Page 48 of Sinner's Vows

She’s standing there, rooted to the spot, petrified. I’m at least a foot taller than her, and I bet I weigh double what she does. Her mind is spiraling; I can see it in her eyes.

“What triggered you, sweetheart?”

She blinks. This time as I reach for her, she visibly flinches.

“I’m never going to hurt you, Ariana,” I say softly, keeping my voice calm, but not retracting my hand where it’s folded around hers. Instead, I rub my thumb over her pulse point, trying to calm her.

“Please—” She strangles a sob as she breathes haggardly, forcing herself to be quiet, trying to contain her emotions. I bet she’s been bottling them up for years.

“Is this about Franco? And being kidnapped to Boston and whatever happened in the weeks before?” Those tally marks cut on her skin. Her begging me not to tie her up or to lock her away in the dark. “Or is this about something else?”

My jaw ticks as I wait for her to answer, but she’s clammed up, and it could be borne out of so many things. Fear for herself, fear for others. There’s a reason why she tried to escape the clinic. There’s a reason why she wanted my gun. I’m not sure what her endgame would have been, and it’s laughable, but also so freaking desperate.

I get that she won’t trust me, but fuck, what more must I do to prove to her I’m not going to take her by force? Maybe that’s the only thing the Mafia does in Italy, but not here. Not inIl Consiglio. Never mind waiting on those DNA tests—if I’d wantedto do so, I’ve had plenty of time. If I wanted her dead, I would have seen to it already.

Instead,she’sliterally killingmehere with those quiet tears.

“Tell me, Ariana. If he’s threatened people you love on the other side and you are protecting them by not talking, I need to know. Franco’s dead, and you’re the only one who knows what would happen in Italy once people realize he isn’t coming back.”

Vincenzo. He could know. Fuck, I’m glad Steph hasn’t killed him yet, even though it’s been touch and go for days now.

She’s closed her eyes, tears streaming, her fingers gone cold and trembling in shock. She’s definitely in some PTSD loop, and I can try help her out of it, but I don’t even know what dredged up these memories for her in the first place.

“He called me a thief once,” she whispers. “And it’s true.” She looks up at me, eyes like crystal pools. “I stole from him. I don’t mind admitting to it. Over a thousand euros. It took me months, skimming.”

“From whom?” I ask, and when she doesn’t answer immediately, I push again. “Who called you a thief, sweetheart?”

“Franco Fiore. I was so stupid. I thought he wouldn’t notice. There was so much drug money in the house—” She shakes her head, seeming in disbelief. “I wanted to run away. I knew what was coming my way… I—I?—”

She chokes up and tries to catch her breath, but she’s almost hyperventilating now, her chest heaving with sobs and quiet tears. It hits me this woman has never released her pain, and I feel it echo in every scar on my body. I know what’s coming next. There’s torture, and then there’s sexual assault. Men get the brunt of the first one, women always the second, irrespective of age, circumstances, relations.

I keep going with my thumb’s hypnotic movement, caressing her wrist and giving her time to gather herself.

Eventually, she shudders on a gulp. “One day, he came and took the value of what I’d stolen. A thousand euros worth of?—”

She leans into me, and I inch closer, allowing her to rest her forehead on my arm, right there where a kitten would curl up in the corner of warmth between your chest and arm if you let it. Her breathing is strained, and we stand there for such a long while, it seems she’s lost her thoughts. But she’s lost her courage. I bet she’s never opened up to anybody about this.

“A thousand euros worth ofyou,” I say eventually, and she sags against me.

“Yes.”

I pull her to my chest and hold her close. From what I’ve seen of Franco, the assault would have been brutal, filled with violence. Something she’s never recovered from. He didn’t only take his measly thousand euros from her, he took hereverything.

I’m tense with her revelation, but force myself to stay calm, my body relaxed to let her take whatever she needs in this moment. This is what gets to me the most about this woman. She’s my experience, my photo negative, colors inverted, but mine all the same. Taken by force and done things to that bodies heal from, minds never.

“He’d said if I wanted money,” she croaks against me, “I needed to earn it, and that he had the perfect plans for us. That I needed to get practice, because he was going to use me for extortion. He planned to catch men on camera having underaged sex with me, then blackmail them afterwards.”

I’m already tense, but now, I freeze. “How old were you, sweetheart?”

She quivers, the memory probably too much. “I’d just turned fifteen.”

Fuck. Rage, simple and pure, shoots through me like lightning, and I stretch my hands where I have them on herback, straightening all my fingers, except the one that would no longer obey a simple instruction. Now I’m shaking, too, and it’s as every memory of my own riots to escape the cages I have them locked up in.

“Dominic?” she whispers, fear in her voice, a reaction to what she felt in my body.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” I say, dropping my arms away from her. The last thing she needs is to feel threatened by my oversized, male body, every muscle flexing with the fury raging within me.

She sways and for a second looks like she’ll faint without the support, so I take her by the shoulders, steadying her.

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