My hands roved over her body, checking for injuries. From what I’d seen, John’s knife hadn’t so much as nicked her soft skin. But I didn’t know how long they’d had her before I heard her scream my name. Before my worst nightmare had become reality.
“Are you hurt?” The gravelly question was laughably insufficient. She might not be bleeding out in my arms, but my sadistic cousins liked to play with their prey before they struck the first blow.
Her cheek rubbed my neck as she gave a little shake of her head before pressing closer to my chest. A harsh shudder wracked her delicate frame, and I tasted acid on my tongue.
“Tell me what happened.” My stomach knotted, but I had to know what they’d done to her before I got there. They’d said that they were terrorizing her as a warning to me. My father hadn’t ordered the attack, but I needed to know what they’d said to her. I couldn’t protect her if I didn’t know what was coming for us.
“They grabbed me when I was walking home. They said…” Her breath hitched, and her skin pebbled beneath my hands. “They said they would break me.”
I couldn’t bite back the low growl that rumbled from my chest. “They’ll never come near you again,” I swore. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
“They said you aren’t supposed to be with me.” She finally pulled back just far enough so that her shining eyes could pierce my soul. “Is that why you pushed me away? On the night you told me… When you told me about my mom’s death. You hurt me to push me away. Is it because your family threatened me?”
Now that her face was no longer pressed against me, I could see the red flush that marred one of her alabaster cheeks. Rage surged, tightening my muscles. The bastards had hit her. They’d struck my Allie.
They were dead. Both of them were dead. I didn’t care if they were my blood.
But the blame didn’t entirely lie with them. Because they’d revealed the truth to Allie: my father had warned me that she would suffer if I didn’t give her up. My cousins had chosen to follow through with the threat.
“I’m sorry,” I rasped. “I knew I would put you in danger if I came back to you, but I couldn’t stay away. It was so fucking selfish. I should’ve left you alone.”
Her small hand cupped my cheek, her dainty fingers resting on my scar. “I don’t want you to leave me alone,” she breathed. “You keep me safe. I need you, Max.”
Something tugged at the center of my chest, tethering me to her. I needed her too. If I lingered over thoughts of how I’d almost lost her to John’s knife, I’d forget how to breathe. I couldn’t lose Allie, and I’d be damned if I let my sadistic cousins take her from me.
“I’ll protect you,” I swore, burning the promise into my soul. It was too late to leave her for good. I wasn’t capable of it. And there was no guarantee that Paulie and John wouldn’t come back for her just to get to me the next time I pissed them off.
“Did you mean it?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes cautious on mine. “You said you would kill your cousins. Did you mean it?”
I placed my hand over her heart, feeling its rapid beat beneath my palm. Her breathing was too fast and shallow.
She was scared of my answer.
A lie teased at the tip of my tongue. I never wanted her to be scared of me.
But the stark truth was that I would slash my cousins to ribbons if they ever threatened her again. I would make them scream before I let them die.
I forced myself to maintain her steady gaze, offering her the only answer I could give. “I will do anything to protect you.”
She drew in a shaky breath, and her eyes began to shine. “Max…”
The truth was hurting her, but my cousins would hurt her far more. I wouldn’t hide the heart of the truth from her. Not when her safety was at stake.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” I swore. The terrible sight of John’s knife at her throat burned into my mind, and a shadow of the helpless rage that’d immobilized me shuddered through my body. My mother’s screams for mercy echoed in my head. “I won’t fail again,” I vowed. “Never again.”
Allie’s thumb stroked the line of my cheekbone, just on the edge of my deadened scar tissue. The tingling sensation of her gentle touch soothed me like nothing else, and I leaned into her hand, kissing her palm.
“You didn’t fail,” she murmured, her eyes intent on mine. “You saved me.”
I shook my head, as though I could physically toss the sound of my mother’s screams from my mind.
“This wasn’t the first time.” The words were drawn from my soul before I could think better of them. “I failed my mom. I watched them murder her, and I did nothing.”
She’d begged for my worthless life while they brutalized her. They’d raped her before they killed her, and I’d huddled on the kitchen floor, watching blood pool on the white tiles. For a moment, I heard the sick laughter of those Russian bastards, the sound of their sadistic pleasure grating through my mind.
“Max.” Allie whispered my name, and a glittering tear spilled down her reddened cheek. “You were just a boy. How could you have stopped what happened?”
Anger flared, self-loathing tightening my chest. “I was thirteen,” I snapped. “Old enough to take on a man’s responsibilities. But I let the pain keep me down. I was too weak to overcome it and save her from them.”
Allie’s lush lips parted, and her jaw went slack with horror before she swallowed hard, visibly steeling herself. “You were in pain? Max, what did they do to you?”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head, denying the excuses she was trying to make for me. The blood on the kitchen tiles hadn’t only been my mother’s, but that didn’t matter. I should’ve been stronger for her.
Her fingers trailed over my ruined brow. “Is that how you got your scars?” she pressed gently.
I shied away from her touch as though she’d burned me.
“Not that one,” I growled, suddenly unable to bear the tender contact with the shameful mark.
She reached between us and slowly pushed up my shirt, her touch trailing over my abs in a scorching line as she searched for the knife wounds. “But these…?” She traced the slash on my side, just below my ribs. That’d been the deepest one; the one that’d almost made me bleed out before Francesca found my mother’s dead body.
“Did they do this to you?” Allie asked tremulously, another glimmering tear spilling down her cheek as she found the longer cut across my chest.
Nausea rolled through my stomach, and a shudder wracked my body as her tender touch sliced at me like their knives, cutting through the walls I kept up to contain the memories of that awful day.
I searched for my rage, desperately drawing on it to eclipse the agony of my loss, my failure. I recalled the way I’d made the Russians scream when my cousins had helped me track them down. My father had been in prison by then, but Paulie and John had instructed me in the worst ways to torture a man. I’d made them beg for death before I finally ended the monsters who’d murdered my mother.
Allie pressed a featherlight kiss over the scar on my chest before moving lower, tracing the line of the one on my abdomen with her tongue. Her small hands roved over my body, as though she could soothe away all the pain that’d been inflicted on that terrible day. She murmured my name against my skin and dusted a kiss over the third scar, her voice hitching with tears and something like longing.