Chapter 34
Serena
One second Savannah was there, and now she’s not.
Isaac looks back at me, his eyes searching.
I should be terrified right now, but I’m not. He just killed someone; the evidence splattered across his shirt and pants.
Sliced her throat without hesitation. For me.
My pulse steadies. I rise up from the floor and step closer to him. He doesn’t reach for me at first.
Isaac just watches me, streaks of blood painting his face, waiting to see what I’m going to do.
Will I scream? Run? Leave this basement and never look back?
I think if this were to happen a couple of weeks ago, I probably would run. But there’s something that keeps me here with him, in this dark and damp room. I know it’s fucked up, but a part of me feels safer than I did before.
Closing the gap between us, I lift my hand to his and take the knife. I drop it to the floor and lift my gaze to meet his. His brows knit together and his warm chocolate brown eyes look back at me with confusion.
“You’re… not afraid?”
“No, Isaac. I’m not afraid.” I whisper.
He grabs my hand by the wrist and lifts it to his lips. Kissing my palm gently, he takes a deep breath in through his nose and then both his hands slide under my ass. His fingers dig into the tops of my thighs when he lifts me up and wraps my legs around his waist.
Blood soaks my shirt.
“How did I get so lucky?” Isaac’s lips find mine, rough and desperate. And I don’t pull back.
His hand moves to my jaw, and he holds me there. Not rough enough to hurt, but firm enough to keep me where he wants me. My fingers wrap in his damp hair, grounding myself within him.
His breath is uneven against my lips, and a moan travels up his throat. He pulls back just enough to look back at me. His gaze was hesitant, waiting for me to break. To realize that this is absolutely insane and run.
But I don’t.
Instead, I push my hips into him further.
That’s all it takes before his hands are fisting in my hair, pulling me in closer. He’s rougher than before, like he’s been holding back and is now finally allowing himself to have this movement. To have me completely.
He lifts me back up, never breaking the kiss, and takes me out of the basement. Leaving Savannah’s dead body slumped in the chair behind us. I break the kiss so I can take a breath, and he is already walking us both up the stairs.
We end up in his bathroom, and he sets me down so he can start the shower. I look into the mirror and realize that we are both covered in blood. It’s smeared on our clothes, arms and face.
And I’ve never been more in love.
***
Isaac enters from the bedroom and leans against the doorway while I dry my hair at the vanity.
Wearing nothing but his towel slung low on his hips, he grips the top of the doorframe and watches me through the mirror with hooded eyes.
With a hunger so intense it makes my stomach flutter beneath my towel.
I meet his gaze in the mirror and smile. “Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to get dressed? We need to do something and get rid of the body.”
He lowers his arms and enters the bathroom, standing behind me. Grabbing my brush from the counter, he gathers my hair in one hand and brushes with the other. I sigh and rest the towel in my lap, all the tension from earlier melting from my shoulders with each stroke of the bristles.
“You will be staying here in bed. You’ve had enough excitement for tonight. I’ll take care of Savannah. Don’t worry about that. But…” Isaac’s voice trails off and I can tell he’s wanting to say more but doesn’t.
“But what?” I take his hand in mine, and his jaw tightens, his expression hardening.
“I have to be honest with you.” His voice quieter now.” When I asked Savannah about her boss, I already knew about Enzo, but I needed to hear it from her to be sure.” My entire body stiffens when he mentions my cousin’s name.
If he knew about him, does he also know we are related?
He continues brushing my hair, in slow steady strokes. “After we fought, I found out some information that led me to him. When I found out that you were being targeted…” He exhales sharply through his nose. “I needed to know why.”
Tension rolls off his shoulders. Finally, the brush stills.
“So, I kept digging.” He continues. “That’s when I found out he was your cousin. And until now…I didn’t know if you knew about him or not.”
I stare at the floor, avoiding his gaze in the mirror, picking off a piece of invisible lint from my arm. Looking everywhere but him. My chest tightens as I twist the towel tightly in my hands.
“But what I don’t know is why he is targeting you.” He turns me around in my chair and lifts my chin with his finger. “Serena?”
My lip trembles and tears sting the back of my eyes. The one thing I buried deep down to hide from the world, threatening to come to light. After all this time.
I can’t bring myself to look at him.
Because if I do, he’ll see every broken piece of my past. He’ll know every part of me, and I’m afraid that if he does, he’s not going to want me anymore.
