“Alannah?”
My heart just about stopped as apprehension filled me.
“I’m in the sittin’ room.”
I turned my eyes from the window to Damien when he entered the room, and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to run to him. I missed him so much it hurt, but before the possibility of a reconciliation could happen, we needed to talk.
“Sit down.”
He did just that on the settee facing me.
“Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” he said, clasping his hands together as he rested his elbows on his knees. “I know how hard it is for you.”
“Talkin’ to you isn’t hard,” I said. “It’s one of the easiest things to do. The hardest is hearin’ what you have to say.”
“I know, baby.”
My heart yearned for him the second he called me baby.
“I’m goin’ to listen to whatever you have to say with an open-mind, so don’t dilute anythin’.”
“I won’t,” Damien answered. “I told you when you were ready that I’d tell you everything, and I’m going to do that.”
I nodded and waited.
My heart thrummed in my chest.
“My parents were murdered by a man called Marco Miles,” Damien said with his eyes locked on mine. “My dad was Marco’s best friend and had been since they were kids. They started up their empire from scratch and grew it from the ground up. They had links to most likely every mafia family in and out of the States, every drug cartel known to man, and others that were unknown, and they had the law in their back pocket for decades.”
Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe.
“My brothers and I grew up in a lifestyle that was nothing like yours. We were treated like princes and got whatever our hearts desired because of who our dad was. Escorts were servicing me and Dominic from the time we were thirteen; the first onces were actually a birthday gift from our brothers. Our lives were a blur up until my mom and dad got killed just after my and Dominic’s fifteenth birthday.”
Damien’s leg began to bob up and down as he spoke.
“My dad crossed Marco, looking to get some extra money on a drug deal, so Marco had my dad and mom killed. They were best friends, had known each other their whole lives, but my dad’s greed for money and power changed him, made him hollow… evil. My mom was no better; the only thing she loved was money and materialistic things. I didn’t lie to you about that; she and my dad were cold to me and my brothers.”
My heart hurt for him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry you were raised by loveless parents; I hurt for you knowin’ that.”
Damien cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
I leaned back in the chair and waited.
“For a long time after my parents died”—he sighed—“I convinced myself that I didn’t love my brothers.”
My lips parted in shock.
“I have always been the affectionate brother,” he continued. “I was always the one who craved my parents’ love and attention, and when they didn’t give it to me, I’d do crazy things to get it. After they were murdered, I was so lost in grief that I was terrified of losing any of my brothers, so I pretended I didn’t love them. That way if I did lose them, it wouldn’t hurt. I told myself I tolerated them because they were my flesh and blood. It made me a nasty son of a bitch to be around at times. Because of that, I never let anyone close. I had sex with a lot of different women because it was the only connection that I could control. I was hollow inside … until I met you.”
I swallowed.
“Back on the compound, we grew up with Marco’s nephews, Trent and Carter. Carter was around us a lot, but he was the opposite of Trent. He was a loner and never seemed into anything that happened in the compound. Dominic, Trent, and I were practically best friends at one point. The only difference between us was he enjoyed when people were beat up and tortured. When our dad and his uncle made us participate in punishing someone, he loved it, said it helped build character.”
I curled my lip in disgust.
“We hated it too,” Damien said, noting my reaction. “We didn’t want the life our dad had provided for us if it came along with the things we hated. The day our parents were murdered, Dominic and I were going to tell them we wanted to leave, but after they died, I refused to leave. I felt connected to the place since I no longer had them.”
I understood that. His grief made him latch onto the thing his parents cared about most, that poxy compound and horrid lifestyle.
“Trent was bad for me to be around when I was in the state of mind of wanting to feel no pain, the only person who glanced me out was Nala.”
I exhaled a breath. “Nala?”
“My girlfriend at the time,” Damien said then quickly added, “I don’t want to hurt you by talking about her, but you need to hear about her to understand everything. To understand me.”
In that moment, I was so thankful that I didn't give Barbara the name Nala.
“I told you, don’t dilute anythin’.”
Damien nodded. “I met Nala when we were ten. She had just moved into the compound with her dad, and we hit it off straight away. She followed me and Dominic everywhere, and I never minded because I had a crush her. I asked her to date me when we were thirteen, she said yes, and we were together up until she was murdered.”
My hand flung over my mouth.
“Oh, Da-Damien,” I stammered. “I’m so sorry.”
He clasped his hands tighter together.
“Before that happened, we were pretty inseperable, but after my parents died, I began to pull away from her, too. I loved her, or at least as much as a thirteen-year-old could love someone. She took my pulling away from her hard, and Trent was there with his shoulder for her to lean on. Two weeks after my parents died, I was having a really bad day, and Trent made the mistake of kissing Nala. I attacked him and beat the shit out of him. He became hostile and brought my parents into the fight, saying they deserved to be dead for what they had done. He wished I was dead along with them, and that caused Dominic to snap. It was the first time I saw him fight, and it scared me how hard and fast he could hit another person.”
My stomach fluttered with nerves.
