Page 176 of Filthy Love

“Yes. You’re my unicorn.” She smiled sheepishly. “So, you’re stuck with me and you know how stubborn a half Greek woman can be. Plus, I’m a Marinos and your stalker. That’s a trifecta, baby. Might as well just give up now.”

“I thought I was your stalker?”

“With forbidden love came great stalking, Colton.”

Silence drifted into the room and settled over them. The pup fell asleep from all her belly rubs and Gia sat quietly holding Hawk’s hand.

And then.

“I found out why I’d been blacking out and losing blocks of time around my fifteenth birthday.”

Oh, god. Her heart beat like a hammer, every crack and crevice filled with a little boy’s pain carried into adulthood. She knew she had to listen to his story, but her belly twisted into hard, painful lumps, she needed to keep it together for her man.

“Maybe she didn’t drug me with enough. Maybe she wanted me to wake up. I don’t know. Didn’t stick around to ask. By that time, she’d become unhinged. She’d accuse me of conspiring with Xavier to take me away. I hardly ever fucking saw that man so where she got that from is something only she knows. I began rebelling against her strict ruling. I was tired of being at home, never having a life. I went to a skate park this one day and she went ballistic, a total freak out. To calm her down I told her I was sorry, and I wouldn’t do it again.”

Slow, methodical, Hawk’s thumb brushed her palm.

“I could have understood better if she’d beaten me. She was just … odd. Unstable, highly erratic and heavily into her bible, it got worse the longer Xavier stayed away with his other families. Overly possessive, but she’d change into a whole new woman if Xavier stopped by. Some fucker did me a favor and killed him around that time. His church said he’d been sent on a sabbatical, but I heard things. It was years later the truth about his crimes came out.”

“What happened, baby?” Placing her free hand on his chest, his heart was rapidly thumping. She leaned in, kissed his ear, whispering. “I’m right here with you, Colton. I’m not going anywhere. I swear it. This is for you, let it out.”

“It might have been months after she’d last seen Xavier.” His voice turned robotic, almost as if he were not recalling his past and reading from a menu. Gia swallowed and squeezed his hand. “As I said I don’t think she gave me enough whatever drug she was slipping me to keep me under control. It was a strange, heavy sensation. I usually woke with no recollection of my black outs, just a throbbing headache and nausea grabbing at my belly. The seizures, she said. The reason I had to stay inside so I didn’t have one when she wasn’t there to help me.”

Silence. One breath. Two breaths.

“It took only seconds for me to realize I was in my own bed. It was dark, and I remember the shadows made weird patterns on the wall. She was on top of me, Gia. She had me inside her fucking body.”

Expecting it, but the moment he said the words Gia’s heart stuttered like a bomb had been ignited inside her chest and she forced her sob back down her throat.

To feel such instant hate for a woman she didn’t know rising within her, it was strange and very fucking real to know if she saw Hawk’s mother she would stab her, hurt her, claw her fucking eyes out, just like she’d hurt Hawk.

Biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, she tried hard not to outwardly react, fearing he would put her feelings above his own. And Hawk needed to expunge this. Hate and bile collided inside her.

“Even now, it’s odd to swallow she was fucking her own son. It was a nightmare I’ve never woken up from. I want to believe that was the first time, but from the timetable of my blackouts she’d been doing it for a year or more. I lost my virginity to that cunt of a mother. I don’t remember any of it apart from that one night. I felt like I was outside my body. It felt like days until I became unglued from my own mind screaming. How the fuck was it even happening? She was my mom. A fucking nutjob, but my mother. I remember hearing screaming until the rawness in my throat told me it was me doing the screaming. She’d tied my fucking arms to the frame. I wondered for a long time did she tie me every night? So many fucking questions about how and why have plagued me. I’d never seen her so petrified when she realized I was awake.”

Hawk fell into silence, his gaze on their hands locked together. She squeezed them tightly. “What happened next, Hawk?”

“Jesus.Fucking hell. It was crazy, Gia. She climbed off me like it was nothing, untied my wrists and left me there stunned and disgusted, told me to go back to sleep.To go back to fucking sleep.” He laughed harshly. The tick working furiously in his jaw. “Like it had been no fucking big deal she was screwing her unconscious teen son like a fucking whore. I was still so stoned out of my mind, couldn’t hardly stand. I puked on myself, puked on the floor while I tried to get myself dressed.”

Pressing her face into his shoulder, Gia slipped her arms around his waist, sobs trapped in her chest. “I called her every vile name I could think of. And you know what’s laughable? She acted like I’d done something wrong by waking up.You should be asleep, Colton, she kept saying. I’d never wanted to kill anyone, but I could have easily strangled her right there. She tried to stop me from leaving, begged me to stay. I shoved her off me, threatened her with the cops and I didn’t see her again until years later.”

It was worse. His past had been so much worse than ever imagined.

“Hawk … I.”

“So, that’s all there’s to know about me, Gia. The reason for the man I am.” An exhale gusted out of him like he was relieved finally.

“What happened to you afterward?”

“I lived on the streets for two years,” she frowned. “Those were some hard days and nights. I stole most days. Got beat up a few times. Dark shit happens on the street. But I was living. For the first time in my life I was truly living, and I loved being free. I loved it more that I was away from that house and her.”

For his bravado he’d still been a boy. He must have been terrified the entire time of living rough.

Thank god for Ambrosio finding him.

When he’d finished talking she was sobbing quietly until tears soaked her shirt and dripped onto their clasped hands. “No one will ever hurt you that badly ever again.”

“Gia…”

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