He’s going to throw me aside like all the others. Isaac isn’t going to want to deal with the trouble of someone so disgusting and broken. Someone who would allow themselves to get raped by their cousin for years.
I’m tainted. Tyler didn’t even truly want me. Why would Isaac?
“Serena…” His voice is soft, caring.
My fingers lace together, knuckles whitening.
“Mi Vida, look at me.” He grabs my chin gently and turns my face to look at him. The moment our eyes meet, I’m met with nothing but warmth, patience and quiet understanding. “You can tell me anything.” My throat tightens. His words giving me the courage I needed to tell him everything.
I swallow.
The words are lodged at the back of my throat. If I don’t tell him, keep this secret to myself, it would be so much easier. I’m already used to carrying the weight of this alone. It would be so much easier than risking him looking at me differently every day.
Waking up every day to his pity, eyes full of disgust knowing what happened, would kill me.
But I don’t want to carry it alone anymore.
I am tired of burying this so deep inside myself that it feels like it’s rotting through me from the inside out. No matter how hard I tried to be happy, no matter how many times I plastered a fake smile on my face, it was always there.
Coming out during the silence, the darkness of the night. It would slither its way from my deepest memory. Torturing me with every remembered touch, kiss and forced orgasm.
My lips part, and nothing comes out. I take a deep breath, inhaling slowly. And then another.
It’s now or never Serena. If he doesn’t want me after this, it is for the best.
I can do this.
“It started when I was five…” my voice is barely above a whisper. “He would start by coming into my room at night whenever he and his sister would stay over. Just touching me. Everyone trusted him, and I was too young to know any better, so I never said anything”
Isaac’s grip tightens slightly around the brush in his hand.
“He kept me quiet by making idle threats. The ones that terrify a six or eight year old. I’ll tell your parents you lied about eating your dinner. ” My fingers curl around the phrase he would so often tell me. “That is, until I got older.”
Isaac’s jaw ticks, but I keep going before I lose my nerve.
“After I hit my preteen years, he progressed into more than just touching. One time he actually pissed on me and left me to soak in it when he was done pleasuring himself.” I wince from the memory.
Isaac looks away for a beat, shoulders rigid and his eyes unfocused, full of anger.
A cold knot twists violently in my stomach, and I dig my fingers into my thigh. He probably wants nothing to do with me now. Like everyone else, he’s going to wonder why I didn’t say anything and just let it continue.
“By the time I was old enough to realize what he was doing was wrong, I felt like it was too late. Felt like people would be mad at me or accuse me of asking for it. Or worse, not believe me.” I square my shoulders and gather the courage to tell him about the disgraceful part of Gym Socks.
“The first time he raped me was when I was thirteen. Every time, I wished for it to go back to just touching.”
Isaac doesn’t interrupt me. Instead, he grabs my hands, pulling him into his chest. Wrapping his arms around me, he replaces my spot at the vanity, lifts me into his lap. His jaw clenched so tightly, I can hear his teeth grinding between his uneven breaths.
“Eventually I learned to just shut my mind off and become numb to it…until he added another man. They would take turns holding me while the other would rape me. Sometimes more than once in one time.” Tears begin to spill down my cheeks and run down his bare chest.
“Who was the other man?” Isaac's hands are clenched and his chest rises and falls with uneven breaths.
“I-I don’t know. They would blindfold me every time.” I cover my tear-soaked face with my trembling hands. “I’ll understand if you want nothing to do with me anymore. I can pack my things and go stay with Jules.”
Isaac removes my hands from my face and lifts my chin with his knuckle. When I finally look at him, the rage in his eyes nearly steals the air from my lungs.
“I need you to know this, Serena. What happened to you, what they did…it wasn’t your fault. And it doesn’t change a damn thing. It doesn’t make me see you as less than.” He brushes his knuckle up my cheek and wipes away a stray tear.
“In fact, it shows me just how strong you really are. You are a survivor, Mi Vida. You went through hell and came out the most beautiful and courageous woman I have ever met in my life. I have done things that I am not proud of. Things most people wouldn’t even admit to thinking about.
But when I thought you were gone… none of it mattered anymore.
Nothing else mattered. I have stared down the barrel of guns, and buried people who deserved worse, watched my parents get shot in front of me, and nothing shook me more than seeing you lying there, barely breathing. ”