Page 47 of Wild Heart
“Truslivyy,”I rasped. “That’s what my grandmother called my father when she learned he’d been hurting me.Truslivyy.Cowardly. Weak. This is what your father is too. He preys on your pain. He’s covered you in wounds you think you deserve.”
“Truslivyy,”he repeated. “Is that what I am? For not walking away?”
“Fuck no! Paying for another man’s mistakes makes you brave. Noble. You’re better than him, Solnyshko.”
“I’m tired, Papa.” He tapped a finger to his chest. “I’m tired right here. Tired and sad and afraid that if I stop showing up The Wolf is going to come for him. How am I supposed to live with that on my conscious?”
The blood that rushed in my ears turned into a roar. Rage pulled at the calm I feigned, blackening all the color he’d covered me in.
“I’m tired of giving a shit about saving him when he never once gave a shit about saving me.”
I was nobody’s savior, but if salvation was what he wanted, I’d deliver it to him in blood.
“He took his fingers once,” he said. “Years ago. Luis was late on a payment, and I watched that man take a finger as collateral.”
Christ.
His lips pressed tight, throat moving with a hard swallow. Shuddering, he recoiled like the memory was palpable. Like he could smell his father’s blood.
Hand around his throat, I beckoned him with a soft sound. Indignation scattered throughout my chest, fueling my temper with vapid hate.
It was his weight,his warmth,that kept me rooted in the calm I’d built.
“Marcos, baby. This man… did he hurt you too?”
“No. I hid whenever he came around. Back then, I was small enough to fit inside cabinets or overshadowed corners. He looked for me though.Every time.”
I’ll fucking kill him.
“He hasn’t been around the office, not for years, but he managed to terrorize the place enough that the walls still leak with his smell. He torments my father through phone calls. Emails. He still throws up when he makes a wire transfer.”
Beneath him, my chest heaved, and he looked down at me like he saw it—how fucking thirsty I was for blood.
“Just knowing you’re afraid,knowingthere’s a man out terrorizing what’s mine, makes me want to rip the world apart with my bare hands.”
“I wouldn’t mind a ruptured world,” he whispered. “Just as long as you’re the ruler.”
“Hell is the only place I know how to rule.”
“Then my heart is safest in the hands of the devil, and I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
It was an oath.
A vow.
ChapterFourteen
Marcos
Hidden within a tunnel of fear, bound together by frayed sections of old carpet, were a few pieces of a little boy’s heart.
Battered by dread…
Bleeding with worry…
Broken…
…but somehow still beating.
