That doesn’t make any sense. None of this does.
“Let her go.” Pierce stands, pieces of rope falling to the ground, he is bowed up and ready to charge. But even still, I can see he is injured. It is in the way he sways forward. In the visible swelling of his cheek where it was clear he had been hit. “It’s us you are after. Charles.”
Vinny shakes against my back, a dark chuckle vibrating into the room. “It’s not. It was always her. It has always been her. But as soon as my brother knew. As soon as I showed a spark of interest, he chased her down. Forced her to be his. Drugged her until sheenjoyedhis scent.” Vinny traces the gun against the mark Tony left on me. “Mated her.” He trails it down my arms. “Tortured her.” He points the gun at my alphas.
I shiver in discomfort at his touch. His familiar sickly sweet scent turns my stomach, but it’s his words that leave the most residual damage.
“Tony was a good man. He kept his distance from the family, from you.” The words are emotionless as they leave my lips. A mantra I repeat. A story I made up to relay to anyone who asked.
I don’t expect for Vinny to twist me around, for him to shake me.
“Do you still not remember? Are you still repressing everything?” His eyes are wild, unfocused. “Tony was the head of the family for fuck’s sake! Until he died! Untilyoukilled him!”
My entire world upends, shakes, dissolves.
Until you killed him.
The gun.
Until you killed him.
The shots.
Until you killed him.
The blood.
“No!” I scream. “No! No! No!”
Bringing my hands up, I cover my ears. My legs give out but Vinny doesn’t let me fall.
It all comes crashing through. Every repressed thought, the pain, the trauma.
Theend.
I am a murderer.
A killer.
“Help her!” Vinny urges, and then three scents infiltrate my panic. “Fuck! All I wanted was for her to live. To be safe. Toremember.I don’t want her to suffer, not any longer. But shehasto face this.”
The citrus and bergamot and sandalwood and spearmint wash through me.
Vinny releases me and my vision blurs as he steps back, allowing my alphas to hold me to them. To keep me anchored in this moment. I recognize Luther’s calm, Pierce’s warmth, Wren’s stability.
They provide the safety for my mind to relinquish itself to the past. To my darkest hours.
Tony wasn’t a good man. He was the worst alpha. And a horrible mate.
“Xenia, it’s time. You can’t keep burying this. Tony was not yourtruemate, he forced his mark on you. Made you marry him. Threw you in that closet to live most of your days. Until you fought back and killed him.”
My eyes water, as Vinny continues speaking. I want to argue, to disagree. But the truth lands in my chest, it worms its way down to my gut and up to my brain, a parasite. It pries my mind apart and unleashes years of suppressed pain and agony.
“I am not broken! I am not broken! I am not broken!” The words echo around me, each louder than the last, more distant. As if they are coming from down a long empty hallway.
But even still, I know they are mine.
My heart beats into my throat, thousands of spiders trail across my skin, andthesyrupy scent fills my lungs to the point I am choking on it.
