It won’t come off. That feeling of other people’s hands on me. Men’s hands. Their spit. Their semen. No matter how hard I scrub at my skin, it won’t fucking come off.
“Shit. Sera! What the fuck are you doing?”
I jumped when I heard Enzo’s voice. “I can’t get clean.” Desperately, I looked up at him through the clear glass door of the shower. “I can’t get clean!” My voice rose in panic.
He opened the door and grabbed my unhurt wrist, stopping my frantic movements. “What the fuck is this? What is this?” Wrestling the loofah out of my hand, he brought it to his nose. “What’s on here?”
I started to cry as he searched the bottles in the shower until he found the bleach cleanser I’d found under the bathroom sink that I was now using as soap.
“Get under the water,” he ordered as he took off his shoes and socks.
“But I’m not clean!”
“Under the fucking water, Sera.” Fully clothed in jeans and a T-shirt, he got into the shower with me, taking up so much space he forced me to move back under the spray.
“I’m not clean,” I sputtered as the water rushed over my head and down my face and body.
“You’re not dirty,” he ground out, and I looked up to find honesty in his dark eyes. “Sera, you are not dirty.” But no matter what he believed, he was wrong. I would never feel clean again. And it had nothing to do with how many times I showered.
I felt the screams begin to rise inside of me and I tried with everything I had to suppress them, to think about something else. I was here now, with Enzo. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Not again. I wasn’t in that house anymore. I was back in Texas. In Austin. Enzo had saved me. Everything was okay.
It didn’t work. Like a volcano that had lain dormant for too long, they pushed and swelled inside of me until they were leaking through the seam of my lips, no matter how hard I tried to keep them inside.
“Sera, look at me. LOOK at me.”
Desperate now, I pressed my lips tighter together and found his eyes. They locked onto mine and wouldn’t let me go.
“You’re not in that house anymore. You’re with me. You’re safe.” His voice was low and soothing, and I concentrated on what he was telling me. “Part of what’s going on with you is that you’re coming down off the drugs they gave you, and things might be a little crazy until they wear off completely. That’s to be expected when they’re given to you so consistently for so many days in a row.”
I had no idea if that was true or if he was feeding me a bunch of bullshit, but I hung onto his words like they were a lifeline.
“Are you hearing me?”
I nodded my head and tried to answer him, but I was afraid to open my mouth. He took my face in his hands and kept talking to me. He pointed out things for me to look at, things for me to touch, placing my hands on his chest over the wet fabric of his T-shirt. Kissing the palms of my hands. The inside of my wrists until the panic inside of me began to subside.
I flinched when he innocently twisted the one my captor had yanked on. Enzo caught the movement and stilled. “Are you hurt?”
“Just my wrist,” I whispered, trying to hold it up.
A murderous rage came into his expressive eyes as he eyed the developing bruises. “Who did that to you?”
“It was just an accident.”
“Did you fall on it?”
Unable to look at him, I shook my head. I hadn’t fallen. But I don’t think he’d meant to hurt me.
“Someone hurt you.” It wasn’t a question.
“It was an accident,” I repeated. “I don’t think he meant to do it. He was just trying to get me up, and the drugs…” I trailed off.
“Who was it, Sera?” His voice was deceptively calm.
“I didn’t know his name, but I think he’s dead now,” I told him, and frowned. “I think you killed him.” I paused. “He never really hurt me before. Not that I can remember. He worked in the house. Dealt with the…” Rapists. “…customers. But I’m still glad he’s dead.”
He didn’t say anything for a really long time. Beneath my palms, I could feel his body vibrating with anger that I wasn’t capable of feeling yet, although I’m sure it would come. However, right now, I couldn’t feel anything other than the residues of panic. Leaving my hands on his shirt, he rubbed my upper arms. “How you doing?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re still shaking,” he told me. Then he suddenly changed the subject. “Tell me about what your life was like growing up.”
I frowned. “W-What?” My skin burned where I’d scrubbed myself and his hands hurt where he touched me, but I felt like he was the only thing keeping me from falling down the spiral of my hysteria.
He picked up the bottle of shampoo and squeezed some into his palm. “Growing up. I wanna know what you were like when you were a little girl.” Lathering it up in his hands, he started washing my hair. “What’s your natural hair color?”
“My hair?” I was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
“Yeah, your hair. Is it blonde? Red? Brown?”
“Um…” I tried to think back. “It was really light when I was little. But then it turned kind of dishwater blonde when I was a teenager.”
“How long have you been coloring it?”
My eyes closed as his strong fingers massaged my scalp. “I didn’t. Not until I came here.”
