I do as he says without hesitation. I sit down in the tub, with him sitting nearby. He places one of his hands in the tub to feel the water and groans.
“You’re lucky,” Soren tells me. “If I could get in this tub…”
“You’d what?” I ask him playfully. My heart is not pounding in my chest now that we’re not running for our lives. Well, not right at this second anyway.
“Pull you into my lap. Make sure you know how much I need you,” he explains. His hand brushes up the side of my arm.
I hum in delight at both his touch and the hot water that’s defrosting my chilly body. It tingles sort of like when a limb has fallen asleep. Slightly painful, but it starts to sink into my bones and truly warm me up.
“If you were not so wounded, I’d invite you,” I tell him with a sigh.
I lean back against the tub to relax more and close my eyes. After a moment, I feel Soren’s hands brush along my shoulders that are above the water. His fingers press against my muscles and massage along the side of my neck.
“Mm,” I hum quietly.
It’s like this for at least five minutes. Soren massages my neck and shoulders, and I melt into both his touch and the hot water. It’s silent, but not awkward or uncomfortable. It feels natural.
The sunlight is peaking in from the window above the bathtub, and my stomach I rumbling, but I’m more concerned with getting warmed up than anything else.
This hot bath is something I’ve needed for a while and I didn’t even realize it. A moment to just relax. I feel truly safe in Soren’s hands, even while knowing that there are people out there looking for us. To kill us.
They may technically be after Soren, but to get to him they’re going to have to get through me.
Briefly, I think about what we’re going to do if they do find us. Neither of us have our guns or phones. Then I take a breath and let it go. For now.
“Carmine?” Soren asks me.
I open my eyes slowly, and realize how difficult it is to do so. I could fall asleep right here. “Yes?”
“How did your mother die?” he asks me.
The question is sudden and my eyes widen in surprise for a moment; but I’m not truly shocked. After all, we don’t know nearly as much about each other as we should and my mother’s death is rarely spoken about. Kept as hush-hush as possible.
My jaw tightens. “The story my father gave was that she was attacked,” I tell him slowly. “That she was killed for the sake of revenge.”
The room feels smaller than it already is, and I fold my arms under the hot water. Soren brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and then down the back of my neck. His touch makes me close my eyes, but there I only see the blood. The blood…the darkness. The pain.
I swallow the lump in my throat down and continue. “I know the truth.”
“What’s the truth, Carm?” he asks me.
I take a deep breath. “She was attacked, but…it was three months before she died,” I explain in a low quiet tone. “My father was gone for the weekend, Mom decided to take us to the park. Only one guard came with us. I was arguing with Alessio when she was dragged into the bushes.”
My voice catches and my hands ball into fists. “She didn’t scream. Not even once. She was worried that he would hurt us. So, she waited until he was gone. We got there too late,” I look down at the water. “She never told me what he’d done exactly but…I knew. I knew becauseFatherwas doing the same thing to me. She wasn’t the same after that. She tried to be, but, no one looked at her the same, including him. She didn’t leave the house, and she asked me or Alessio to sit in the bathroom with her while she showered. She was terrified to be alone.”
My eyes burn with tears. “Then one morning…there she was. I found her. In the library. She’d slit her wrists and laid there bleeding out the entire night. No one had noticed. No one had even gone in there.” My voice is louder and rougher. My heart squeezes painfully in my chest.
I suck in a breath to settle myself and shake my head. “It was easier for my father to say she’d been killed than admit that she’d killed herself. That he had failed her. That we all had.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Soren whispers and leans down. His face brushes the top of my own. “I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to find her like that.”
I shake my head. “That was not the hard part. The hard part was knowing I could have saved her.”
Tears slide down my cheeks. “If I’d just gone to the library before bed like I always did, I might have found her, or stopped her.”
Soren is quiet as I cry softly.
“It’s my fault she’s gone.”
