Damien (Slater Brothers #5)(118)

“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.”