Cocking his head, he taps two fingers on the table, his features sharpening with somberness. “You could have it all, Dahlia. Play on the biggest stages in the world. I don’t want you to miss a thing.”
But he wouldn’t be there. And I would miss him too much to enjoy that life.
“I have everything I want back home.” You. My safe routine.
While he wants me to have the world, my needs are simpler.
He closes his eyes for a moment, but I catch that flicker of misery as if I settle for less.
Finding his hand on the table, I give it a light squeeze. “You didn’t trap me, Mika. You created a world for me where I feel safe.”
His teeth grit together. “I caused it.”
I guess we’re going there. Inhaling deeply, I prepare myself. What better moment to rehash our past, hoping tonight will bury the hurt for good.
“Okay, tell me what you would have done differently.”
His jaw tightens, hand fisting on the table. “I should have seen it coming.”
“No. I’m talking about that particular situation. I might have been the one captive, but you were a prisoner just as much. Without you, I would have lost myself there.” I hold his gaze to show him my perspective. “If another man touched me, if your father succeeded in enacting his plan to break me until he killed me… it would have been irrelevant if I survived.”
“Don’t say that!” His eyes narrow as if the thought alone turns him murderous—feral with rage.
I offer a small smile, etched in understanding. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t traumatize me, Mika. My kidnapping stripped me of my dignity, shattering my rose colored glasses. I’ve shed the naïve girl to survive and lost my capacity to trust people’s intentions. But what affected me most was that both you and my brother thought it broke me. That I wasn’t strong enough to overcome what happened, so I played the role.”
“Fuck,” he leans back, scrubbing a hand down his face.
I shrug, the weight on my shoulders dropping with every confession. “I don’t deny that I have been terrified for a long time, thinking someone would jump me and continue what Igor couldn’t.”
His hard, stormy stare pins me. “I would rather raid this world and spill humanity’s blood than allow that to ever happen again.”
He intertwines our fingers, both of us drawing strength from our connection.
“I know… thank you, but with time, I wanted you to see past that broken and scared girl, and see me as the woman who survived. Who, even when she had no choice, she chose to give herself to you. I wanted you so much, Mika, that I was blind to where we were and why you did that. You were raped too,” I choke out.
My eyes glisten with unshed tears. I’ve lived with this feeling of guilt and shame for so long.
Standing up, the chair topples over, and he gets on his knees by my side, taking my hands in his, looking ashen. “Baby girl…No.”
“But it feels like that. You didn’t want to kiss me, but you ended up having to take me anyway.”
That’s my greatest fear—his giving in this week is because of misplaced guilt.
Inhaling deeply, his chest expands with a ragged breath as his eyes bore into mine. “I wanted you, Dahlia. Even if I shouldn’t have. I wanted you so much that I punished myself by refusing to kiss someone so pure, so beautiful, so talented when I am a killer with no remorse, a sinner with no conscience, a monster in human appearance. I’ve never been ashamed of what I am, but in that moment, I wanted to be anyone else so I could selfishly take you. Not kissing you that day has haunted me.”
He wanted to kiss me, too? I stare at him in utter disbelief while my famished heart latches onto his confession with greedy, grabby little fingers.
His eyes glisten with potent emotions. “And then, the only beautiful dream I had got tainted by the world I was born into. When I took your virginity in that warehouse while my father taunted and his men cheered, all I could think of was to make it right by you.”
I sigh. “But not even a hundred more purses could do that.”
“You still like them.”
I roll my eyes at him. “That’s not the point. You don’t need to buy my forgiveness. There was nothing to forgive. You killed your father for me. I don’t know how you never hated me.”
“I could never hate you, baby girl,” he says so sincerely that another tear falls down my face.
“I always make you cry,” he says, lowering his head so I can sever his head in punishment.
