Page 63 of Brutal Knight

Willow’s fingers brush my hand, a soft, almost unconscious touch.

“He sold me to the highest bidder in marriage. The family that offered him the best alliance and benefits. And on the outside, I was a perfect mafia princess, given everything I could ever want. But my father treated me like a whore. An object.”

“He was wrong,” I growl, unable to keep the words down any longer.

Willow doesn’t reply. She’s going through the story, living through it again in the span of seconds.

And then she says, “Dmitri was even worse.”

I almost don’t want to hear it.

I know this. I know it, know full well now just how much of a monster he was. I can’t stop thinking about how different things might be if I’d seen it sooner. If I’d been able to look past his bravado, his scheming.

Dmitri was always a piece of shit, but he hid himself well from the Assembly. He put up just enough of a front that no one looked too hard.

And this was what he did—not when no one was looking, but when they were all too blind to care.

Willow makes a low noise in her throat. “He made it a point to keep me broken. Sad. To keep me under his thumb. He fucked other women, raped me. Took joy in making me hurt.”

“He was a monster.”

“I had a dog once,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper, like she’s remembering a dream. “Dmitri killed it.”

The way she says it, so distant and hurt, breaks something inside me. I can’t just listen anymore, the same way I couldn’t just watch Willow be hurt after Dmitri died.

I roll her onto her back so I can look down at her.

There’s a world of hurt in her blue-gray eyes, years of abuse layered in their depths. But even past that, there’s a storm. A strength. I can imagine the rage that burns inside her. Hell, part of her probably wishes she could bring Dmitri back just to have the satisfaction of putting him in the grave again.

She’s stronger than most people I’ve ever met. Maybe she’s suffered and maybe she’s tried to run, but she’s survived. And she’s here now.

“I promise you,” I say quietly. “Your life won’t be like that now.”

Willow doesn’t answer. There’s an uncertainty in her gaze. I know she isn’t sure whether she can believe me. And how could she?

I carefully reach for her hair and push it away from her face. She doesn’t flinch away at the touch.

“In the O’Reilly family, we value our women,” I say softly. “We protect our women. God fucking help anyone who hurts one of our wives.”

Fuck, Willow looks so hopeful. Her spine straightens a little, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. I can tell how much she wants me to be right, how much she wants it to be true.

And she deserves it. She deserves for someone to give a fuck about her, for someone to love her more for all the years she lost to pain and abuse.

“My father loved my mother more than life itself. He would’ve given her anything,” I tell her. “And the same was true for my adoptive parents.”

Willow looks up at me, and her eyes change, softening. She seems less guarded, less closed off.

She reaches up and strokes my face, trailing her fingertips over the line of my jaw. There’s a hint of uncertainty to the touch, but I can tell she wants this connection.

And then she kisses me.

She’s so sweet when she kisses me, her lips like velvet against mine. It feels like a rush of hot water against my body, an unwinding at the end of a long day.

I want her to feel the same. I want Willow to feel pleasure and security all at once.

I deepen the kiss, tasting her sweetness as she moans. She arches off the bed a little, her body pressed up into mine. I can feel the softness of her breasts on my skin, the shudder in her body when I touch her.

I slide my hand over Willow’s thighs and feel them tremble under my touch. I pull her arms over her head and hold her hands down with one of mine, feeling her fingers tangle with mine.

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