Page 96 of About Love and Revenge

Desperate and in pain, I crawled out through the same door I had entered. I could barely breathe and had to take my clothes off because they were on fire.

After that, everything became very vague. Loose memories.

I woke up in a hospital bed, and the first voice I heard was that of my rescuer. He promised me he would investigate what had happened, and when he brought me the answer, I couldn't believe it.

My mother had been the monster’s mistress.

The last words I heard him saying to her suddenly made sense.

It was my mother who’d caused the death of our entire family with her infidelity.

Now I find out that Elina spent years under her father's yoke. The woman I already consider my mate was also one of his victims. I look at her, sitting so far away, and wonder if that distance has become an emotional one too.

Elina, like me, has her own demons to deal with.

“Why didn't your mother take her children and leave him?”

“Her children? Odin, she could barely see us. My mother has always been madly in love with him. We’ve never met our maternal family—did you know that? When I asked her about my grandparents once, she told me not to bring them up again or my dad would go crazy. As I grew up, I learned that I should forget about that part of my family. We did not even see my father's relatives.”

“You said that Theodoro was beaten more than the others.”

“Yes. I think at that time, my father already knew that Theo didn'tlike girls. It could only be because of that, since my brother has never had a temper.”

“How about you? I know nothing justifies beatings, but did you defy him?”

She looks away. “I learned very early on to keep what I thought and wanted inside here,” she says, pointing towards her own head. “After a while, you stop caring.”

“Did you ever think about leaving?”

“Yes. Many times.”

“Then why didn't you?”

She stands up in the water. “I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

“Come here.”I reach for her hand, but she doesn't move.

“I don't like talking about myself. I didn’t tell you all this to make you feel sorry for me but, firstly, because you revealed some of your past, and, secondly, so you can understand that even though I don't know what your problem is with my father, I believe he deserved everything you did to him.”

I give up waiting for her and get up myself. “Weren't you angry with me? At least in the beginning?”

“Not because of Leandros. I was angry that you took away the life I knew.”

“Did you love that life?”

“I loved my animals. As for the rest, I don't know what to say. I've never known anything different, but I like how things are today. I just want to know if my mom is okay.”

“She is.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I've tracked them down a few times. They have traveled to different countries, and your mother is with him.”I take a step closer.

“Will you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“When you get the rest of the money my father owes you back, will you stop?”

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