“I was annoyed with Dominic for stepping in to defend me when I could do it myself, so I got him off Trent and intended to whoop him on my own, but he pulled a gun. If Nala hadn’t jumped on Trent’s back to distract him, he would have shot me. I saw it in his eyes, he was going to do it. I got the gun from him, thanks to Nala.”
He clenched his teeth together.
“When I think about that night, I can still hear Dominic plead and cry with me to throw the gun away because we weren’t our dad, and I wished I had listened to him. Because what I did ruined my brothers’ lives. I shot Trent, and when he hit the ground, he stopped moving. Blood was everywhere, and shit passed by in a blur after that.”
I began to chew on my nails.
“I knew what I had done would mean I would have to die. That’s just how it works, a life for a life. At the time, I was prepared to accept that. I felt so torn up over my parents, over the fact that I had turned out just like my dad, that I was willing to die just to escape everything. Ryder met with Marco, and I wasn’t dumb as to what it was about. If Marco killed me, he knew my brothers would retaliate, so they both discussed it until they reached a decision.”
“The life debt,” I concluded. “Morgan said your brothers started to work for Marco to pay off your life debt.”
“Yes,” Damien answered. “They cut me out of the deal to protect me.”
The resentment in his tone surprised me.
“You’re disappointed you couldn’t have a dangerous job?”
“No,” he answered. “I was disappointed that my brothers put their lives on the line to protect me and didn’t give me a chance to pay off the debt I brought upon us myself. That was the day I stopped being a brother.”
“What do you mean?” I quizzed. “You are a Slater brother.”
“On paper, yeah,” he said, “but inside, I don’t feel like one.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t treat me like their equal,” Damien answered. “They treat me like the baby they were stuck with and had to raise. I hate it; I always have. Dominic is four minutes older than I am, and he was clued in on everything because he had a job for Marco.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remained quiet.
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t know that Nala was dead until we moved to Ireland and my brothers wanted out of their deal with Marco because they repaid the life debt and made Marco more money than Trent ever could. Marco wanted to keep my family under his thumb, so that night in Darkness when we were together, I was attacked until I fell unconscious. You were knocked out, too. Marco used us as bait to lure my brothers into his trap. It all went sideways for him. Trent admitted he raped and murdered Nala the day after I shot him. She came by looking for me and walked in on Trent being treated by a doctor. Marco couldn’t let her live after what she saw, so he let Trent kill her. He raped her, killed her, and then buried her in the grave that was meant for himself. She was ten weeks pregnant at the time; she had told me a few days beforehand, and I began to pull away from her because of that. I was terrified of having a baby, but it scared me more to love it in case I lost it.”
I began to silently cry.
“I didn’t know it when I was a kid, but I thought Nala’s dad packed her up and moved because I could never find either of them when I searched. I always thought she was alive and had our baby, and I was pissed at her for not allowing me to be apart of that. My parents’ death sent me into grief, but Nala kept me there, and because of her, I kept everyone at arm’s length. I was so angry with her … and all the while, I never knew that both of them were dead because of me.”
“Trent.”
Damien blinked. “What?”
“They died because of Trent, not you.” I sniffled. “You have to stop placin’ blame on your shoulders when it belongs on someone else’s.”
“Alannah—”
“No,” I cut him off. “You blame yourself for everythin’ that happened, but you were a baby. Fifteen years old. You had no control over what other people did, so stop blamin’ yourself. Marco tricked your family into workin’ for ’im. He is to blame for all of this, and Trent is responsible for killin’ Nala and your baby. Him, not you!”
Damien stared at me, and I knew it was difficult for him to do as I asked.
“You aren’t to blame.”
He blinked. “You don’t blame me for everything?”
“No,” I said. “And I know no one else does either.”
He looked down, and I knew in the back of his mind, he didn’t believe me.
“We can come back to that,” Damien said, clearing his throat. “I want to keep going.”
I nodded and waited.
“After all that happened. Everything with Darkness, with us, I decided to leave to better myself thanks to Bronagh.”
“Bronagh?”
“Yeah.” Damien nodded. “When she came by the room we were in, she was straight with me. She told me exactly how she felt, and how horrible I was for sleeping with you when I knew you liked me. She knew how much I never wanted to be like my parents, and she made me realise how I was treating girls, how I treated you, was wrong and something they would do. She was brutal, but no one else was going to tell me what I needed to hear. She flipped a switch in me.”
“What did you do when you went back to New York?”
“I removed the headstone for Trent on Nala’s grave and had a new one made for her and the baby. I know it was still inside her stomach, but it was still a baby, and I didn’t want people not to know he or she didn’t exist. You know?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I know.”
Damien exhaled a breath. “Do you hate me for getting Nala pregnant?”
“Of course not,” I replied, shocked. “Damien, you didn’t know I existed when you and Nala were together. Don’t be silly.”
He nodded and looked down at his hands.
“Maybe … Maybe we can buy Nala and the baby a star, just like you bought me,” I suggested. “That way when we look up, we’ll know they’re out there watchin’ over us. Would that help you in any way?”
