Daniella doesn’t pull back but I feel her sigh of resignation. “He did,” she confirms. “And it was terrifying.”
I nod into her shoulder. “It was.”
Her hand comes down on the back of my head as she holds me close. “Oh, sweet girl. I so wish I could take the pain away or tell you that one day it will get better, but it doesn’t. The memories will always be there but you have to learn to push through it otherwise it will cripple you.”
She pulls back as I think back to Slade sleeping peacefully in his room. “I think I’m starting to do that,” I tell her.
Understanding flashes in her eyes and a fond smile brightens her eyes. “Chelle and I always joked about you and Slade getting married and having a bunch of kids.”
“Woah, let’s just take it one day at a time. I still need to work out if I can stand his bad attitude enough to allow him in.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” she laughs. “That boy of mine is persistent.”
“I’m starting to learn that,” I laugh before letting out a deep breath and meeting her eyes. “Did you know that Lucien has been here? That he threatened Slade?”
Terror grips her and she clutches onto my hands. “What?”
“He wanted Slade to run me out of here so I’d go back home. He wasn’t going to do it but he threatened your family. Said he could get to you, your husband or your kids. I want to put him away. He deserves to be behind bars but I can’t do it alone. I don’t…I don’t even know where to start. It’s my word against his.”
She shakes her head in fear. “No. No, I can’t do this again.”
“Again?”
Her brows crease as a tear rolls down her eyes and she takes a heavy, shaky breath. “As you know, Lucas Valery raped me after high school. I was only eighteen and I thought he was a friend, so I trusted him. He took me to a party, slipped me some drugs and then raped me in the bushes. I still have a scar from when I cut my wrist on a branch. It was violent and terrifying and he said that if I was to tell anyone, he’d do it again, and again, and again. I’d met Slade’s father shortly after, we fell madly in love and got married and had our first child. It took me five years to build enough courage to go to the police.”
“What happened?” I whisper, sensing that so much more is yet to come.
“The night the report was filed, there was a knock on my door.” She pauses for a beat, gaining control of her emotions. “He came back. Lucien raped me in my home, right here in this very room and he reminded me of what he had said, that he would do it again and again. There was a lot of police attention on him and that’s when he disappeared. I found out years later that he had taken on the alias of Lucien Valentine and, I’m so sorry, I should have been strong enough to go to the police with what I knew, but I was so scared he’d come for me again. I could have saved you from all of that years ago. If I had known about you two…”
“Don’t,” I say, squeezing her hand. “You did what you had to do to protect yourself. You couldn’t have known that he had us.”
She lets out a breath and watches me for a second, but that second of pause is enough for me to start piecing together the puzzle. Did she just say that she’d already had her first son? She was eighteen when he first hurt her and five years later would have her at twenty-three. My mom had me at twenty-three and Slade and I are only six months apart…
“I hate that you had to go through all of that,” Daniella continues, not realizing the inner screaming currently going on inside my mind.
It couldn’t be possible…
I meet Daniella’s eyes and she realizes something is going on. “How…how old were you when you were pregnant with Slade?”
Her face falls as her eyes slowly widen with realization and just like that, I have my answer. She shakes her head, her eyes growing waterier by the second. “Please,” she whispers, “you can’t say anything. This would kill him.”
I stare at this woman in horror. It can’t be true. Slade is Lucien’s son. I find it impossible to speak, to even move. Daniella squeezes my hand. “Please, Skylah. I’ve never had him tested because I didn’t want it to be true, but I see it in him. I see it in his mannerisms, in the way he smiles, his dark hair and jaw. It’s all there.”