His jaw hardens into a harsh line, and I expect him to crush his teeth. “Were you in any capacity capable of giving your consent?”
And we’re back to that.
“No, that?—”
“Exactly.”
“You had to do what you had to do,” I press. He’s stubborn, but so am I.
He shakes his head, eyes narrowing into slits as if he could go back in time and slaughter them before they got me. “I should have known.”
“What? That my father was an asshole, that your father was set on revenge?” I sigh, my voice turning softer. “You saved me. I would have been a wreck if those men had raped me. Even after years, I hear their taunting, I see your agony.”
He whips his head to me, the ghosts of the past making an appearance. “That was never supposed to happen.”
I hold his gaze. “Well, it did.”
Silence crashes between us like a thunderbolt splitting the earth’s crust and causing black smoke to emerge. I blow out a deep breath, wanting to dissipate the dark fog. “I lost my virginity to you in that warehouse while your father and his men watched. I can’t change that. You can’t change that.”
“I killed them,” he says matter-of-factly, as if I could ever forget, my mind wandering back to that time.
When my captors were too busy talking about what they would do to me over a game of poker, waiting for the moment Mika would get bored with fucking me, he stealthily picked up a rifle and riddled their bodies with bullets. The ones who survived the hail of bullets, he slaughtered with a spiky steel baton, leaving his father for last, who spat in his face and called him a traitor, cursing him with his last breath.
I stood up on shaky legs after three days with my dress and innocence in shreds—dirty, malnourished, in physical discomfort and emotional pain as Mika towered over the ten corpses, dripping with blood, with spite etched in his icy stare.
Each ragged breath rang in the eerie warehouse. He emerged like an angel of justice. It was the moment my love for him cemented in my soul.
I called his name, and he immediately snapped out of the violent trance, rushing to me. I just knew I needed him like I knew he needed me—to pull him back, tether him to me after what he did. It became my duty to carry some of the burden, to ease the betrayal, the guilt, the killing of his kin to save me.
He wrapped his arms around me like I was his anchor to this world.
“You killed for me. I’ll live for you, Mika,” I sobbed into his chest, wishing to melt into him, overwhelmed by a mix of sorrow and guilt and so much love.
“I killed for you. I live for you. You understand?”
Through blurry eyes, I nodded, understanding viscerally what he meant. “Whatever happens, we’ll always have each other.”
With utmost care, he carried me to his car, repeatingI’m so fucking sorrya hundred times. Then he set the warehouse on fire.
That should have been the end of their brotherhood, prompting another cycle of revenge. But I made Mika promise he would never speak of what happened, letting my brother believe the worst. Together, they haunted my supposed aggressors, hiding my father and his involvement.
My father was responsible for his mother’s death, his sister being raised by strangers and turned into the assassin of the man who was my father’s accomplice. His father sought revenge by using and abusing me. The only thing he didn’t consider was Mika.
We both listened to his father tell the sordid story. Even though it wasn’t my fault, I felt responsible for the tainted blood coursing through my veins. I thought death would cleanse me of my family’s sins.
Instead, he killed his own to save me.
“Thank you,” I murmur, not even knowing for what I am grateful exactly. For saving me or not making me live without him. It’s irrelevant.
“I never had much of a choice when it came to you,” he confesses, the corners of his mouth arching into a smile cast in acceptance.
That’s his truth—an immutable fact.
“If you could, would you change it?” I whisper.
He flicks a hand through the air. “You know me better than to ask me irrelevant questions.”
I look out the window as the setting sun paints this vacant land in oranges, blues, and violets. Nature doesn’t care about your turmoil, at all.
