I sighed in agony, burying my head in her chest. “Didn’t I? Unlike you, I was born in blood. Why did I fucking wait all this time before I ended it?”
“You were a little boy. You were still innocent. You were scared, for yourself, for your mother. You were supposed to be protected by the people who called themselves your family, not come to understand you had to kill for protection. What happened to you, what happened to your mom was Arminio’s and Giovanni’s fault. Never yours.”
As she threw my words back at me, I hoped now she believed them. But knowing exactly how she’d been feeling, I’d say it was just a hope, and not a reality. Maybe one day, together, we kept reminding each other, and we both finally believed.
I took another drag from my vape. “At the funeral, Giovanni came to me and told me a story about a sixteen-year-old boy named Damien Berry. His mother, too, had died. His father went crazy after her death and told Damien God had spoken to him and wanted Damien to turn into a woman to be his wife. Damien wouldn’t do it, so his father raped him anyway. One day Damien snapped, killed his father and fed him to the coyotes.”
Her sobs and tears covered me. “He made you do his dirty work. He turned you into a murderer.”
“It was inevitable. I was thirteen, and it was time for my initiation soon. He thought he’d make the best of it.”
“So you killed Arminio?”
“I took my time con il bastardo. I hung him like a fucking cow, took his knife and wrote on him all the nasty shit he used to write on my body. He screamed like a fucking puttana del cazzo, and I gagged and hurt and fucked him, teaching him to take the pain without a sound like he taught me. When his body couldn’t take it anymore, I flayed his skin, so slowly, watching him bleed.” There was so much blood. Some of the blood came in my mouth I could still taste it. Some splattered on my naked body, on my cock, turning me on, so I jacked off, shot my blood stained cum in his mouth and made him swallow it as his last fucking meal. “Then I fed him to the coyotes like Berry did.”
“I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
“Giovanni was proud and told me I’d take Arminio’s place when I was old enough. He even let me move in with him. He was the one who gave me that stupid name, Berry. When I became Enforcer, I got my tats to cover the marks and chose my own name. Il Coyote.”
“I can’t believe you had to go through all this.”
“I’m sorry, baby girl, to pour it out on you like this, but you’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to tell everything. No one but Giovanni, his sons and my other uncle Alfio knew the whole thing at the time. There were rumors everywhere, but I buried everything per la famiglia. Tino, as Enzio’s best friend, and one I did business for many times, was the only one outside the Lanzas that had a pretty good idea of what actually happened.” I didn’t give him the full story, but I didn’t bother denying it with him. Enzio, he and I were three fucked up bastards that in a way understood each other. “You’re the only one I told.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“This is the real me you wanted to see. Totally exposed. I told you I’d be scarier if I stopped hiding what I was. Are you scared?”
“No. Oh, Dom. If anyone could ever understand you and how you feel, it’s me. My God, you must be in so much pain all the time. How did you survive all this darkness, all this abuse, loss and blood?”
“I fought darkness with more darkness. I took my rage out on the fuckers I had to punish.” I saw Arminio’s face in each one of them as I flayed their skins and fed them my cum.
“Does it ever fade?”
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing numbed the beast.”
“What about the…other needs he made you have?”
I sighed. “I was confused for a long time. I experimented a lot. Women. Men. Vanilla. Rough. Hardcore. But no smell managed to erase his fucking cologne from my memory that haunted me every time I touched someone. Nothing silenced or satisfied the monster I’ve become. Nothing like the red trips.” I drew back and gazed at her swelling blue eyes. “Until you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Nicky. When you gave yourself to me, not only did you take away that black pressure that gnashed at me, but also you made me happy. For the first time of my life, I was happy, and it was because of you.”
She grinned through the streaming tears. Then, she didn’t wait for me to kiss her and brought my lips to her trembling ones. “I love you, Dom.”
“Nicky…”
“It’s not because of what you told me now. I’ve been in love with you for a while, longer than I want to admit, but I can’t deny it or hold back anymore. I love you.”
My vicious heart swelled and tightened in my chest. Cazzo, it was painful. The hardest yet the best pain I’d ever endured. I brought her lips back to mine, sitting her on my lap, bringing her closer, as close as possible, needing her heat to wrap over me, to fill the black coldness in my soul. My throat clogged with intense emotions I’d locked deep for years longer than her whole life, but I freed the words I’d wanted to say for weeks. “I love you, too.”
CHAPTER 40
Nicky
I chuckled in the dark as I felt Dom’s hand on the small of my back, guiding me to God knew where. We were still in the villa downstairs, but I couldn’t see where we were going. “Is the blindfold absolutely necessary?”
His breath tickled my neck as he nuzzled me there. “Don’t you trust me?”