“You remember how I told you I tried to run away from the brothel at fifteen?”
I nodded.
“I would have succeeded. Freedom was so close that I could have tasted it. Your father had connections with the brothel at the time. He was a frequent customer, going there to conduct business deals and even—” He swallowed, and I turned, my eyes focusing on his throat as his Adam’s apple bob up and down from the move. “—participate in it. When he heard that I had run away, he went to look for me. He found me when I took shelter at a homeless center. I didn’t know how he found me, but he did. He brought me back, and made an example out of me.” Then, he turned to me and said point blank, “He raped me in front of everyone present.”
My fist tightened around his, but I didn’t say anything. My eyes stung.
“I was his favorite toy,” he said, a slight sneer to his voice.
I forced down the building nausea. Father was a lot of things, but I never imagined him to be this disgusting. This terrible.
This inhuman.
It was my turn to swallow, trying to keep nausea from clawing out of my throat. “I didn’t know Father …”
Mikhail turned to me when I trailed off. Damien said something similar about what he had experienced.
Mikhail must have understood what I meant because he said, “I’m sure Agnello’s preference ranges, but this isn’t about sex. Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about power, and nothing makes the Agnello bastard feel more powerful than by taking it from those weaker than him.”
I moved in closer to him, though I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if he wanted my touch. How could he not hate me? I had Father’s dirty blood running through my veins. I blinked, looking over all of his strong features, trying to memorize every single perfect, hard line of his face.
His attention stayed on the ceiling.
“Damien was there,” he said, his eyes taking on a far away look. “He was still under your father’s thumb at the time and had come to Russia with your father, though I didn’t know until he returned to the brothel later, when he started to gain some power in the Bratva. He bought me, and he gave me my freedom. He gave me a purpose.”
Unable to keep my distance from him anymore, I wrapped my arms around his trim waist and rested my head on his chest.
He didn’t push me away.
His fingers played with my hair.
I kissed the center of his heart.
“I’m okay, kotyonok,” he said softly.
“I know,” I replied, my tone of voice mimicking his. “I know.”
He might be okay now, but how could this not affect him? How could it not affect me? Mikhail had always been so strong, so sure. He had been a steady presence in which I reveled in. But he had been through something terrible when he had only been a boy. Had been someone powerless.
I couldn’t hold teenage Mikhail and comfort him the way I wanted—needed.
But I could hold the man he had become. The man that I loved. That man I turned to in time of need, and I realized, I wanted to be that him. For all of them.
I wanted to be someone they turned to in time of need. To carry some of the weight for them.
These three men, they’d all seemed so strong since day one. It was hard for me to see them as anything but strong, but they were human after all.
Their flesh could be wounded, and they could be taken away from me at any moment.
My arms tightened around him from the thought, my lips seeking out his chest. I placed a kiss there, and I heard his breath catch.
I looked up and met clear blue eyes.
Ocean eyes.
“You and my brothers are the only things keeping me moving forward right now,” he said. “I never thought I could have someone like you in my life. Someone good and pure. I’ve done a lot of bad shit. I don’t deserve even to touch you, but I can’t let you go, kotyonok. I don’t know how.”
“Good,” I said. “Don’t you ever let me go.”