Ryan’s face was white, and his fists were clenched in the blankets on each side of his body. I reached out and touched one of his fists in an effort to comfort him.
“It’s not that bad, baby. Nothing I can’t handle.”
A vein was pulsing in Ryan’s forehead.
“Not that bad? Cal, you’re talking about fuckingtorture.It’s bad… Why was he torturing you in this dream?”
I winced. He already looked like he wanted to kill someone. I didn’t think hearing the rest of my dream was going to help at all.
Seeming to understand why I was hesitating, he forced himself to relax, slid his hand up my chest, and cupped his hand around my nape.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I think talking about it will help. It might make it easier to sleep if you let the nightmares out of your head and into the open,” he murmured. Taking a shaky breath, I nodded.
I could do this. I could tell Ryan the truth.
“It was one of the first missions he sent me on where the victim wasn’t a killer themselves. She was… just a regular woman. She’d divorced a powerful man, and it pissed him off that she wanted to leave him, so he hired Apex to kill her. Damian chose me for the job.”
I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe through the guilt that was humming through my body. This was why I never asked questions when taking out marks. I didn’t want to know what they did or didn’t do to end up on my list.
This woman was my first lesson in that respect. I hadn’t thought of her in years… If I was being honest with myself, I think my mind repressed the memory.
“The way she begged me not to kill her…” My eyes flew open and met Ryan’s brandy gaze. I was expecting him to be looking at me like I was some kind of monster. But he wasn’t. There wasnothing but compassion and… something else I couldn’t put my finger on… but it was nice.
“I didn’t want to kill her.” I choked, and Ryan squeezed my hand gently, refusing to look anywhere but my face. “When I told Damian I couldn’t do it, he shot her in the face right in front of me, then he chained me to the bathtub for almost two weeks as punishment. It was the first time I had to suffer through recalibration.”
We stared at each other in the dark for several beats. I held my breath and waited for the outrage to come. I waited for him to tell me I was the devil, and he thought I was adisgusting,evil thing that killed innocent people.
Instead, he did something strange.
He glanced over my shoulder, and he seemed so focused that I glanced back to see if there was someone there—there wasn’t; the room was empty.
He smiled at me and brought my knuckles to his lips, leaving a gentle kiss on my hand.
“If she were here right now, she would want you to know that she forgives you, and she would want you to know that what happened wasn’t your fault. You were just a little boy. Damian is to blame,” Ryan said, and my lower lip trembled.
“You can’t know that…’
Ryan gave me a strange, sad smile and kissed my fingers again. “Sure I do. I have a sense about these things.” He winked. Ignoring my baffled expression, he tapped me on the hip and jerked his head to the side.
“Lie down, angel,” he whispered. Feeling like I was in some sort of dream or alternate reality, I slid off his legs and lay down on my back next to him.
He slipped under my arm and rested his head on my chest, tangling his legs with mine.
“You’re never going back there,” he whispered, kissing me gently on my peck, right over the bandaid that covered up my brand.
“We’ll see.” I hummed, feeling choked up andso fucking luckyto have this perfect man cuddled up in my arms.
“No, Callum. You arenevergoing back there. I will kill him myself if I have to,” he growled, causing me to let out a low chuckle as I stroked his soft, citrus-scented hair. I placed a kiss on the top of his head and squeezed him tighter against me.
“My brave, brave, ginger snap.” I smiled as my eyes fluttered closed.
“I’m serious, Cal. I won’t let him hurt you. You’re safe now.”
Ryan’s words floated around me like feathers on a balmy summer breeze. Even though I knew he couldn’t protect me from the demons that held my chains, it was nice to have someone care about me enough to want to try.
Ilistened to Cal’s breathing level out, and his heartbeat slowed down as he fell back asleep. There was no way I would be sleeping tonight. Not with the insane amount of rage that was coursing through my veins.
I’d done my best to keep my cool while Cal opened up to me about some of the trauma that ass fuck had inflicted on him as a child, but I needed to fucking hit something.
