyes on my body. Hating the feeling of anyone seeing me.

As broken and bleeding as I was, nobody should be subjected to that kind of sight.

Madison helped me stand while Samara knelt at my feet and freed my leg from the brace. She pulled the sweatpants down carefully, helping me walk from the tub to the shower by taking the bulk of my weight. Once I was inside, Madison didn’t seem to care about the water that soaked her clothes, stepping through the spray to offer support to my body while Samara got a clean cloth and handed it to me.

I took it to my skin, scrubbing over my face and neck furiously. The cuts and bruises ached with every pass, the skin rubbing raw until I moved on to my shoulders and arms.

To my breasts that were covered in bite-mark shaped bruises.

I scrubbed, my skin turning red beneath the friction. When I moved down past my stomach, Samara took the cloth from my hand and stared down at me. “You have stitches, Irina. You have to be careful...down there,” she said, staring at me meaningfully.

I accepted the cloth back, sliding it between my legs and washing myself gently. The stitches pulled with every pass of the cloth, drawing an agonized wince from me until I moved down my legs.

When my entire body was pink, Samara reached out and took the cloth away again. “You’re clean, sweetie,” she said. “You were already clean.”

I stared at the cloth in longing, wishing I could scrub until my skin came off entirely. Wishing I could start over.

“I can feel him,” I whispered, watching as her face twisted with sadness.

“I know,” she said, dropping the cloth to the floor and turning the water off. “It gets better.”

“I just want it to stop,” I murmured, letting Madison and her guide me out of the shower. They got me back into my clothes and the splint and brace, helping me back to the bed where I suspected I would spend the next few weeks of my so-called life.

It hardly mattered.

What difference did a bed make when you were already dead?