Page 59 of Reaper

He runs his free hand through his hair. We talked about this last night, so he’s probably getting annoyed with me, but I can’t change how I feel.

“Stop fucking saying that. You didn’t stab me, if anything I stabbed myself. It wasn’t intentional.”

He sighs and sits on the couch beside me, and pulls me onto his lap, and places one hand on my back and the other on the back of my thigh.

“They weren’t happy when I was injured, but they will learn to deal with it. They’ll have to. At least you called Bones. You didn’t leave me to die.”

“What if he gives you an ultimatum, and makes you choose between me and your family, Nico?”

Understanding shows on his face, and I don’t think he had even considered it before I said it.

“That’s what you’re worried about, baby?”

I nod slowly as tears roll down my cheek.

“The thought alone robs me of the air in my lungs, and I don’t know how I’d possibly go on without you.”

He shakes his head, like what I suggested is impossible.

“That is not going to be the outcome. I refuse to live without you, so either my brothers learn to accept us together, or they can fuck off. I’ve been the odd fucked up one, my whole life. There are so many things they don’t even know about me, things that happened to me, that contributed to everything I am. One thing they do know though, is that I live my life on my terms, and no one dictates my choices. Believe me, they’ve tried. Nothing, and no one, will make me leave you.”

“What happened to you, Nico?”

The pain in his eyes is almost too much to bear, but I don’t look away. I stay with him, because whatever the answer to my question is, it changed him.

“Fuck,” he says quietly, as he closes his eyes like it hurts to look at me, and he has never not wanted to see my eyes. I reach up and touch his face.

“You can tell me anything.”

He sighs a shaky breath.

“I had an uncle. Frank. Fuck, I hate him. He convinced my father I was too weak for the mafia, because I was more emotional than men in the family are supposed to be. I was just a kid, but my dad agreed to let my uncle train me. To toughen me up.”

He takes in a shaky breath, and it makes my chest hurt for him.

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m sorry.”

He opens his eyes and says, “I want to tell you. I’ve never spoken about this to anyone. My father was ashamed, so I kept it to myself, but I want you to know me, all of me. Even the disgusting parts.”

I kiss his cheek softly.

“Take your time.”

“For seven years, he beat me daily. It was part of what he called training. That was the easy part. Jesus Christ, I can’t tell you the rest, Bella. You’ll never look at me the same.”

I take his face in my hands, the way he has done with me so many times.

“Nico, I love you. All of you, and nothing could make me love you less. Tell me or don’t tell me, but don’t keep it to yourself because you’re afraid I’ll think differently of you.”

He stares at me with so much anguish in his expression, but he continues.

“I didn’t lie to you when I said I was a virgin, but I also wasn’t completely truthful. He fucked me frequently. When I was fourteen, my father came down to the basement, and found me lying naked in a pool of my own blood, with a lead pipe beside me. I had been beaten with it and fucked with it.”

I shift myself so I’m straddling his lap, and wrap my arms around his neck, and hold him close to me. I’m horrified by his words, but I am careful not to show it, because I don’t want him to think I view him in a bad light. I know this was very difficult to tell me, and my heart is shattered for him.

“You were not fucked, Nico. You were raped, as a child. Nothing you could’ve done would have made you deserve that. Nothing.”

He presses his face into my neck, as he holds onto me like he might not make it, if I let go of him. I won’t. Not ever.

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