“I didn’t tell you all of it,” he says, his voice flat. His eyes not quite meeting mine.
“You don’t have to. I know enough to understand how he hurt you. Hell, how he broke you both. But, Damien, please don’t forget that you healed. You fought back, and your wounds only made you stronger. I believe that. And it’s because of your strength that Sofia did as well as she did. She really was getting better.”
“And now she’s dead.”
“That’s not your fault,” I say. “You wouldn’t blame me, would you?”
His answer comes hard and fast. “God, no.”
“Even though I was the one she took a bullet for?”
“Don’t even—”
“That’s my point. It wasn’t your fault, either. If anything, it was Richter’s. But I don’t want to give the bastard that much credit for anything.”
The corner of his mouth curves. Not so much in a smile, but maybe in agreement.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For understanding that I might not want to tell you all of it. And honestly, I’m not sure I do. I spend enough time looking into those dark spaces, and I hate the thought of dragging you down, too.”
I watch his throat move as he swallows. “But the truth is, I can stand the dark when I’m with you. Without you, it eats away at my soul. You came into my life, and I felt real for the first time.”
“I know what you mean,” I tell him, because hadn’t I been little more than my mother’s living Barbie doll until I’d met Damien? “And I will go wherever you need.” I offer a small smile. “Whatever you need, Damien,” I say, repeating the words he has so often told me. “Whenever you need it.”
“How?” he asks. “How can you see the darkest part of me and still love me?”
I look down at our joined hands and then back up at him. “Because the darkness isn’t all of you. I don’t see you with rose-colored glasses, Damien Stark. I know exactly who you are. Dark and complicated and brilliant and loving and self-sacrificing and tender. I know you, Damien. Just like you know me.”
For a moment, he simply looks at me, an enigmatic combination of love and wonder in those dual-colored eyes. He holds my gaze, as if I’m the strength he needs to get the words out. And the miracle is that I know it’s true. We really do need each other that way.
“He forced us together,” Damien says, his voice low and raw. “Forced us to touch when we were too young to understand, forced us together in a way that sealed our fates and burned deep scars into both of us. He’d watch—you know that. He’d make me—touch—her in ways—Christ, Nikki, you know. You know what he did.”
“I do. And I hate him for it.”
He closes his eyes, draws in a breath. “One night he told us that he was going to sell her. She’d gotten her first period about a month before, and she was still a virgin. He never forced us to—well, I told you that as well.”
I nod, dreading what’s coming next, but say only, “You told me she was your first.”
“But I didn’t tell you how. Or why.” He clears his throat, and his hand tightens painfully around my fingers, crushing my knuckles together. I force myself not to wince. To simply be an anchor for him. “He came in giddy. Said he’d landed a big payday. He’d been going to clubs. Selling pictures of Sofia. Of me. Nothing identifiable. Nothing like what came to light in Germany. Those were only for him, the sick fuck.”
“He sold close-ups,” I whisper. “Nothing that could identify you—you were too well known then. A tennis prodigy.”
“And as my coach, he was known, too. So was his daughter. But these pictures, well, he found people who wanted them. He didn’t say who they were, or at least I don’t think he did—hell, I have to believe he didn’t—but people bought them from him. And the nights that they did were the best, because he would stay away. He’d go gamble or get drunk and those were the nights that Sofia and Alaine and I could just hang out. Could just be kids.”
“Alaine never knew?”
“God, no. As far as I know, no one else knew a thing about it until after.”
I nod in understanding. Alaine’s father was a doctor, and he toured with Damien and Richter. But if he knew, surely he would have done something. So I hope that he never suspected.
“None of that matters though. I’m just setting the stage for that night. That night he came to find us. He was drunk, and I think that’s the only reason he told me. But he did. Told us he’d hit the jackpot. That there was a guy who’d pay out the nose for a virgin. And wasn’t it lucky that he could offer his own little girl. That she’d be able to earn her keep.”
Bile rises in my throat, and I lift my free hand to my mouth, unable to even comprehend the horror of what he was saying.
“She was only thirteen,” Damien whispered. “Hell, I wasn’t much older. And I told my dad. I told my father what the coach made us do. Told him that he had to pull me off the circuit. Find a new coach. Get Sofia out of there.”
I pull my knees up, hugging myself against the chill that has settled in my bones. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Not a goddamn thing. Told me that Coach was going to make us rich, and was I really that ungrateful that I’d take all that away from him? He said that I was being too sensitive, like I’d misinterpreted the situation. That Richter was teaching me to be a man, and if I started saying things like that it would get misinterpreted, and then everything I’d worked for on the circuit would come crashing down, and I’d lose everything. He’d lose everything.”
“He knew exactly what Richter was doing to you,” I whisper. “The bastard.” Damien had told me that his father knew, but he’d never been specific. Now I understood even better the type of monster that was Jeremiah Stark.
“I begged for him to intervene for Sofia’s sake, and my father just kept saying that I had to be mistaken. It was one thing to keep it all in the family, but I must have misunderstood. I was just a kid, after all.”
He drags his fingers through his hair. “Maybe he really believed that. Maybe he somehow convinced himself that what happened with Richter and Sofia was fair payment for my success. Maybe he never let himself believe that Richter could expand beyond that horrible secret circle.”
“He knew,” I snap. “Of course the bastard knew.”
Damien just nods. I shift, then take both of his hands in mine. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to,” he says. “But only if you can handle hearing it.”
I nod, grateful he’s not looking in my eyes as I say, “Of course. I’m right here. Let me carry some of it with you.” I mean every word, and yet I don’t want to hear. All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry for these two kids and the wounds those two selfish pricks inflicted on them.
“I told Sofia I’d do it. That her father couldn’t sell her to some abusive prick if she wasn’t a virgin anymore—and the bastard was actually paying extra to return her bruised. She agreed—she already had a crush on me, and though I never saw her as anything but a sister, I knew I had to. And that night—it was—”