Damiano’s skin loses all its color.
My memories of those nights are blurry. I know what I did, but my brain has tried to hide the details away.
I run my hand down the side of my neck. “To do such a thing to a person, you have to stop viewing them as a person. You have to dehumanize them so that they become a bag of bones and meat. Not real. Not people with lives and families, flawed as they may be. You have to pretend they’re just a physical object that can’t feel real pain. To be capable of that kind of disassociation is an awful thing. It makes you disassociate from yourself as well.
“Very quickly, I stopped feeling like I was human. I stopped seeing my family. It felt really important to me not to see them, even if I couldn’t really explain why at the time. In retrospect, it was because I was afraid of a few things. I was afraid I’d hurt them. I didn’t know how or why I’d do it, but it felt like a real possibility. And I was afraid they’d see the truth about me. They’d look me in the eye and see I had no soul left. I didn’t want them to know that, even if it was the truth.”
He drags his hand from my shoulder to my wrist. “Vale…”
I meet his shattered gaze. “He made me do awful things. He sat the very first man he brought to me down on a chair the wrong way around. He tied his wrists to his ankles so that he was immobile. The man had this fleshy back covered with marks and tattoos. Lazaro said he liked one of the tattoos and wanted me to give it to him. I didn’t understand. He explained he wanted me to cut it out for him.
“It didn’t really compute. I stared at him while the man in the chair started to beg. This big, burly guy you wouldn’t want to get into a fist fight with begged Lazaro-and me-not to cut out his tattoo. I said to Lazaro I couldn’t do that. I thought maybe my new husband had a dark sense of humor that I really didn’t understand, but he gave me a knife and very calmly told me to be careful, that he liked the tattoo, and he wanted to admire it while holding it in his hand.”
It’s hard to force the words out, but I have to. I have to tell Damiano everything, because if I stop, I know I won’t ever find the strength to do it again. “I went into shock. I think I laughed. I told him I wouldn’t do it, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘Do it, or I’ll hurt you, Valentina,’ he said. I told him he was my husband. He couldn’t hurt me. He laughed at that and said he was the only one who could hurt me. I started to cry, and he took me by the hand and pulled me into an embrace, comforting me. When I calmed down, he said I was a good person, that he could see I’d protect someone at my own expense, so he’d make the choice easier for me. He said if I didn’t do as he asked, he’d do the same thing to Lorna. And as he said it, he pressed the cold blade of the knife to my back, to the same spot where this man had his tattoo. I took the knife. It felt like it was the only option at that point. In my wildest nightmares, I hadn’t expected anything like that. We’d just gotten married.”
I’m shaking so hard I start stumbling over my words. Damiano moves so that he’s crouching on the floor right in front of me, and the glass crunches beneath his dress shoes. “He was a mad man,” he concludes. “He put you in an impossible position. This is difficult for you. You don’t need to tell me mo-”
“I need to tell you everything,” I say. If I don’t get all of this poison out, I’ll choke on it. “I asked Lazaro who the man with the tattoo was. Lazaro said he was someone who stole one of my father’s shipments and killed three of our men. That made me feel a little better, but as soon as I got close to him and he started to scream again, it wasn’t enough. That’s when I told myself he wasn’t a real person. He was just meat. I cut out the tattoo. Lazaro took the piece of flesh and admired it for a long time. After a while, he praised me. Said I did well for my first time.
“The next man came a week or more later, I can’t remember. Time lost meaning after that first night. I didn’t get out of bed for anything other than to use the bathroom and to get food from the kitchen when Lorna wasn’t around to bring it to me. I told myself I wanted to die, but I was lying. If I’d wanted to die, I wouldn’t have obeyed him for two months. I wanted to live, and I wanted Lorna to live too. Before she came with me to Lazaro’s, she’d worked for my family for over a decade. She was fifty-five, with two grandchildren she talked about all the time, and she was good person who took care of me while I was nearly catatonic.” I wonder where she is now. I pray she’s okay.
“The longer I stayed with Lazaro, the more resigned I became to my fate. It took…” I take a deep breath. “It took Martina showing up to finally make me snap.”
The truth feels like a hideous sculpture made of gore, flesh, and blood. It holds our attention for a while. I can tell Damiano’s thinking. He’s probably coming up with appropriate ways to make me pay for my sins. He’s not like Lazaro. He doesn’t worship violence, but for me, he might make an exception now that he knows what I might have done to Martina.
When his arms wrap around me, I go completely still. He tucks one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and lifts me off the ground.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says gruffly. “I have a first aid kit in my bathroom.”
He carries me out of my room and down the hall until we reach what must be his room. Inside, it’s cool and dark. The blinds have been drawn. His bed is unmade and messy, the blue sheet tangled as if he wrestled with it all night. The housekeeper obviously hasn’t been in here this morning. Maybe he doesn’t like having people in his space, and yet he’s brought me in here.