“And you chose pink. Lean your head back.”
I did as he told me, grateful to have someone else take over the task of washing me because it was everything I could do right now just to keep my panic in check. “I like pink.”
“I like pink, too,” he said quietly. “Especially on you.”
Once the shampoo was rinsed, he conditioned my hair as I stood there like some kind of broken doll, moving only when he directed me to do so. The entire time, he talked, keeping me distracted and not allowing my mind to wander too much. He asked me questions. Told me stories about things he and his friends had done when they were younger that sounded too outrageous to be real.
“Your clothes are getting wet.”
He blew off my concern. “They’ll dry,” he said.
I looked at this man, a man I barely knew, really. A man who was hard and dangerous. A killer. And yet, here he stood in the shower with me as I fought not to break into a million pieces, taking care of me. He’d found me all the way in Mexico. And not only that, he’d come after me himself and brought me home. I knew he’d killed everyone who was in that house, and I didn’t care. I was glad.
What kind of person did that make me?
“Ready to get out?”
I blinked, pulling myself from my thoughts. “Yeah.” The water was starting to cool down, and I shivered.
Enzo reached around me to shut off the water, and I inhaled his dark forest scent, already so familiar to me. It smelled like home.
I was home.
Out of nowhere, I burst into tears.
“Hey, hey. What’s this?”
“I’m s-sorry.” I tried to get control of myself, but all I could do was stand there, naked and cold, with my wet hair hanging over my face as violent sobs wracked my body.
Without another word, Enzo opened the shower door and grabbed a white towel off the towel rack. He let me cry as he dried me off, starting with my hair and then working his way down my body. Despite his previous aggressive behavior toward me, I didn’t feel nervous or threatened.
I felt…cared for.
When I was wrapped in the large towel, he held my hand and helped me step out of the shower. Then I waited as he pulled off his wet shirt and jeans and threw them back into the shower. In only his wet boxer briefs, he placed a hand on my lower back and led me into the bedroom. “Do you wanna get dressed?”
Sniffling, I nodded my head.
“Okay, why don’t you do that while I dry off and take care of my wet clothes. Then we’ll eat.” Grabbing some dry clothes for himself, he took them back into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, leaving it cracked a few inches. I heard the shower come on again.
On shaky legs, I walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge near the nightstand. There was a box of tissues there, and I grabbed a bunch and blew my nose. Then I used the towel to clean up my face. I felt better. Calmer. I guess losing my shit for a few minutes wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
By the time Enzo came out, with wet hair and in clean jeans and a T-shirt, I was dressed in the T-shirt and yoga pants his boss had brought for me and sitting in the other room. There was no underwear, no bra, but I was okay with that. He’d gotten me butternut squash soup and crusty bread with butter from somewhere, and it was so good it almost made me start crying again. “Thank you for the soup,” I told him when he joined me on the couch. He was a big guy, and he made me feel tiny sitting beside him. My eyes felt swollen and my voice was ragged from crying, but the violent urge to scream was little more than a tickle in my gut.
“How’s the soup?” Taking the lid off of the other container that was in the bag, he brought it to his nose and sniffed. “Smells good.”
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
He gave me a look. “I’ll bet it is.” Then he set his container down on the coffee table and braced his elbows on his knees, hanging his head.
I set my own soup down. “What’s wrong?”
It took him a minute to answer me, and when he did, it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. He took a deep breath, and then tilted his head to look at me, and I was struck by the power of emotion in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” he told me simply. “That it took me so long to find you.”
I just stared at him for a moment. “Enzo—”
He cut me off. “No. You were under my protection, and I failed you. And I want you to know that I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Something stirred deep within my chest. “But you did find me, and you got me out of there. There’s no need to be sorry. I’m very grateful to you.”
He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up all over his head even more so than normal. He didn’t seem to believe me.
“Enzo, it wasn’t your fault. You tried to tell me to stay where I was until you could get to me, and I didn’t listen. What happened isn’t on you.” It was on me. It was all my own fault. I should’ve listened to him. I should’ve stayed in my car at the club until the security guard came out to walk me inside. I shouldn’t have left my cell phone in my bag. There were so many reasons I could put the blame on myself, and not one where I should put the blame on him.
His voice was gruff. “It won’t happen again.”
“Okay,” I told him.
We sat quietly staring at each other for a bit, silently saying things neither one of us was ready to say out loud, until he broke the silence. “Eat your soup and bread. You’ve lost too much weight.”
Too tired to argue with him, I picked up my container. Once he was satisfied I was eating, Enzo did the same.
