Chapter 24 #3
I could tell by the way his face paled that he normally asked that question before he had sex with someone, but he’d forgotten with me.
I shook my head, bringing my hand to my forehead and rubbing it. How stupid of me.
“You’ll go to the university doctor today,” he instructed. “She’ll give you birth control. Start the pills tonight—do you hear me?”
“We …” My voice was weak. “We should’ve used a condom.”
“No shit,” he hissed. “I forgot to have you checked first too.” He shook his head, looking away from me. “Why am I breaking all these rules with you, Blair?”
“Hey,” I whispered, a faint softness overcoming me, “it’s okay.” I tucked my hand under his chin, pulling it up so our eyes met.
We held each other’s gaze for a moment before he stood, tossed the cloth in a wastebasket, and opened a drawer.
He grabbed a pair of Ralph Lauren pajamas, shocking me as he brought me to my feet and helped me put them on.
Did he do this with all his Fawns?
Daphne had said everything Enzo was doing with me was different from what he’d done with Clarissa.
“Now”—he patted the bed for me to scoot back—“it’s time to talk.”
I rubbed my eyes, sliding across the bed as a headache started building. “I don’t know how much I can tell you.”
He sat across from me, stretching out his legs so they were on either side of me. “You’ll tell me everything.”
“You don’t understand.” I hated that there was a slight stutter in my voice. It was because of the panic. The fear. “I can get in a lot of trouble.”
He rested his hand on my knee, giving it a squeeze. “You’re my Fawn. What did I tell you before? I’ll always protect you. You never have to worry about anyone hurting you now.”
As much as I knew Enzo’s protection carried a lot of weight, it didn’t make me feel completely safe.
My body shook as I remembered that day in court.
Remembered the judge’s gavel banging before my father was hauled out of the courtroom, making final promises to me.
Enzo’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
“That’s not it,” I whispered.
His brows snapped together, his voice suddenly accusatory. “Who are you protecting?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Tears built in my eyes.
“Trust me, I understand.” His voice lightened. “I understand fucked up. I’ve heard and seen things that’d give you nightmares for fucking weeks straight.” He chuckled. “You saw me pluck out a man’s eyeball, for fuck’s sake, Blair. Nothing you say will surprise me.”
I inhaled a deep breath.
Released it.
Did that again.
Again. And again.
Here I go.
I lowered my head, staring down at the blood on the sheets. “I grew up in a cult.”
He reached out, gripping my face, and his movements were gentle as he lifted it.
“What kind of cult?” he asked, not looking shocked.
“What do you mean?”
“The word cult is often thrown around these days. My sister claims to be part of the Iced Coffee All Year-Round Cult.” There was a slight playful roll of his eyes. “There are cults that believe in aliens. Charles Manson cults. Religious cults.”
I kept my voice low. “Mine bordered on religion and were based on my father’s beliefs.” I only wished it were about iced coffee.
“What was the cult?”
“What?” I shook my head violently. “He didn’t name it.”
“Most cults have names.” He cocked his head to the side. “I’ve killed a few cult leaders. They’re usually losers who name their cult after them and use drugs to gain power over people.”
He didn’t know that drugs could only take cults so far.
The one that always stuck? That was religion.
Religion created so many cults. And it could be any religion. Sometimes even ones that the leaders had made up out of nowhere.
I swallowed down spit as he released my face.
“You might have killed people in cults, but I lived in one. I’ve seen it from the inside.
There’s no cult handbook, Enzo. There wasn’t a cutesy nickname.
My father, the leader, didn’t have time for that.
We were a Follower of Abraham. That was the main rule of our cult.
When he’d ask who we were, we said Follower of Abraham. ”
“Your father was the leader?”
I slowly nodded as more memories surged through my head.
“How long were you in this cult?”
“For as long as I can remember. I left when I was sixteen, maybe seventeen.”
I hadn’t known my real age. Still didn’t know it now.
According to paperwork made after my father had been incarcerated, I was twenty-two. But since I had been born at home and no records had been kept, there was a chance we were off a year.
He scooted nearer, and that closeness eased me. “What did they do to you in that cult?”
While he tried to remain calm for me, I didn’t miss how his nostrils had flared. He knew what happened in these kinds of cults.
His hand returned to my chin, fingers lightly brushing over my skin. “How bad did they hurt you, Blair?” And I swore I heard him say, “So I can hurt them ten times worse,” under his breath.
Not wanting to sink deeper into my trauma, I shook my head. “They didn’t … it wasn’t—”
He held my face still. “It was.”
