56. Leona
LEONA
“ Y ou’ll tell us what happened?” Cas asked.
I nodded. My hands wrapped around my arms to ward off the chill creeping into my bones.
“Do you want to go upstairs? Get more comfortable?” He moved, but I shook my head and clung to him.
“No. If I move, I’ll shatter to pieces.”
“I’ll be there to help put you back together again. I always will be.” He grabbed my left hand. “That’s what this ring means.” He placed my palm over his heart. “That’s what love means.”
Everyone crowded close, ready to listen. Ready to catch me as I fell.
I took a shaky breath and closed my eyes, finally allowing the memories to wash over me. My hands began to shake, but he gripped them tightly.
“They put me in a cell with Max,” I began. I told them about how, when I first saw him, I thought he had captured me, but he was bound in ropes the same way I was. He was injured, and he seemed really surprised to see me.
“At first, we were resistant to our captors. They talked down to me, but I fought back,” I said. Telling the story out loud put me right back in it. “I imagined what Ryu would do, and I knew he’d fight, so I fought. Max and I killed one of them.”
“My vicious girl,” Ryu whispered, voice tight. “Keep going.”
I swallowed while pressing my lips together, trying to hold it together. “That’s when they retaliated. The leader—I called him Buzz Cut in my head—said they couldn’t kill me. They were taking me back to Albania as payment for the money they lost since my father’s death.”
“What next?” Obi asked.
“Buzz Cut beat me instead of killing me.” Nausea turned my stomach. “He slammed me down, kicked me over and over. He pinned me to the ground and threatened to rape me. I fought back, and I knew I shouldn’t have, but I just couldn’t let him keep hurting me.”
I could feel his hands on me. There were phantom snakes slithering over my skin. My skin prickled with goosebumps.
“He took us down to the cargo hold, where they had the other women,” I whispered.
My vision went blurry, and I curled inward.
“He picked one that looked a little like me. She had the same hair. He raped her, and he forced us both to watch. He told us he couldn’t kill me, but every time I resisted, he’d take it out on her instead. ”
I looked up at them, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“It was my fault,” I cried. The words spilled out of me.
“I fought back, and he raped her. It should have been me, not her. When Max and I finally broke out, we went straight down to the cargo hold to free them too, but she was dead before we got to her. We had to leave her behind. I don’t even know her name. ”
That’s why the cages at the auction had triggered me so badly. It was the same scenario all over again. I was too late. I couldn’t save them.
“I’m so sorry, darling,” Wynn whispered. “It wasn’t your fault.”
The guilt turned in my stomach so badly I actually gagged. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and bit the skin, trying to keep myself from throwing up.
Someone must have said something, but I could barely register it. After a few minutes, Cas gently urged, “What happened next?”
“They threw us back in the cell. Max held me while I cried, telling me stories to make me feel better. Until they came back.” I rested my head on Cas’s shoulder and shut my eyes. “They took pictures.”
“Pictures?” Ciel asked, voice deadly quiet.
“They stripped me naked and took photos of every inch of my body. They were for the website where they sell the girls.” I looked up at Wynn, at Ciel.
My voice broke. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t say anything before.
I knew the buyers used that website. I knew that’s how we could have found them, but it made me so sick to think about. ”
They were silent, so silent.
“Say something,” I begged.
“I—I’ll find them, ángel ,” Ciel said. He pressed a kiss onto my forehead. “I’ll find the pictures and get rid of them.”
“Orik Vokshi taunted me with them. He said he saw them.” I wiped my eyes, but it did nothing to stop the waterfall. “How many people have seen them? How could I have let this go on for so long?”
“It’s okay. I’ll find them,” Ciel reassured. “No one else will see them, I promise. We’ll take the website down.”
Cas wiped more tears dripping from my cheeks. “What next?”
“They knew Max and I were trying to figure a way out. Max helped me break the signal jammer, but they saw on the camera they had watching our cell.” I pressed my fingers to my sternum, where the scars still marred my skin.
“Buzz Cut choked me. He tore off my clothes and scratched his nails down my bare chest while he forced Max to watch. He promised to buy me eventually and then fuck me until he was bored enough to kill me. ”
Obi’s brow darkened, but he cupped the back of my head while whispering Igbo in my ear. “I’m so sorry,” he said in English.
“I shouldn’t have fought.”
“If you hadn’t fought, you wouldn’t have gotten free.” Ryu put a hand on my thigh and squeezed. “You fought because you’re strong. You didn’t know what they would do.”
I shook my head and pressed my palms to my eyes. “I should have waited for you to come. I could have waited. I could have stayed in the cell with Max.”
