Page 36 of Charity's Redemption

I hung my head, my body sagging, no longer able to support myself. Luca pressed the button and lowered me to the frigid floor. I curled in on myself, shivering with pain and cold. He’d gotten me this time. Luca worked my body’s pain and pleasure response to the apogee until I felt a numbness insideI couldn’t pinpoint.

He pulled the manacles from my wrists, showing the damage I’d caused them. Deep red grooves under my thumb joint stood out like craters. He tossed them to the side along with everything else, then wrapped me in his arms and stood.

“I may be harsh with you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Charity.”

I tucked my face into his neck and wrapped my arms around him as he walked me out of the basement and up the stairs.

“What, you didn’t trust me?” Luca asked.

I peeked up, witnessing Nico and Max standing at the top of the basement steps. Closing my eyes, I tucked my heated cheeks back into his neck and hid from their concerned gazes.

“Maybe a little,” Max said.

“Just making sure,” Nico said.

“You came, you saw, now go away.”

Luca carried me up the rest of the way until we entered the darkness that consumed his bedroom. He pulled the sheets back and placed me on the mattress, then covered me with the silky material. He bent down and kissed my forehead, then walked away.

“You’re the devil, Luca,” I whispered.

“You’ve seen nothing yet, beautiful.” He walked towards the bathroom and flicked on the light. “You wanted my attention, now you’ve got it.”

A rolling cacophony ofmighty thunder rumbled across the sky seconds after lightning struck the earth, illuminating the darkness. It drew me out of my dreams of pain and strength and into a reality where I lacked control, which had me throwing the pillow over my head to block it out. Another deep rumble vibrated the windows, but this time I sat up in bed and glanced at the red digital clock on Luca’s side.

Four AM.

I groaned with exhaustion.

A flash of light flooded the room, revealing Luca’s naked torso covered by the comforter, followed by another boom, and suddenly my brother’s dead body was in front of me, his vacant eyes staring into the night sky.

I pinched my eyes closed, my sinuses burning, then swallowed down the tightness closing my throat. I wouldn’t lament. He tried to kill me. He’s the culmination of everything that has gone wrong and could go wrong in my life. To attribute him to positivity was a falsehood only my guilty mind could conjure.

There was only one person who created happiness in my life, and that was me. I was in charge of my own happiness. My relationship with this aggravating man beside me, and the unique ones with Max and Nico, was my doing. I did that. If my brother had touched it, he would have turned it to ash.

As much as my body protested, I needed to get up. Laying in bed only burned holes in my psyche. I flipped the comforter off my legs, then padded to the cushion in the window beside the couch. Agony lanced across my butt as I slid onto the windowsill, making me pinch my eyes closed and hiss. I lifted myself off the seat for a moment of reprieve, then found a new position that was less problematic.

Rain struck the window with a sideways slant, blurring the view outside. Small veins of connected droplets trickled down the glass, making its way to the ground, that path of least resistance, the opposite of me. I did things that got the job done. It may not be the easiest, the prettiest, or the most logical, but I succeeded every time.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, holding them in place, then rested my chin on my knees. The rain came down with waves that threatened floods, then lessened to a mere sprinkle and back up to a torrential downpour with copious amounts of water. More flashes of lightning skidded across the sky in a blanket of electricity, followed by its shadow of thunder.

Rustling sheets drew my attention back to Luca, who now lay on his side towards me, his covers hanging down low on his abdomen with his hands tucked under his pillow.

He’d promised me, back when he’d apologized for all that he did, that he’d worship me. He wanted to wake up to me every morning and tell me how much he loved me. I smiled at him, even though he couldn’t see with the darkness shrouding my face.

“Come back to bed,” he said in a hushed tone.

I turned back to the window, keeping my chin on my knees. “Soon.”

Water always had a calming effect on me. It helped me reflect. In the shower, I could envisage the world with only the sound of the water pelting against the tile and feel it batter my skin. Sometimes, I’d plug my ears and listen to the roar of the water against my skull—for some reason, the turbulent sound brought about clarity.

“What are you thinking about?”

Keeping my eyes on the cloud being pulled to the earth by its heavy burden. “My brother.”

Luca got out of bed and shuffled towards me. He picked me up, wrapping his arms around me, and settled me in his naked lap. I wrapped my arms around him and nuzzled my nose in the crook of his neck, inhaling his spicy scent.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He rubbed my side with a featherlight touch, grazing over my bruise.

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