“So I can fuck any man, and you don’t care? Yet, you’d ‘kill for me’?”
She says, making quotation marks with her hands, clearly mocking my previous declaration.
I fold my arms over my chest and glare at her, as the gentle breeze blows through her hair.
“You asked about my brothers. Any other man that touches you, dies. I know I can’t give you everything you need, so I’m fine sharing you with Knox.”
“What about Killian?” She immediately replies, taking me aback considering the way those two get along, but I answer since she’s now mentioned him twice.
“Killian too, if it ever comes to that. If it’s anybody other than my brothers, I’ll fucking kill them, Little Heathen.”
She starts walking again, and I move quickly to close the gap between us.
“You’re never going to let me touch you, are you?” She asks, dejectedly. “Not even once you trust me?”
As we approach the water, I say, “Take a seat, Little Heathen. I’m going to try to explain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE HEATHEN
Isit on the big white rock with my hands under my thighs, and Carter sits beside me, both of us staring out at the water.
“Our father was a terrible man. He met my mom when she was a showgirl in Vegas. Long story short, he was violent with her. When she found out she was pregnant, she took off, not just for her life, but ours.”
Carter picks up a stone and tosses it into the water as he continues.
“We moved around a lot because he kept finding us. Finally, we were living in the mountains of Virginia, on a street with almost zero traffic. There had been no sign of him for months. My mom let her guard down. We were outside playing, and armed men surrounded us.”
I cover my mouth in horror as I gasp, “Your mother?”
He quickly shakes his head, abolishing any thoughts I had of the men harming her.
“We were three years old. One of the men scooped me up into his arms, looked at my mother and said, ‘He will pay the debt you owe’. I was little and didn’t know what he meant.”
I can’t help the tears that fall from my eyes as he tells me about the poor, helpless little boy he was.
“I’ll save you most of the details, but I was tortured and beaten bloody for two very long years, before I was left on the doorstep for her to find.”
“Carter,” I gasp, physically feeling his pain in my tightening chest.
He gazes at me and admits, “They kept asking what had been done to me, but I couldn’t tell them because I was too afraid to speak. And I didn’t speak a single word for six years. I screamed a lot, especially when someone touched me, but I couldn't form the words.”
I swipe at the tears on my cheeks and ask, “So you couldn’t tell them you didn’t want to be touched?”
He shakes his head, as if he’s trying to rid his brain of the painful memories.
“I couldn’t. Not even to my brothers. I was locked inside a prison my mind created. Looking back now, I think it was the only thing I could control. I was in the hospital for five months and wasn’t expected to survive. The doctors and nurses kept touching me, my mother too. And I understand now that’s what she needed to do for her own sake, and I’m sure she thought she was comforting me. It's a normal human response, but for me, it was fucking torture.”
“Are you close to her now?”
I spot a tear rolling down his cheek, and I have to physically fight myself to not throw my arms around him.
Carter takes a deep breath before answering me, skipping another rock across the water. “No. On our seventeenth birthday, we walked into the house after playing basketball with our friends, and found her hanging from the ceiling fan in her bedroom.”
“Holy shit, she committed suicide?” I ask, in disbelief.
Again, he shakes his head.