“So, what’s going to happen now?” I asked him when I couldn’t eat another bite.
“We can stay here for a few days. Give you a little time to adjust. On Monday, I have to report back to Luca’s and you’re coming with me. He has a large house. It’s where I stay when I’m not here. And now that he knows about you, I want you there with me where I can protect you and be there if you need anything.” He paused, as though he expected me to argue with him. And the Sera he knew before might have done just that. But this Sera really didn’t want to be left alone. I also didn’t want to go back to Jade’s and try to explain everything that had happened. As far as she knew, I was long gone. And it was safer for her to keep believing that.
When he saw I didn’t have any objections, he continued. “Once we get to Luca’s, we’ll discuss what we’re going to do about your father.”
“Will I have any say in that?”
He paused. “Not much, no.”
I almost laughed. I should’ve known better than to even ask. It wasn’t how things were done in the mafia world. A world run by men and their whims, with very few exceptions.
But he must’ve seen what I was thinking on my face. “I’ll do what I can, Sera. But that’s all I can promise you.”
“I get it,” I told him. “But you know that’s bullshit. I’m not a child, and it’s my life. I should have a say in it.”
He got up from the couch and picked up our empty soup containers, putting them back in the plastic bag they came in and setting them outside the door in the hall to be picked up by hotel staff. He didn’t argue with me. Didn’t try to defend the men he worked with.
And he was right to hold his tongue. There was nothing to argue about. The world of the mafia was the way it was. And me bitching about it wasn’t going to do anything to change it.
Coming to stand in front of me, he put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “It’s late, and you should get some sleep.”
Again, he was right. I was exhausted. However, the thought of sleep wasn’t a comforting one.
“I can sleep out here on the couch,” he said.
I felt the weight of his stare on me as I thought about that. Did I want him to sleep out here, leaving me alone in the bedroom? No. I didn’t think I did. “No, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem. And it won’t be the first time I’ve slept on this couch.”
But I shook my head. “I don’t want to be by myself,” I confessed.
He studied me for a long time. “Okay,” he finally said. “Then let’s go to bed.”
I stood up, and rubbed my sweaty palms on the front of my pant legs. “Enzo…” I didn’t know how to say what I needed to tell him.
But he just said, “I know. It’s okay.”
I released the breath I didn’t realize I was holding as relief washed over me. I didn’t want to be alone, but I also didn’t think I was ready for what he would want from me.
“It’s okay,” he repeated softly. “Let’s get some sleep. And we can talk some more in the morning.”
I walked ahead of him into the bedroom. Despite his reassurance, I was nervous. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”
“There’s a new one in my travel bag under the sink.”
Shutting the door behind me, I found the toothbrush and brushed my teeth. My hair was still damp, so I used Enzo’s comb to untangle it. The bathroom smelled like bleach, as did I. The skin on my arms was bright red.
Setting down the comb, I lifted the T-shirt I was wearing. My stomach and breasts were red too. Everything still burned.
Maybe it would burn away a few layers of skin so I wouldn’t have to carry their touch with me everywhere I went.
Tugging down my shirt, I finished up and left the safety of the bathroom.
Enzo was sitting on the side of the bed, waiting. When I came out, he stood and came to me. Taking a strand of my hair between his fingers, he rubbed them together. “So soft,” he murmured. Leaning down, he pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head. Then he released my hair and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
I got into bed, still fully dressed. Taking a deep breath, I released it on a heavy exhale, feeling some of the tension finally leaving my body as I sank into the soft mattress. The white sheets and gray comforter smelled clean and were soft on my raw skin. I pulled them up around my neck, trying to get warm.
Enzo came out a few minutes later. I watched him walk around the bed so he could sleep closest to the door. He took off his jeans and shirt and laid them on the chair near the window, leaving on his boxer briefs, then he climbed into bed and turned off the lamp beside the bed. Rolling over, he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into the curve of his body.
My heart sped up, and I stiffened when I felt something long and hard against my ass. “Enzo—”
“Shhh…I just wanna hold you, that’s all.”
He held me tight against him, his arm heavy on my ribs and his hand spread wide over my chest above my breasts, his fingers on my collarbone. I was sure he could feel my heart racing.
I laid there for a long time, my body strung tight, feeling his hard chest rise and fall against my back with his steady breaths, until I gradually began to relax and my eyes started to grow heavy.
I wasn’t sure if I was awake or dreaming when I heard him say, “Don’t ever leave me again, Sera.”
With a sigh, I sank into sleep until the screams rose inside of me again.