When Damien looked at me, my heart pounded when I saw unshed tears in his eyes.
“It’s okay to cry,” I told him. “You’re allowed to be sad and grieve who you lost. You don’t need to worry about how I feel about it. I’m sad for you and for Nala and the baby, too. No one deserves what she went through.”
I didn’t move when Damien got up and came to my side. I wrapped my arms around him when he hugged my body to his. He put his head on mine and cried. When he cried, it almost instantly set me off. I held him, rocked him side to side, and let him release everything he had been keeping inside.
“I have more to tell you,” he said, clearing his throat.
“More of your story or your brothers?”
“My brothers,” Damien answered, pulling back to look at me. “Mine ended after I … after I took Trent’s life.”
Hearing him say that out loud didn’t horrify me like I thought it would have; it gave me an incredible sense of relief and a huge sense of justice for Nala and the baby he killed.
“I’m glad,” I said, taking hold of his hand. “I’m glad.”
Damien closed his eyes and rested his forehead against mine.
“Also, I don’t want to hear your brothers’ stories from you. I want to hear it from them.”
Damien nodded and kept his eyes closed.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just enjoying this feeling of being close to you,” he answered as he opened his eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I said. “It killed me to shut you all out, but I needed to. I needed to reach this frame of mind where I was able to hear you out.”
“I know, freckles.”
When I kissed Damien, he was so surprised that he didn’t return the kiss for a few seconds, and when he did, it felt like magic. When we separated, he kept his hold on me.
“I want to talk to you about Alec,” he said. “He gave me permission to tell you this. This is something only I know, and by allowing me to tell you, he wants you to know that he loves and trusts you enough to keep this secret between the three of us.”
I reared back. “I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna keep secrets anymore.”
“This is a secret that you won’t want to share,” Damien assured me. “It’s only to help you understand my brother and understand the level of love and trust he has for you after everything you have been through with Carter.”
I inhaled a deep breath.
“Okay.”
“Alec is thirty-one, and he is happy all the time.” Damien began. “He makes innuendoes, he overreacts about a lot of things, he has shits and giggles about random things that pop into his head. He is different. Have you ever stopped and wondered why?”
I raised my brows. “No.”
“Out of all my brothers,” Damien continued. “Alec is the one who deserves to smile and laugh over dumb shit because for a very long time, the bubbly, happy man you know didn’t exist. He was a shell of a person.”
“What?” I whispered. “Why?”
“He was heavily abused in his line of work.” Damien swallowed. “He was a prostitute in Marco’s eyes, but he considered himself to be an escort. Most of the time, he had consensual sex on the job, a lot of the time he didn’t even have to kiss his dates, but some of the time … he was forced to do things that I don’t want to go into detail about.”
“R-rape?”
“Yes.”
A cry bubbled up my throat, and I covered my mouth with my hand to contain it.
“It got bad.” Damien’s voice became rough. “When I was sixteen, a year after the jobs started, Alec was hurt by two men in a way I’ll never be able to get over.”
I felt sick.
“He always came home late, and this night, I got some midnight snacks when I heard him come in and go up the stairs. He was crying. I had never heard him cry before, so I knew whatever happened to him was bad. I followed him up the stairs after a minute or two, just to see if he was okay and …”
My heart stopped.
“He tried to kill himself, Alannah,” Damien said, a pained expression crossing his face. “He used a cable tie, threw it over one of the beams on the ceiling, and put it around his neck. What those men did to him made him want to die.”
“Oh, God.”
“I still don’t know how I got him down or got the cable tie from around his neck. It’s all a blur, but I’m just happy I was awake when he came home, and that I followed him to see if he was okay.”
I cried, and Damien held me.
“He told me everything that had happened to him and made me swear never to tell the others. Not because he didn’t trust them, but because he wanted to save them the pain of knowing.”
“Like … like you and the others tried to do with me.”
“Yes, because some secrets are best left buried, baby.”
I agreed.
“I’ll never tell,” I swore. “I promise, I’ll never tell. I won’t even speak of it to Alec.”
“I know you won’t.”
“I can’t believe he went though that.”
“All of my brothers have been through hell.”
I was quiet.
“It’s my fault,” he continued. “I ruined their lives because I couldn’t keep my temper in check.”
I could repeat to him over and over that it wasn’t his fault, but I wasn’t one of his brothers. He needed to hear it from them that he wasn’t to blame.
“Are you sure he never told Keela about this, though?”
“I’m sure.” He nodded. “When I came back, and when I was on my own with him, he explained that it was a part of his life he wanted to protect her from. Since he couldn’t protect her from the other parts of his life that had bad implications on their relationship.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because he wants you to know just how much he does trust you. He hated how you looked at him the day Carter got in your head; it hurt him to see you scared of him. It’s just… he was silent for so long, but now he has a reason to be heard. Do you understand?”
“I do.” I nodded. “I really do.”
When I stood up, Damien looked up at me, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’,” I answered. “I want to go up to Kane’s apartment so we can talk to everyone else.”
Damien got to his feet. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been surer of anythin’ in me life.”