I would’ve loved to have seen that.
“You loved him even then, didn’t you?”
“More than anything in this fucked-up world,” he replied, shoulders tensing. “I still do.”
“Then why did you do it?” It was a question I was sure he’d asked himself a million times, but it was also one I needed an answer to. Thanks to Hendrix and the conversation we’d had at the motel, I’d begun moving past the man he’d once been, along with the horrid actions he’d taken, but I still had to know why. “If you loved him so much, why’d you hurt him?”
Moments of silence passed.
Then, “Because I was weak.”
“I don’t understand.” And I didn’t. Not the least bit. “How—”
“My father used to make me drink.” Eyes glazing over, he gripped my hands tight. Painfully so. Knowing he wasn’t doing it on purpose, I gritted my back teeth together and held steady, refusing to stop him from speaking. “It’s how he kept me quiet.”
Fear blossomed in my chest.
I didn’t know where our conversation was going, but I had an awful feeling that we were headed down a dark road, and one I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to travel.
Turns out, I was right.
“When I was a kid, I had constant nightmares,” he said, jaw ticking. “Every night it was the same routine. I’d take a bath, and then Mama would tuck me in bed and read me a story.”
That made me smile.
He’d been blessed with a loving madre.
Just like me.
“I’d fall asleep before she reached the end of whatever book her nose was buried in, but I’d still wake up hours later, screaming and covered in sweat courtesy of whatever monster had visited me in my dreams.”
That sounded awful.
Horribly so.
“Worried that I’d get sick from not sleeping much, she took me to multiple doctors to find the cause, but none of them ever had any answers.” That didn’t surprise me. “But the day I turned eleven, it didn’t matter anymore.”
The surrounding air grew thick.
You could’ve cut the tension with a knife.
“Because that night was the first time my father came into my room, whiskey decanter in hand.” Trepidation swirled inside me as the terrible feeling from before consumed me, growing in size. “Mama had been in bed for hours, and I’d just woken up from yet another dream.”
Jaw ticking, the tendons in his neck corded.
“He swore the whiskey would help me rest.” Tears filling his eyes, he paused. “But I should’ve known better. He didn’t give a shit about me, much less about the quality of my sleep. The only thing he gave two fucks about was making sure I was too inebriated to fight back or scream when he pulled down my shorts and rolled me onto my stomach.”
Chest cracking wide open, I gasped.
“James,” I cried, nearly falling to pieces before him. “Tell me he didn’t…” It was one of the stupidest things I’d ever said because whether I wanted to believe it or not, I knew what his father had done, just as I was aware of what he’d stolen from him.
His innocence, pride, and happiness…
He’d taken it all.
Like me, James was a victim.
Learning such a truth made me sick.
Absolutely and completely sick.
Pulling my hands from beneath his, I curled my hands around his solid shoulders and leaned forward, getting as close to him as I could. “Guapo,” I whispered, barely able to speak. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”
Lost in his head, he ignored me and continued to confess his darkest moments. All of which had a hand in shaping him into the broken man he’d grown to become.
“I thought the dreams I’d been having were the worst things I’d ever experience, but I was wrong. Because that first night”—his chin trembled—“I learned what nightmares were truly made of.”
Agony and anger—no, more like straight-up rage—coursed through me, boiling my blood and sizzling my insides. “Where is he?” I asked, already formulating a plot to kill the bastardo with my bare hands. “Tell me where he is so I can—”
“He’s dead.”
Two words.
They both soothed and robbed me.
Soothed me because the monster couldn’t hurt anyone else if he was already rotting in the ground and burning in hell. Robbed, because no matter what trials he’d withstood after hurting his beautiful son, they weren’t sufficient.
“Tell me.” Distorted and shaky, I no longer recognized my voice. “I know it’s hard, but James, I need to know what happened.”
However he died, I hoped he’d suffered.
Mightily so.
“He was murdered in prison.”
Temples throbbing in time with my pounding heart, I blew out a pent-up breath. Prison in America was a cake-walk compared to other countries, but it was still something. At least he hadn’t lived out the rest of his days swimming in money and power, two things I was positive my tormentors would possess until their dying breaths.
“The sick son of a bitch deserved worse,” James said, echoing my thoughts. “Especially after what he did to my beautiful mother.”
I stopped breathing. “The bastardo hurt your madre as well?” When he nodded, I nearly splintered. I considered myself a strong person, tougher than most, but the storm of both hate and hurt roaring inside me were almost too much for me to handle.
I wanted to both scream and cry.
Maybe even hit something.
Entire body trembling, I continued to shake as he wrapped his arms around my exposed back and pulled me closer, bringing me instant comfort.
His touch was nothing short of magic.
“What did he do to her?”
Over the past sixteen years, I’d experienced and witnessed more violence against women than I could stomach, yet I still had to know.
“He killed her.”
I thought I’d been ready for such an answer, but I wasn’t. Knees shaking, my ears buzzed as I dropped my hands from his shoulders and clenched them tightly.
The word around me spun.
Keep it together…
He needs you.
“And he did it because of me… The sick fuck had been abusing her for years, slapping her around whenever he damned well felt like it, but a