My shoulders relaxed, his touch working through me like my own personal Xanax.
“Those sins you wrote about atoning for. What were they? Why does that lullaby scare you?”
I let out a slow breath and squeezed my eyes shut. They opened again the moment I lost his touch.
He rose from the bed, crossed the room, opened the fridge in the corner, and came back with a bottle of water.
When he handed it to me, I drank half in one go.
I knew I had to tell him.
There was no way out of it.
He’d keep finding new ways to torture answers out of me until he learned everything about my past. And what he chose to do with that information was beyond my control.
Sooner or later, he’d probably get into the sealed records anyway. He had too many resources for me to believe otherwise.
Unless he wanted the truth to come from me.
I wasn’t even sure if the truth was in those records. I’d never seen them myself. Nor did I ever want to.
I had no choice whether to share my past with Enzo. Just like becoming a Fawn, it wasn’t my decision.
I decided to just let it all out.
Maybe I’d feel better after.
I told him the same thing I’d told the FBI when they’d locked me in a room for hours and asked the same questions again and again.
“My father started the cult before I was born. We lived on a compound with other families in the Arizona desert. In the middle of nowhere. We had no running water or electricity.” I twisted the cap back on the water.
“He built everything around religion. If he didn’t like something, he said it’d been sent by the Devil. ”
I placed a hand against my chest. “Everything I did was proof I’d been sent by the Devil.”
He flexed his shoulders forward as his jaw tightened.
I held up the bottle in my hand. “Being left-handed meant I was a witch, which made me evil.”
Later, after my own research, I’d learned he’d pulled that from something he’d read about the Salem witch trials. They’d used left-handedness against the accused there too.
A sigh left me. “If a man on the compound looked at me too long, it was because I was evil and tempting him. He claimed I wanted people to sin.” My throat tightened.
“After giving birth to me, my mother struggled to carry a baby to full term. He said that was my fault. That in the womb, I’d filled her with darkness and stopped her from bringing more life into the world. ”
I looked away as a tear escaped my eye and fell down my cheek.
“For those sins, he’d punish me. I’d have to write the sentences.
Or he’d shave my head, beat me with a belt, or lock me in a tiny shed for weeks.
After each punishment, he’d take me to the river on the property and dunk my head under water until I was close to drowning.
He said he had to force the demons out of me. ”
Shutting my eyes again, I inhaled deep breaths, none of them feeling like enough to fill my lungs.
Enzo gave me that time, not pushing me to speak faster. I tensed when he reached out to brush my hair off my shoulder. My eyes opened just as he pressed a kiss against my cheek.
I used the back of my hand to wipe the tears as he pulled away. “The lullaby you guys played?” More tears welled in my eyes. “My mother sang that song to me in private one day. Not knowing any better, I sang it. I was punished for it.” My head fell forward as I broke down in tears.
My father, I’d always known he was evil. But before that, I’d always cherished my mother. Loved her. Felt loved by her. That day was my reckoning.
I learned that no one loved me there.
No one cared about me.
I had been a little girl on her own.
Enzo grabbed my shoulder and pulled me across the bed until his arms locked around me so tight I could barely move. They felt like the most comforting blanket in the world.
I dug my chin into his shoulder as he held me.
Soothed me.
He ran his fingers over my neck. “I told you, my Fawn, you’re now under my protection, and I will make every motherfucker burn and bleed in this world if they even think of laying a hand on you.”
I felt so heavy in his arms.
Yet so weightless at the same time.
Like I’d handed him half my trauma, and for the first time, the pain didn’t belong to me alone.
We sat there for a few seconds before I cleared my throat and inched away from him.
“What happened to your father?” Enzo asked. “Where is he?”
“He’s in prison,” I replied.
“What—”
Enzo’s phone ringing interrupted his words.
He ignored it. “How did—”
It rang again.
He ignored it, waiting for me to continue over the loud, ear-grating ringtone.
“Shit,” he finally cursed when it wouldn’t stop, climbing off the bed and walking to his desk to pick up the phone beside his computer. He turned it off and tossed it across the room.
As he made his way back to me, he froze mid-step when someone pounded on the door.
“Enzo! We have a problem!”
He balled his hands into fists while stomping toward the door, swinging it open. Brooks came barreling inside, blood dripping off his hands.
I gasped, and his eyes widened when he noticed me. He turned on his heel and dashed to the bathroom, slamming the door shut.
Enzo hurriedly helped me off the bed and handed me his gate key. “Go straight to your room. Tell no one about this.”