Suddenly something in my snaps. I look up at Damian and glare at him as the simmering anger from before boils over in my chest and out of my mouth.
“You don’t even know what happened,” I sneer. “You find pictures and you think you know everything about my family, but you don’t.”
“Tell me then,” Damian says, his eyes still wet.
My own eyes burn with tears that I’m trying desperately to hold back.
“How am I supposed to trust you?” I ask him. “How do I know you won’t just take anything I tell you right back to Eivor?”
Damian steps ever closer and puts his hands on my shoulders, but I pull away from him. “Don’t touch me!” I hiss. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Damian puts his hands up, and now that he’s not touching me, I wish he was. I want to step forward and throw myself against his chest. Feel his strong arms wrap around me.
I don’t for some reason. Perhaps pride.
“I burned the photos,” Damian reassures me. “I would never give Eivor that.”
My fingers twitch and I feel like I can hardly stand on my own two feet, but the emotion inside me is keeping me upright.
“How do I know that?” I ask him, my voice breaking.
Damian’s lashes catch a few of his tears. “Alessio,” he says lowly. “I swear on everything I believe in; I would never hand that or anything else, over to that man. I thought I could work for him, that it would be like any other job, but I was wrong.”
“What changed?” I ask him, my lips quivering.
“You,” he says confidently. “I met you.”
Damian reaches out and almost touches my cheek but doesn’t. I can still feel the heat of his hand from this close distance, and I can’t help but lean in closer to press my jawline against his palm.
“I saw what your father did to you, and I saw the pain on your face. On your brother’s face. I saw what no child should ever have to experience. No person,” he tells me.
“You wouldn’t have even known if you hadn’t betrayed my trust in the first place,” I remind him, and myself. I pull away from his touch.
The tears welling up in my eyes are growing heavier and heavier.
“I know,” Damian agrees. “I can’t change that, but I will never give Eivor even a single word of information that he could ever use against you. I promise you that.”
A sob forms in my chest and I nearly let it out. I squeeze my eyes closed and several tears drip down my cheeks.
“He never hurt me,” I tell Damian.
“What?” he asks, his voice laced with confusion.
I suck in a deep breath. “My father. He never hurt me… At least not like Carmine. He took pictures of me. I remember them. I remember not understanding what was happening, and I remember feeling so…uncomfortable. He just told me it was what good boys did.”
Damian doesn’t speak, he just looks at me.
“But…he never touched me,” I explain slowly. “Not like he did Carmine. We don’t talk about it, but… I know what he would do at night with him. I know how fucked up our father was.”
“You didn’t deserve what he did,” Damian tells me. “Whether he touched you or not. He hurt you too.”
“He hurt Carmine more,” I whisper. “And I never said anything.” I swallow the tight lump in my throat and take a step back from him.
“Oh, God. Why am I telling you this?” I wave a hand. “I shouldn’t be telling you anything!”
“You can talk to me,” Damian insists.
I shake my head. “No. No I can’t. I can’t trust you. You came here to get this out of me, didn’t you?” I accuse him. “Everything we did together…it was just to get me to trust you.”
