Chapter 16 Lena #3
“Know what?” He stopped inches from me, close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath, that familiar darkness underneath.
Close enough that my body remembered what he’d done to me this morning and responded despite my better judgment, heat pooling low in my belly even as my mind screamed at me to stop.
“That my father was a murderer? That my mother died screaming? That I spent fourteen years in a school where the teachers thought beatings built character?” His smile was a knife’s edge.
“Congratulations. You’ve unlocked my tragic backstory.
Does that make it easier to spread your legs for me? Knowing I’m damaged goods?”
The words were designed to wound. To push me away. To make me hate him again so he could go back to being the monster instead of the man.
I refused to give him the satisfaction.
“You’re not your father.”
Something surfaced in his eyes. Just for an instant, so fast I almost missed it. Pain. Raw and real and quickly smothered beneath that mask of cold control.
“You don’t know anything about my father.”
“I know he killed the woman he loved. I know you’ve spent your whole life terrified of becoming him.
” I held his gaze even as my heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.
“And I know that’s why you do what you do.
The control. The cruelty. You’re so afraid of losing control that you crush everything before it can get close enough to matter. ”
His hand shot out and grabbed my chin, the same grip from this morning, hard enough to bruise. “Careful,” he said softly. “You’re starting to sound like you think you know me.”
“Maybe I’m starting to.”
For a long moment, he just stared at me. I watched the war play out behind his eyes, the part of him that wanted to throw me out battling with the part that wanted me to stay.
Then his grip gentled. Just slightly. Just enough that it was no longer punishment.
His thumb traced my jaw, almost tender, and I saw the exact moment he realized what he was doing. His hand dropped like I’d burned him.
“Get out.” His voice was hoarse. “Go to your room. And when I come for you tonight, and I will come for you, I’m going to make you forget every word of this conversation.
Every tender thought. Every foolish hope.
” His eyes burned into mine. “I’m going to remind you what I am. What you are. What this is.”
“Raphael—”
“Now. Before I remind you right here.”
I should have argued. Should have pushed harder, pressed the advantage while his walls were cracking.
But I’d seen it. That one moment of gentleness he couldn’t quite suppress. The way he’d touched my face with unexpected tenderness before he remembered he wasn’t supposed to care.
I turned and walked toward the door. Paused at the threshold.
“This morning,” I said without looking back. “You wanted to remind me who was in charge. But I think you were really reminding yourself.”
I didn’t wait for his response.
The hallway was silent as I made my way back to my room, but I could feel his gaze on my back until I turned the corner. Inside my chest, something had shifted. Not forgiveness. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But understanding.
He wasn’t just a monster. He was a man who’d been broken so thoroughly as a child that he’d rebuilt himself as something that couldn’t be hurt.
Every cruel word, every possessive touch, every reminder of who owned whom was just a wall.
A fortress built by a three-year-old who’d learned that love ended in blood.
It didn’t excuse what he’d done to me this morning. Didn’t make the humiliation burn any less.
But it made him human.
And that was more dangerous than any of his cruelty had ever been.
I closed my bedroom door behind me and leaned against it, pressing my palms flat against the wood like I could hold back everything I’d just learned. Everything I’d just felt.
Clara’s voice echoed in my head, sharp and certain: Guard your heart. Use him the way he’s planning to use you. Whatever tenderness he shows you, it’s all part of the hunt.
She was right. She had to be right. Understanding why he was broken didn’t make him less dangerous.
If anything, it made him more so, because now I wanted to reach for him.
Now I saw the wounded child behind the monster, and some foolish, reckless part of me wanted to prove that love didn’t have to end in blood.
But I’d learned my lesson on that hallway floor this morning. He could make my body betray me. He could wring pleasure from me like water from a stone and leave me shattered and crying while he walked away satisfied. My body wasn’t mine anymore.
My heart still was.
I had to keep it that way. Had to remember that empathy wasn’t trust, that understanding wasn’t forgiveness, that seeing his wounds didn’t mean I should offer him mine.
He was still the man who’d orchestrated my ruin. Still the predator who’d bought my body like a commodity. Still the wolf, no matter how much he bled underneath.
I wouldn’t forget that. I wouldn’t let myself forget.
Even if some treacherous part of me already had.