Claim Me(157)

I barely nod, afraid that if I speak or react too much, he will stop talking.

“It went on for years. I grew bigger and stronger, but he was a huge man, and as I got older he added more threats to his repertoire. He had photographs. And there were—” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “There were other things that he threatened.”

“What changed?” I say gently. I don’t want him to relive all those years. I just want to know what happened the night that Richter died.

“All that time he never—he never raped me.” His voice is so low and monotone that it gives me chills. “When I was fourteen, we were in Germany at a tennis center in Munich. I went up to the courts on the roof one night—I don’t remember why. I couldn’t sleep, I was antsy. Whatever. He came up, too. He’d been drinking. I could smell it on him. I tried to go back down, and he blocked me. He tried—for the first time he tried to take his sick games further.” Damien meets my eyes. “I didn’t let him.”

“You pushed him off the roof?” I can barely hear through the pounding of my pulse in my ears.

“No,” he says.

I’m confused. “What happened?”

“We fought,” he says. “I hit him with my racquet. He grabbed it out of my hands. Smacked me across the back of my head with it—I’m lucky the wound wasn’t visible, or the police might have been more interested in me at the time. But it was a nasty fight—and we were at the edge of the roof, an area without the fencing that was by the courts to keep stray balls from going over. I don’t remember exactly what happened. He lunged for me, and I got a good shove in. He stumbled backward and then tripped over something, I’m still not sure what. He was drunk, so maybe it was his own two feet. He went over, but he managed to grab the ledge. He was hanging there, and I was frozen to the spot. I couldn’t move. He called for me to help him.”

I realize that I’m holding my breath.

“I just stood there. He screamed for me, and I can remember the way my head was still throbbing from his blow, but I took one step toward him. One step, and then I stopped. And then he fell.” He closes his eyes, and I see the tremor that shakes his body. “I went back to my room, but I didn’t sleep. The next morning the assistant coach burst in with the news that Richter was dead.”

“They can’t possibly convict you,” I say. “You did nothing wrong.”

“There was a moment when I could have saved him,” he says. “I could have moved faster. I could have reached him.”

“Don’t you dare feel guilty for ‘could have,’ ” I say.

His eyes are hard when he looks at me. “I don’t. I don’t regret it for an instant.”

“Damien, don’t you see? You just need to tell the police all of this.”

“All of what? All of the abuse?”

“Yes,” I say.

“No.”

“But—”

“Nikki, I said no.”

I draw in a deep breath. “So what happens now?”

“I called Charles from the limo. We’re going to Munich tomorrow. The legal team is already in place. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to present a decent defense.”

“You have a decent defense.”

“Don’t push me on that, Nikki. I’m not making that aspect of my life public. Richter took a lot from me, but he’s not taking my privacy, too.”

I nod, because there is no point in arguing this right now. “So the tennis center bigwigs in Germany,” I begin. “Charles and your dad were hoping that if you endorsed the Richter Tennis Center here that those folks would pull strings with the cops?”