Page 55 of Buried in Blood
Brooke smiles, gentle and warm, like we’re not in a fucking dungeon. “Then we have something in common.”
I stare at her, heart dropping.
“No,” I say. “No, we don’t.”
She steps closer. “But we’re family too, Dante. Siblings, Damien said. I always knew something was missing, and now I know—it was Destiny… And in a way— it was you.”
My chest tightens.
“He saved me. Took me in when I was homeless. Showed me who I am.”
“You’re not his,” I snap before I can stop myself. “You’re not some possession he gets to mold.”
She frowns. “He’s not molding me. He’s protecting me. You don’t know what he’s done for me. What he’s done for all of us.”
God.
She believes it.
Every word.
Every lie.
She’s drowning in them, and she doesn’t even know it.
I push myself upright, pain searing through my ribs, but I need to be eye-level for this.
“You’re brainwashed.”
Her smile falters. “You don’t understand him. He’s not what people say.”
“He traffics girls, boys, anybody.”
“No—he protects them.” Her voice sharpens. “He keeps the worst ones from getting sold. He weeds out the buyers who hurt them. He says he’s cleaning up the industry from the inside.”
Mystomach turns. “There shouldn’tbean industry.”
She flinches like I slapped her. “You don’t know him like I do.”
“I know what he did to Destiny,” I growl. “And if he didn’t kill her himself, he fucking broke her until someone else did.”
Brooke’s eyes flash with something I can’t name—loyalty? Denial? Pain?
“I don’t believe that,” she whispers. “He loved her.”
And that’s when it hits me.
She’s already gone.
He got to her before the world did. BeforeIdid.
She’s not a victim.
Not anymore. She’s a weapon.
“I’m sorry,” I say, quietly.
“For what?”
