He moved one knee between my legs, parting them, his gray eyes on me. He was moving slowly, and I wished he wouldn’t, wished he would stop looking at me. Panic began to claw its way out of my chest, and I tried to force it back. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block what was happening. When he knelt between my legs completely, I seized up with complete terror.
“If you don’t relax, you will tear.”
My eyes shot open, and a few tears slid out. He supported himself on one arm, hovering over me. Tall and strong. No. No. No. No.
“Try to relax.” He was so clinical about it. His gaze followed the trail my tears left on my cheeks and throat. They didn’t affect him. I tried to loosen up, but it was completely impossible. My muscles were frozen with fear. He gave a small shake of his head, almost disapproving. “This isn’t working,” he said. “I will have to use a lot of force to get past your tensed up muscles and all the way into you.”
I could taste the bitterness of bile in my throat as memories from long ago slithered through my mind.
And something in me just … broke. Something dark and scared and deeply buried. There was no way for me to hold it in.
A bone-shattering sob ripped from my throat, and it hurt because of the memories that it brought up. I pressed my palms against my face hard then curled my hands to fists and pressed my knuckles against my closed eyes. Wanting the memories out of my head, I tried to claw them out like I’d clawed at my uncle many years ago, but just like in the past, there was no escaping.
I couldn’t breathe. Could. Not. Breathe.
And I wanted to die. I needed the hurt gone. I didn’t want to live through that horror again, and I didn’t want new nightmares.
Strong hands curled around my wrists, pulling, and I resisted, struggling, but they were relentless and kept pulling until my hands came away from my face. My eyes snapped open, my vision blurry with tears. And through the fog, two intense gray eyes slowly came into focus, and then they were all I saw, all I could see, all that mattered.
So calm. Clinical. Cold.
Just what I needed. It was a cool flood against this terror-filled inferno. Blissfully emotionless. I stared into his eyes, stared for a long time, and he let me, until I brought the first breath of oxygen into my lungs.
I could breathe again, and the face of my husband came into focus, his narrowed eyes all too knowing.
Lowering my gaze to his chin, I tugged at his hold on my wrists. He released me, and I placed my hands into my lap. My naked lap. He, too, was completely naked, kneeling across from me. He must have pulled me into a sitting position some time during my panic attack.
This was it. He knew something was utterly wrong with me. I pulled my legs against my chest, swallowing.
I wished he’d kill me now. I’d often wished for death after my uncle had broken me.
“What happened to you?” His voice was emotionless.
I considered lying, but I had lied for too long. And I had a feeling he knew. “I was thirteen,” I said, but then I couldn’t say more. I began shaking again, and he put a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t flinch this time. The touch was too clinical to elicit any terror.
“Someone raped you.”
The word made me feel small and dirty and worthless. I gave a nod.
“Your father?”
I shook my head. He was already dead by then, and he would have never done that. He knew I would have been ruined. He hit me and screamed at me, but he never touched me like that. Maybe he would have later on if Luca hadn’t killed him.
“Someone from your extended family, then. Girls like you are protected. It must have been someone you were related to.”
I nodded.
“Who was it?” he asked firmly. “Your uncle who raised you?”
I licked my lips. “My other uncle.”
“For how long?”
I lifted four fingers.
“Four years?”
I shook my head.
“Four times?”
Only four nights, yet every day since.
Ever since.
“I dream about it every night,” I choked out. That admittance felt good. I was doomed anyway. I had sealed my fate. Nothing mattered anymore.
I didn’t dare look up to see his disgust, his anger at having been given someone tainted. “You know,” I said quietly. “A kind man would spare me the humiliation of having to face my family, living in shame, and just kill me.”
“A kind man might,” he said in a low voice.
I raised my eyes, resigned.
A terrifying smile played across Nino’s face. It didn’t reach his eyes. “But I will find the man who did this to you and make him feel the same terror you did that night and pain unlike anything he thought possible. And eventually, when he has been begging for it for a long time and when he’s given up hope, I’ll grant him death.”