Page 76 of Lust and Honor

I carry her to the cute little playhouse in the corner of the room. Sitting on the floor, I wipe her tears. “He shouldn’t have done that, sweetheart. But you also can’t touch his things without asking.”

“He’s a bad boy.”

I kiss her flushed cheeks and squeeze her tighter against my chest. My heart is shattering from the pain.

Last night, I told Maxim I needed sleep, but the truth is, I didn’t close my eyes for a second. The black ghosts of my past crawled out of their graves to hunt me down. Memories I’d buried deep in my mind now surge back with brutal force. My mother’s face won’t leave me for even a moment, her beautiful, innocent face, always bruised and battered. Her muffled screams when Nico raped her.

I remember her tragic life. Her tragic death. And suddenly, I realize that all these years, I’ve been so focused on surviving, I forgot to grieve for her. Now the grief is raw and fresh, heavier than the last twelve years without her.

But worse than the suffocating sorrow crushing me is the rage pumping through my veins. Rage at the justice denied her. Rage at the easy death handed to a heartless monster like Nico. He shouldn’t have died so clean. He should’ve lived, and suffered. He should’ve begged for death. He should’ve regretted what he did to my mother.

But now those chances are gone. I can’t bring him back just to kill him again. If there were any way to do it, I’d sell my soul to the devil to resurrect Nico. I’d bring him back just so I could kill him myself. So I could burn the hands that hurt my mother in acid. I’d make him pay for every sin, taking God’s place as his judge and executioner.

But that’s never going to happen. And the truth is eating away at my soul like rot.

“Mama, braid my hair.”

I wipe her runny nose with a tissue and kiss her again, then sit her in front of me and start sectioning her hair.

The memories flood back. It’s like I’m the one sitting on the floor, my mother braiding my hair. Each braid I weave pulls out another memory of her, and the air grows heavier. By the time I finish Aurora’s braid and tie it with an elastic band, I can barely breathe.

I step out of the little playhouse and turn to Ines with a hoarse voice. “Can you watch her?”

She must sense something’s wrong because her eyes fill with concern and she nods quickly. I open the door and run down the stairs without slowing. I hear someone call my name, but I ignore it and burst outside. I don’t even glance at the armed men stationed around the house and head straight for the forest.

Even though it’s just past noon, dark clouds have turned the sky grim. I don’t know how far I’ve gone when I finally stop by a tree. I brace one hand against it, bending forward, the other pressed to my chest as I struggle to breathe.

The sounds ripping out of me barely sound human; short, broken, anguished wails. Thunder rumbles across the sky as the first raindrop strikes my face. That’s when the sob finally breaks free. The dam inside me shatters, and the air I desperately gulp down tears out of me as a raw, guttural scream

The sky roars and pours, and so do I, but it’s not enough to purge the rage. I clench my fist and slam it into the tree. I don’t care that it tears my skin. The pain ripping through me doesn’t matter. I just keep punching, once, twice, and on the third hit, instead of bark scraping my knuckles, I strike something solid.

I open my eyes.

It’s Maxim.

He’s placed himself between me and the tree, staring at me. His hair is soaked, water streaming from his forehead down his face.

I slam my bloody hand against his chest. “You promised he’d suffer. You promised.”

I hit him, I slap him, and he takes it all without moving a muscle or saying a word. I keep hitting him until my arms give out, until the fight drains from my body, leaving me limp. Maxim catches me as I collapse and lifts me into his arms. My eyes shut tight, and I let him carry me.

When the sting of raindrops stops, I open them again. We’re in a cabin. He lays me on a bed and pulls a thick blanket over me. Then he walks to the fireplace, kneels in front of it, and lights a fire. After that, he stays there on the wooden floor, watching me quietly before he speaks.

“Thirty-five years ago, my mother, Katrina, a trafficked woman stolen from Ukraine, gave birth to me in this cabin.”

My eyebrows lift in shock. Maxim’s mother was trafficked? I wrap the blanket tighter around myself and sit up. Seeing my attention, he keeps going.

“At the time, Carlo’s grandfather, Don Francesco, was the Capo of the Bruni syndicate. Back then, human trafficking was just another business. They kidnapped innocent girls from across Europe and sold them into hell for money. Just like your father did. I later learned that Don Francesco gifted my mother to one of his most loyal soldiers. Leonardo Scavia. My bastard father.”

His jaw clenches, his fist tight as he stares into the fire.

“Our childhoods weren’t so different, Ava. My earliest memories are of my mother screaming in this same cabin. My father raped her, and when he got bored, he passed her to the other soldiers like she was nothing. Fucking filthy pigs.”

He falls silent, and I choke back a sob for the woman who endured such horrors. He looks at my face and continues his story.

“It was a rainy night. I was eight. I’d known for a long time what my mother was suffering. I’d fought the men who came for her so many times, taken so many beatings, that she decided to save my life by taking my hand and escaping this hell. But we didn’t even make it a hundred meters. My father hunted us down. The last image I have of her is her battered face as six men dragged her back into this cabin. By morning, she was dead.”

I can’t hold the sob back anymore, tears streaming down my face. I push the blanket aside and move to him. Sitting beside him, I bury my face in the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry.”