The bathroom lights flick on, and Damiano lowers me to the cold marble counter by the sink. His black hair falls over his forehead as he bends down to look for something in the drawers, and when he straightens back up with a plastic white box in his hand, he won’t look me in the eyes. He can no longer even stand the sight of me. That’s the reaction I expected, but for some reason, it still wounds me. His inability to look at me is somehow more awful than any murderous intent he might have.
I wring my hands while he washes his in the sink.
“Lift your foot,” he says and opens up his palm to take it.
His touch is gentle as he cleans my injury. When he removes the shard, I pretend I don’t feel the sharp sting, but the alcohol-soaked cotton ball he presses to it afterward drags a hiss out of me.
“It’s not deep,” he murmurs. “You won’t need stitches. That was the worst of it.”
He doesn’t sound like someone who’s preparing to commit murder, but he won’t ever want me under his roof with his sister now that he knows what I’m capable of.
When he puts a bandage over the cut, I can’t take it anymore. “I know who I am. I’m a monster. The worst of the worst. I should have told you all this earlier. What Nelo did was nothing. I deserve far worse.”
The growl that tears out of his throat stills my heartbeat. His hand wraps around the back of my neck, and he pulls my face to his, his gaze finally pinning my own. “You are never going to say that again, all right? You’re not a monster. You’re a fucking survivor. You survived something that most hardened made men wouldn’t be able to come back from, and you put your neck on the line to save my sister. There’s only one monster in the story you told me-your husband. He will pay for what he did to you, Valentina. My God, he will pay a high price.”
He presses his face into my neck, and I stop breathing.
“And so will everyone who failed to be there for you,” he whispers against my skin. “Where the fuck was your father when Lazaro was forcing you to do all those things? Did he know?”
“He did,” I say. “My father and mother both know Lazaro was not normal. I was raised to obey my husband and to go along with his will. When I begged them for help, they told me it wouldn’t be right for them to interfere in my marriage.”
“And your siblings?”
“They had no idea. I couldn’t tell them. You’re the only person that knows the full extent of it.”
He takes a deep inhale and pulls back to meet my gaze. “This is why you don’t want to go home.”
Tears flood my eyes. I try to blink them away, but they spill down my cheeks instead. “I still don’t know if Lazaro is alive. If he is, Papà will hand me right back to him. I got away from him once, but I know I won’t be able to twice. And if Lazaro is dead, there’s a good chance I’ll be forced to get remarried to someone who might be a different kind of monster. I can’t do that, Damiano. You might have me locked up here, but being back in New York would put me in a much worse prison.”
His rough hand cups my cheek. He’s looking at me with the kind of sympathy I thought men like him weren’t capable of feeling. “I won’t keep you here anymore. You’re free to leave if you want.”
I bow my head as a strange emptiness appears in my chest. He’s letting me go. Isn’t that what I wanted? I should be relieved at getting my freedom back.
But when I lift my gaze to his, I realize that freedom doesn’t live beyond the walls of this house. It lives in the understanding reflected in his eyes.
He reaches for my hand. “But I don’t want you to leave. Stay with me, Vale. Stay with me, and you’ll never have to fight another battle again. I’ll fight them for you. I’ll protect you. I’ll avenge you.”
I lean into his touch. Forgiveness is a tricky thing. I’ve tried to forgive myself many times after I got to Ibiza, but my attempts always seemed like throwing a bunch of seeds over dry, infertile soil and expecting them to sprout. They never did.
Damiano’s words feel like rain.
They soak the dusty earth and reach all the way down to the place where my soul has been hiding.
One day, we may have a flower yet.
DAMIANO
She presses her face into my chest, and I cup the back of her head with my palm. In the bathroom mirror behind her, my reflection stares back at me. It simmers with heartbreak and rage.
I can’t erase the image of her shaking on the floor of her room.
When I found her like that, I thought it was because she saw me shoot a hole in a man’s hand. I hated myself for putting her through that. I’ve lost control around her more times than I can count. It’s like she turns the dial up on all my feelings until they burst. It’s terrifying how alive she makes me feel.
I rake my fingers through her hair and pull her closer. There’s a dull pain in my chest. The back of my throat stings. I want to burn everyone who’s hurt her to the ground, starting with her husband.
If he’s alive, he won’t stay that way for long.
My blood turns ice cold. Just when I’m about to lose myself in fantasies of violence, she slides her hands around my waist and presses her lips to mine.
Everything melts away. I fist her hair and dip my tongue into her mouth. She makes a gentle sound in response, a little moan so sweet it hurts. The need to protect her is so overwhelming in this moment. It feels like I’m falling into an abyss. I’m not a romantic. I refuse to believe in love. In my experience, it’s toxic and makes people do stupid, unforgivable things.
But no matter how I search, I can’t find another word to describe what I’m feeling.
Cazzo. I’ve gone so soft for this woman I’m surprised I’m still able to stand.
She wraps her legs around my waist, and my thoughts turn to baser things. Blood rushes to my groin. I tug on her bottom lip with my teeth. I want to fuck her so badly.