Page 68 of The Devil's Secret

“Maybe I can get the pill instead?” She scrunches her nose in the most adorable way.

“Fuck yeah,” I smirk. “I mean, yeah, whatever you want, baby.”

She giggles, swatting me on the chest. I claim her lips, kissing her slow, imagining the world we could build together once we destroy the one standing in our way.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

JOELLE

We finally arriveat the restaurant over an hour late, but the owner didn’t seem to mind, especially with the hundreds Enzo slipped into his pocket.

Being out, like a normal woman, with a man I love, is an experience I’ll never take for granted.

He sips on his whiskey while I drink the burgundy-red wine in a fancy sparkling glass, the tableware as decadent as the rest of this place. The dimmed, overhead lights above brighten the room just enough, working in sync to the sparkling large gold chandelier at the center.

I cut into my steak, tender, delicious. The first one I’ve ever tasted. I didn’t grow up with too many luxuries, such as going out to nice restaurants. Pizza and pasta days were as extravagant as my mother could afford. But I don’t need any of that to be happy. I just want my family back, my son, and Enzo. He’s family now, a piece of me I’ll never be able to let go of.

“How’s everything?” he asks, slicing into his own steak, those captivating eyes gazing back at me, making my stomach flip from the emotions he brings out.

Being intimate with him, finally experiencing that with someone who I care so deeply for—it was more than I could imagine.

It’s as though I was caught in this bubble, where the rest of my world and everything that happened to me prior, no longer existed, even for those moments in time.

But of course, it did. I know that. I still carry those scars every single day, trying my best not to live in their shadow but in spite of them. I have to go on. I have to move forward somehow. For me. For my boy. For my own survival. Because that’s what I am, a survivor, and that’s one thing those bastards will never take from me.

“Oh, it’s truly amazing,” I finally answer him, clearing my thoughts. “We could never afford this sort of place when I was younger. My mother was a single mom raising my brother and me.”

“You miss them. Why don’t you call them?” He glances to his plate, his eyes wandering up to mine in between.

“I can’t do that. They told me that if I contact my family, Robby dies. I can’t risk it.”

His jaw twitches. “Okay, baby. We’ll call them after we get Robby.”

I breathe in a sigh. “What will I tell them? How can I look them in the eyes?”

He leans into the table across from me, his hand tucking over mine. “You tell them you love them and that you’re happy to be with them again. I promise, they won’t care about the other shit. They’ll just be relieved to get you back.”

Biting into my inner cheek, I suppress the emotions riding up the back of my nose. I pick up my wineglass and take a few sips. He’s right. Mom would never judge me for what I’ve been through. She’ll hate herself for allowing it to happen, but she’d never think bad of me. And when she meets Robby, God, she’s going to love him. As for Elliot, I don’t know. Nine years is a long time, and he’s an adult now. My God, what does he even look like now? Will I ever see them?

Pulling in a long breath, I push those thoughts away. I can’t continue thinking about them or it’ll eat me alive.

Distracting myself, I dart my eyes around the room, Enzo’s hand still clasped to mine, my attention wandering to the soft waves of the river outside our window. I’m instantly transfixed by its tempered beauty, waiting to crash over the world around it. I wonder how it’d feel to be as powerful as the ocean, having the ability to drown all those who’ve made you suffer, to keep them under, unable to ravage.

Enzo squeezes my hand and I look back at him, at this man who loves me with his whole heart, so much that I feel it every single moment we’re together.

But as I lift my gaze away from him for only a moment, just a fraction in time, my inhale seizes in my chest, a tremor running up my arms, my body cold. Naked.

I continue staring. Unable to move. To breathe. I can’t rip my eyes away from them, those men tucked in the corner. Talking. Smiling. Like they didn’t ruin me. Like they’re not the monsters I know they are.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” Enzo’s voice may as well be distances away. “Joelle?” He’s in front of me now, turning the chair, blocking my view of the two men seated there, their dates across from them. My lungs are heavy, as though I’m the one trapped under that water now, screaming, begging them to stop.

“Tell me.” He kneels, his palm possessively cinching around my knee, his thumb under my chin, nudging my face to him and him alone. “Who are they?”

He knows.

With my lips trembling, eyes burning with the tears that don’t come, I look up at him. “I’ll—I’ll never forget their faces,” I whisper so low, I don’t quite know if he’s heard, repeating those same words I used when I recited what they did to me.

But when his face turns with something dark, something cruel, the vein at his neck practically puncturing through his skin, I know he’s heard.

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