Page 53 of King of War

Oh, wow! Now he wants to know. “What?”

“I want to know what happened.”

“I’m not opening up those old wounds now, Enzo.” I go to walk past him, to grab the helmet and put it back on, but he stops me, his hand circling my wrist.

“I deserve to know, Rayne,” he growls.

My anger is almost blinding, and it’s terrifying in its urgent intensity, boiling up from the place where I’ve buried it for too long. “No, Enzo. I owe you nothing!” I shriek. “You made up your mind about what happened a long time ago, and you never once asked me. Not once. The time to talk to me was six years ago. I begged you to let me explain, and you shut me down, listening to everyone but me.”

I brace myself, expecting my own anger to be met by his equally fervent rage. Instead, his grip softens and his dark eyes fill with a pain and sadness that I can barely stand to look at. He draws in a breath. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. But I’m asking you now, to please tell me.”

His apology almost takes my legs from under me. But it changes nothing. I shake my head. “You won’t believe me anyway, so what’s the point?”

The vein on the underside of his jaw pulses. “You were right, okay, about me acting on my instincts. I was angry with you, with Tommy, and I let that cloud everything. I know what I saw with my own eyes, Rayne, but I also know that there must have been more. You loved me, I know that too. But you’re hiding something from me, and I want to know what it is.”

“Maybe I’m hiding it for good reason, Enzo.” That would be an understatement. I glance at the cliff edge and mentally note how easy it would be for him to throw me off it. Clean. No strings. It’s what his father would have done. “It will only cause us both more pain. Can’t we just let it go? Just let me go.”

His face twists in agony. “I can’t fucking let it go, Rayne. You were everything to me. Every-fucking-thing. Tommy was my best friend, more than that, he was like a brother to me. You tore out my fucking heart.”

“You think my heart wasn’t torn to shreds, Enzo!” I screech at him, hot, salty tears streaming down my cheeks. “I did nothing wrong, and I lost everything too.”

“You did nothing wrong? Are you fucking serious? You fucked my best friend.”

“No, I did not!” I scream back at him, the truth shaking out of me violently after all of the years of holding it in. All those years of protecting this man right here from a truth that would have destroyed him as it almost destroyed me. His jaw works, eyes narrow, and I’m sure he’s considering the merits of the whole throwing me off a cliff scenario. Instead, he releases his grip on my wrist and takes a step back, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth like he’s trying to calm himself down.

Then he rolls back his shoulders and looks into my eyes. “Then tell me what happened that day. Explain it to me.”

I blink at him, shocked by his request. No not by that, but by the way he asked me. Visibly working to calm himself down and speak to me without anger in his voice.

“Please. Tell me why you came back here, and what I’ll find on that fucking video recording.”

The video. My knees buckle, but he’s faster than I am. He catches me before I hit the ground, then he gently lowers me into a seated position before sitting beside me, sending a cloud of red clay dust swirling around us. “What will I find, Rayne?”

A sob sticks in my throat, and I swallow past it to say, “It’s just a video.”

He visibly bristles, but he does a good job of keeping a lid on his temper still. “A video of you and Tommy?”

I’ve hidden this truth from him for so long. He killed Tommy for something he didn't do, and I know it will destroy him to find out the truth. But knowing the Medicis like I do, I’m certain they’ll find that video. He’s going to find out anyway. May as well rip that band aid off now.

I shake my head. “No, not Tommy. Ethan.”

“Ethan? His brother Ethan?”

My stomach rolls and acrid bile surges up in my throat. I swallow it down, balking at the bitter aftertaste, and then I nod, incapable of words.

His eyes blow wide, his mouth hanging open as he processes what I just told him. “You fucked Ethan?”

It seems like the whole world stops spinning on its axis. Particles of red dust freeze in the air. The sun stops setting. Every single ounce of guilt, regret, shame, sadness, and the rage of millennia of women who have been held down and humiliated by men rushes up inside me, burning so hot and fiercely in my chest that I sway with the strength of it. “I did not fuck anyone, Enzo. He raped me!” I scream the words, letting the universe herself bear witness to the secret I’ve carried for far too long. The shame I have carried with me—a load that was never mine to bear.

He reels backward, like the words themselves are living entities that have punched him square in the jaw. He sucks in deep breaths, his usually tanned skin ashen and his eyes wild. For an eternity, he says nothing. He just stares.

His body vibrates with the effort of holding himself together. His jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind. One hand lifts toward me, then stops halfway, fingers curling into a fist before he lets it fall uselessly to his side. Like he wants to reach for me but he knows he has no right. Then his beautiful dark eyes fill with tears, and I can’t stand to see his pain when mine is still spilling out onto the ground between us. I don’t want him to make any too-late apologies, or say the words he should have spoken six years ago, so I look away.

He doesn’t offer me any apologies though, nor false platitudes. “Please tell me what happened.”

I look down at the ground. “I can’t.”

“Rayne,” his voice cracks and so does my resolve. “Please.”