Page 29 of Luciano

“To have reached this age without knowing the warmth of a woman’s flesh,” I started, “without experiencing the most fundamental of human instincts—it’s unnatural.” My throat was sore from overuse, but I couldn’t stop. I needed to get some things off my chest. “I am an anomaly. A deviation from the expected trajectory of a man in my position.”

I tilted my head, studying them. “And whose fault is that?” I paused as if they could answer, then answered for them.

“It’s yours. You all stole normal from me. You pried it from my hands before I even knew what it was.”

I continued, tapping my fingers against my thigh, considering my next words. “It wasn’t lack of opportunity. Nor lack of desire.”

My gaze drifted to Tomaso’s. “I should be like other men. It is expected. It’s biological. Instinctual to want to fuck. And yet—” I exhaled slowly. “I can’t.”

I sighed. “Theoretical knowledge, I possess in abundance. I have read, I have observed, I have studied.” A pause. “But the practical application remains an equation left unsolved.”

I tapped a finger against the surface of the table once. It pushed away my urge to knock all the cases to the floor.

I want Ava so much. I saw her naked today.”

My jaw tightened. “And do you know what I did?”

I let the silence stretch.

“I ran.”

The word was bitter on my tongue.

I pressed my palm flat against my thighs, steadying myself.

“I was hard the second I saw her,” I admitted, because what use was lying? “Years of thinking, planning, waiting—I wanted to take what she was offering. But I fucking ran.”

I tilted my head, staring at them.

“And that is your fault.”

“I was supposed to be normal.”

Normal men didn’t have to study intimacy like a test they needed to pass. They didn’t have to practice their tone, their body language, their words, their expressions just to appear human.

Normal men didn’t run at the idea of sex with someone they wanted.

I had read about trauma responses. How the brain rewired itself to protect against pain, how it shut down what it couldn’t process. I had spent years dissecting the science behind what I had become, but no amount of analysis could fix it.

Not after what I’d seen. I had been there. In that room. Watched my mother scream until her throat was raw, until her voice gave out entirely. I had seen her stripped, brutalized, broken, her body taken.

And now, years later, I couldn’t look at pale skin without thinking of her. Couldn’t see bare flesh without remembering that day.

Ava had no idea what I lacked. What I might not ever be able to give her.

I would never be normal.

Ava deserved normal.

But I deserved Ava.

There should be reward for survival. For endurance.

And Ava deserved me because I would go to war and win so she could have the peace she craved.

The door creaked open behind me.

I turned to face it.

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