Page 57 of Dmitri

Me. She hasme.

“I hit people all the time,” I say cautiously. “Am I a bad person because I fight?”

Risking another slap to the face, I cautiously start closing the distance between us. She doesn’t move away like I anticipate. She still hasn’t broken eye contact with me either.

Such a good girl.

I love a woman who stands her ground, even when she’s scared while doing it.

Soon, I hope Daelyn will learn she doesn’t have to fear me. “I’ll never hurt you,” I say softly. “I don’t expect you to believe me tonight, but if you stick around, you’ll find out how well I treat people. I don’t make promises I can’t keep, and I promise I will never,everhurt you.”

She doesn’t flinch when I slowly reach up and tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

“Stay,” I whisper, keeping my gaze locked on hers. “Please.” Leaning down, I press my mouth to hers, lingering long enough for her to moan against my lips, then I pull away gracefully.

“I’m so sorry I hit you,” she whispers.

“Don’t be.”

“I shouldn’t have done that. It came from a place of anger.” She sounds genuinely remorseful.

“You didn’t hurt me, Firefly.” Even though I’m sure the handprints on my face would suggest otherwise. “I’m good at taking a beating.”

She gulps, her brows knitting together with what can only be described as sympathy. If this is what it’ll take to get her to open up to me, so be it. It’s not like my past is a secret, anyway. I came to peace with my existence a long fucking time ago.

“Who hurt you?” I ask, knowing I’m prying.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It does to me.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Which is why I’m asking,who hurt you?”

She holds my stare for another few heartbeats, her mouth firmly sealed shut. I almost give up and change the subject when she suddenly blurts out, “Who hurtyou?”

Lie for a lie. Truth for a truth.

“My mother.”

Let the next game begin.

Chapter 15

Daelyn

I was not expecting him to say that. “Yourmother?”

My heart bleeds for a man I barely know. The enemy of my enemy. The man I’m here to fuck in every way… destroy in every way… for Kaleb. For my freedom.

My brain compartmentalizes every thought racing through my mind while my soul forces my body to step closer to him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says with a shrug. “You didn’t do it and you didn’t control her. Some moms are just bad moms.”

And some women are just bad women.Like me.

I’d almost caved and told him why I was a bad person earlier. The confessions were on the tip of my tongue. Courage and fear warred in me so violently, I’d detached and let those truths fall into a dark pit in my belly.

---