Chapter 7 Dahlia #2
“What? That my father was an asshole, that your father was set on revenge?” I sigh, my voice turning softer. “You saved me. I would have been a wreck if those men had raped me. Even after years, I hear their taunting, I see your agony.”
He whips his head to me, the ghosts of the past making an appearance. “That was never supposed to happen.”
I hold his gaze. “Well, it did.”
Silence crashes between us like a thunderbolt splitting the earth’s crust and causing black smoke to emerge. I blow out a deep breath, wanting to dissipate the dark fog. “I lost my virginity to you in that warehouse while your father and his men watched. I can’t change that. You can’t change that.”
“I killed them,” he says matter-of-factly, as if I could ever forget, my mind wandering back to that time.
When my captors were too busy talking about what they would do to me over a game of poker, waiting for the moment Mika would get bored with fucking me, he stealthily picked up a rifle and riddled their bodies with bullets.
The ones who survived the hail of bullets, he slaughtered with a spiky steel baton, leaving his father for last, who spat in his face and called him a traitor, cursing him with his last breath.
I stood up on shaky legs after three days with my dress and innocence in shreds—dirty, malnourished, in physical discomfort and emotional pain as Mika towered over the ten corpses, dripping with blood, with spite etched in his icy stare.
Each ragged breath rang in the eerie warehouse. He emerged like an angel of justice. It was the moment my love for him cemented in my soul.
I called his name, and he immediately snapped out of the violent trance, rushing to me.
I just knew I needed him like I knew he needed me—to pull him back, tether him to me after what he did.
It became my duty to carry some of the burden, to ease the betrayal, the guilt, the killing of his kin to save me.
He wrapped his arms around me like I was his anchor to this world.
“You killed for me. I’ll live for you, Mika,” I sobbed into his chest, wishing to melt into him, overwhelmed by a mix of sorrow and guilt and so much love.
“I killed for you. I live for you. You understand?”
Through blurry eyes, I nodded, understanding viscerally what he meant. “Whatever happens, we’ll always have each other.”
With utmost care, he carried me to his car, repeating I’m so fucking sorry a hundred times. Then he set the warehouse on fire.
That should have been the end of their brotherhood, prompting another cycle of revenge. But I made Mika promise he would never speak of what happened, letting my brother believe the worst. Together, they haunted my supposed aggressors, hiding my father and his involvement.
My father was responsible for his mother’s death, his sister being raised by strangers and turned into the assassin of the man who was my father’s accomplice. His father sought revenge by using and abusing me. The only thing he didn’t consider was Mika.
We both listened to his father tell the sordid story. Even though it wasn’t my fault, I felt responsible for the tainted blood coursing through my veins. I thought death would cleanse me of my family’s sins.
Instead, he killed his own to save me.
“Thank you,” I murmur, not even knowing for what I am grateful exactly. For saving me or not making me live without him. It’s irrelevant.
“I never had much of a choice when it came to you,” he confesses, the corners of his mouth arching into a smile cast in acceptance.
That’s his truth—an immutable fact.
“If you could, would you change it?” I whisper.
He flicks a hand through the air. “You know me better than to ask me irrelevant questions.”
I look out the window as the setting sun paints this vacant land in oranges, blues, and violets. Nature doesn’t care about your turmoil, at all.
“You should have kissed me,” I sigh.
He sighs back. “You’re right.”
His refusal to kiss me on my eighteenth birthday set the entire chain of events in motion. Our decisions rolled over at our feet like dominoes, scarring us both.
Such a simple demand, but his eyes popped up as if asked the most preposterous thing. I stormed away, needing a moment to collect myself, when someone snatched me and then everything turned black.
“Maybe that’s the problem. Your refusing what you want is what always messes us up.”
He turns, narrowing his eyes at me. “Really, Dahlia?”
The past drags me deeper into its dark web, slowly poisoning me.
I stab a finger at him. “You refused to kiss me but ended up fucking me.”
He gnashes his teeth. “I had to.”
“Sure,” I mumble. “You didn’t enjoy it at all.”
“Dahlia.” My name drops between us like a rattlesnake ready to attack. He’s losing his composure. And I might check my mental stability because I say one thing and do the next.
Sulking, I cross my arms over my chest and whisper, “You did.”
He stares out the windshield as if it’s a damn target he’d like to eradicate. “Have the last fucking word. Tell yourself whatever you need to make it bearable.”
“So, you wouldn’t have touched me if that hadn’t happened?” I ask breathlessly.
I know if the answer isn’t yes, my heart will dislocate from my chest, and I will never truly recover. That would be the end of hope.
He takes his time, every second threatening to sever my heartstrings like the death Reaper waiting to collect his newest victim. I plead with him in my head not to lie.
“No.”
No. No. No. One word. Two letters spin in my head, tearing apart everything until nothing fits anymore.
A part of me always knew that, but I ignored the truth to keep dreaming.
With time, he would feel the same and desire me.
The alignment is all wrong while I desperately try to squeeze the jumbled pieces together into a familiar map to make it through the ordeal.
I open my mouth to call him a liar, to shout at him to take that back, but no words come out. The pain is too acute. My throat clamps up, my vocal cords weld together. I never want to speak again, but grieve for my entire existence.
He wants silence. Then, silence is what I will give him.
He wants solitude. Then, solitude is what I will offer him.
His demons can have him. I set him free. Release him from that sacred promise.
And I need distance. Distance from this cruel man, who swore to always protect me physically. Right, because emotionally, he just blew my heart into a hundred pieces, shredding me.
“You win,” I whisper, embracing the pain swallowing me whole.
Strangely, these are not the last words I wanted to be spoken between us, but they are.
A muscle ticks in his jaw, hard enough that I hear something crack.
I am deaf to his torment—too far gone down the vortex of mine to hear anything other than the shallow beats of my heart.
I fold my knees to my chest, cuddling myself together, afraid my chest might split open, and my heart will roll out and bleed on the floor of my new car.
The car he gifted me only a few hours ago.
What’s the prize for heartbreak? A Porsche surely isn’t. That I am certain of.
For someone who has desperately craved moments alone with him, I breathe a sigh of relief when he brings me home.
“Dahlia,” he calls my name, but his pleas can’t reach me. He can’t speak to my heart anymore because I no longer have one. He stomped all over it with that ‘No’ that might as well be the punch that sent it into cardiac arrest.
I don’t look back as I walk inside and climb the stairs to my room. Every step is heavy with agony. By the time I close the door to my room and drop to my knees, it feels like I have exerted myself to the point of having no strength left.
Breathing heavily, I repeat to myself. “Only a few more days. Only a few more days. You can do this.”
He doesn’t want me.
Farewell, my unrequited love.
I tried and failed.
I gambled and lost.
Sobs rip out of me, and I barely make it to the bed where I curl into myself, wanting the world to disappear until I heal what can’t be healed.