“They would have hurt you anyway,” Cas said softly. “They were never not going to hurt you. I’m so fucking sorry we didn’t get there sooner.”
Obi hung his head between his shoulders. “I wish I could kill that man multiple times over.”
That was the only consolation in the whole thing. That he had died at my hand. “I killed him.”
“How? What happened?” he asked. His eyebrows furrowed with a pained desperation that mirrored everything I felt inside.
“After we got the other girls out, we knew we had to go back to the bridge. If we could take control of the ship, then I thought I could get a message to you. Buzz Cut and the rest of the men ambushed us. He cornered me. I fought, but my body was barely holding it together. He got a lucky knife across my face.” My fingers drew down the raised scar tissue.
“I can still feel the blade slicing into my flesh.”
“Where the fuck was Max?” Ryuji grumbled.
“He was distracted protecting the other girls. It had to have been less than a minute. After he cut me, I could barely see, so I wasn’t prepared when Buzz Cut tackled me and ripped off my pants. He got between my legs, and I fought so fucking hard. I screamed myself hoarse.”
“Did he…” Obi asked, trailing off at the end.
“No.” I shook my head. “Max wrestled him off me and protected me. Buzz Cut ran to the bridge, and we caught up with him there. Together, we took him out. I killed him with your knife, Ryu. I took his eyes like he tried to take mine. My hands were drenched in blood, and I just shut it all off. I shut it all down. That’s when you came. ”
I wasn’t sure if that numbness had returned or if I had cried myself empty because I just stared at the mat. Cas gripped my chin lightly and pulled my gaze back to his.
“What else did Max do?”
I didn’t want to tell them how much I’d relied on him because I knew it opened up so many questions for us, but I couldn’t keep it in.
“He held me together. He wiped the blood off my cuts. He gave me his jacket to cover my skin. He told me stories about our moms to help me fall asleep. He yelled and screamed and told me to fight, to not give up. He agreed to help me take out the signal jammer so that you could find me. He saved my life.”
Cas’s face twisted in pain. “I think you saved each other’s lives.”
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, wiping the snot from my nose.
“I didn’t know how to tell you all. I couldn’t let you kill him after we’d been through that together.
I don’t want him to die, but I know how much he’s hurt us.
It wasn’t just the pain I wanted to bury and forget about.
It was that Max had been my lifeline in there, and I knew he felt the same when we left. ”
The rest of the guys exchanged careful glances. I had no idea how I felt, let alone how they felt. And after telling them the truth, why did the part about Max make me feel like I’d done something wrong?
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” Cas eventually said. “Thank you for telling us.”
I buried my face in my hands. “I—I just didn’t want to remember any of it because I knew I’d shatter, just like I’m doing now. I was so scared. I just wanted to survive and get back to the men I love, and forget any of it happened. ”
“We’re here,” Cas assured me. “We’re all here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Obi brushed his knuckle across my cheek. “We know now, and we’ll support you while you heal.”
“I was supposed to be healed by now,” I replied, dropping my hands to my lap. “I was supposed to be fine.”
“There is no timeline for healing from trauma,” Wynn said. “You learn to carry it, and over time, it becomes less heavy. You have us to help you carry this.”
“It’s so fucking complicated, though,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m still terrified. I don’t know how to tell you all that what happened on that ship between me and Max changed things. I don’t know how to go back to before when I wanted to kill him.”
“It’s not complicated at all,” Cas said. He gripped my shoulders. “You told us just now. You just tell us what you’re thinking and feeling, and then we deal with it.”
“How? Max is a part of me,” I sobbed. “And I’m still trying to carve him out. What if I can’t ever do that?”
“Then you don’t,” Cas said with a shrug. “I don’t know what that looks like or means, but it still changes nothing about the six of us here and now.”
Ryu squeezed my thigh. “It doesn’t, hanii. We’re in it. For life.”
“You already know I’m not going anywhere,” Ciel said. He tentatively grabbed Wynn’s hand, too. “We’re partners. We’re forever.”
Wynn looked at him with a small smile, then back to me. “No one else but us.”
“For better or worse,” Obi vowed. “We carry our happiness and pain together.”
That was when I truly broke.
I had been running from this for so long.
I had feared that place, that darkness, and what it would to do me to face it and accept that what happened had changed me, but all the pieces that were left were still me .
And they still loved me, and would love me forever.
The pain was heavy and exhausting and terrifying, but it wasn’t mine to carry alone.
They held me until all my tears dried. When the last tear was gone, I took a deep breath and lifted my head.
They were right. If they carried it with me, maybe it was just a little lighter.