Page 59 of Sinner's Vows

“He was right-handed.” With a sigh, I heave out of the water and perch on the edge just like her, sitting with that side towards her. There’s no point in trying to hide it from her now.

Her gaze drops to my scars and shoots back to my gaze. “Who?”

I smirk, but it’s sour, and the hate I keep coiled up inside me pushes to unfurl. It’s too late. Matteo did us all that favor.

“The Don.”

“The Don…like inyour dad?”

“Yep. He was—” Fucked up? A fantastic strategist. Genius. Focused. Maniacal. “A psychopath. A monster, really.”

Those quiet tears of hers are idling down her cheeks, and she blinks at me in confusion. “Parents are supposed to love their children… To protect their children…not do this.”

“Did yours? Love and protect you?” I ask quietly, knowing the answer.

Her dad is dead; her mom died in a car accident without plans for her care in case something went wrong. By slotting her in with Franco, in some weird Mafia foster home, they didn’t look out for her at all. The reason she got raped in the first place can be tied right back to some parental neglect.

“It’s not the same,” she whispers, her fingers working her robe’s fabric anxiously, almost to tearing point.

I reach for her hand to quiet her.

“In a way, it’s exactly the same.” I rub my thumb over her knuckles, signaling to her I’m okay. “It’s done. It’s in the past. It shaped me, but it doesn’t have a chokehold on me. It’s not…my master,” I say, picking my words carefully. “Not like it used to be.”

Hasn’t been for a long time and will never be again. Not since I discovered the antidote to things done to me and I’m forced to do to others.

“But why?” Her fingers grip mine. “Surely, he didn’t do this to your brothers, too?”

“No. It was part of my specific training.” And have no fear, the Don had his curriculum for each one of his sons. His plans for his army.

Her eyes widen. “Training?”

“For my role in the organization.”

“As?”

“The man who gets all questions answered.” The interrogator.

“I don’t get it.”

I shrug, not relishing the idea of explaining this to her. But we’ve come this far, and after what she told me, there’s no reason not to share with her.

“Understanding pain makes you know just how to hand it out. How to push people to a point where they would tell you anything. I know exactly how every single one of these feels like, and I can read people, know what to do to break them.” I speak quietly, but the words are harsh, and she seems to flinch at every single one of them.

We’re sitting on two sides of the pool’s corner, legs in the water, and like this, she is close to me. Maybe too close. When she pulls her hand from mine, I don’t stop her. She reaches for my side, her gaze homing in to where I’ve disguised some of the scars with tattoos, but not all the scar tissue would take ink. She spotted the cigarette burns, and now, she reaches for the lines cut by a whip, the pattern burned by a clothing iron, higher to where the Don used a scalpel on my skin, cutting the top layer in lines that eerily match hers. As if he were counting.

Her touch is like butterfly wings against my skin, and I let her explore. Feel the uncertain caress of a woman where I’ve never felt it before. Tears spill ever faster over her cheeks, her breathing becoming strained as she tries not to sob.

“How old were you?” she whispers, leaning closer as she splays her palm over my obliques and higher, her hand like astarfish wanting to cover my scars, as if she could erase all of them with touch alone.

Her warmth seeps through my skin in patches, only where the nerve endings haven’t been killed off.

“Once my mom died, there was no stopping him. I was eleven when he did these.” I take her hand and guide her forefinger to rest on the cigarette burns, counting them one by one. Cheap torture.

“How did your teachers—at school—how didn’t they?—”

“We were homeschooled.”

“But didn’t your brothers?—”

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