She collects me in her arms, laying my heavy head on her lap and continues to soothe me.
And I weep in her arms like a little girl. The sobs wrack my entire frame. They scratch my throat and make a mess of my face.
Ma only holds me tighter. Rubs a soothing hand up and down my back while kissing the crown of my head.
I lift my head and through the tears finally see her face. But when I do my heart splinters. “Ma,” I croak.
“It’s okay, sweet girl.” She brushes it off as if it’s nothing but it’s not.
“Your face,” I whisper brokenly.
Ma’s face is swollen and heavily bruised. A laceration slashes across her cheek. Like a hard smack split the skin. Her eye is blackened and blue, nearly shut. Her lip is cracked and there’s a deep reddened mark wrapped around her throat.
Suddenly the grogginess and fatigue in my body disappears. I lift myself up and reach my hand out. She flinches. My lip wobbles.
“Did pa do this to you?” I ask her, my voice trembling. She casts her head to the side in shame. “Ma, I need you to tell me the truth,” I implore.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says in a voice so small that it wrecks me.
“Ma, it matters to me. Who did this to you?”
“He didn’t like how I wanted to save you,” she begins upsettingly. Her eyes meet mine then and I see the torment in them. “I was willing to give up everything to have you come back home. None of this matters without you. You’re my baby girl. All I wanted was to bring you home,” she softly cries.
Acid burns at the back of my throat. Fire curses through my veins. An anger so palpable has me vibrating. “He hurt you for choosing me over the family.”
She sniffles. “He’s never raised a hand to me before. But I think something changed in him when Niall died. His need to reclaim what was his. . .”
A wave of crashing emotions takes me under. Rage. Disgust. Heartbreak. Ma suffered enough abuse from her own ma. And to suffer it again for loving her daughter. . .
I’ll never forgive pa.
With the blood lust coursing through me I want him dead more than anything.
No woman should suffer by the hands of a man.
“I’m going to kill him,” I swear. Ma doesn’t protest. Part of me expected her to. But I think her remaining love for pa died when he didn’t choose to protect me.
I hold her hands dearly in mine. “I will make him regret ever laying a hand on you.”
“You’ll need help. You can’t take him and the Russians on by yourself.”
Rico.
Desperately and urgently I ask her, “Where is he? Where’s my husband?”
Her eyes flit nervously to the ring sitting upon my finger. “You married him,” she breathes warily.
“Yes, ma. I did. And I need to know where he is.”
“He killed your brother.”
I swallow. “I know. But ma he?—”
“I mourned my son because he was my son, deary. My only son.”
“I understand but ma?—”
Her lips tremble. “But I lost Niall long before he was killed. This world takes everything from you. And I never wanted this for you, Imogen. Your heart is so pure. You deserve a love that deserves you. A man who will protect you. Who will never raise his hand at you.”
