Page 71 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 9-12
Damian’s hand tightened around the handles. “He wasn’t born, sir.”
“So that is a false accusation against my boy, isn’t it.”
“If I hadn’t left Dalia, then he might have never been born.”
“Dalia’s choices are her own.”
“Are they?”
Richard ghosted his hand across Damian’s buttocks. Damian tensed. The skin was warm there, sensitive now.
“She’s broken, sir.”
“Even broken people make choices. She had the same choice as Armada.”
“Armada isn’t broken.”
“Then who broke Dalia, Pup? Was it you? Who was older?”
“I saw clearer.”
“Clarity does not equal power. You gave her a choice the day you fought your father. She could have sided with you, then all of you would have been free. You opened the window, boy. She was the one who wouldn’t fly. The accusation is false.”
The thin, cold line of a cane stung Damian’s ass. “One strike for false accusation, boy.”
Damian trembled in the restraints. “I could have done something.”
Richard said nothing. The cane lifted away and came back, fast and sharp.
Damian screamed into the pad on the wall. The cane was fire in his warm skin. Sweat broke out on his shoulders.
Richard stroked fingers over the burning line in Damian’s flesh. “Do you still feel guilt, Pup?”
Damian groaned. “I could have killed him.”
“Killed whom?”
“Thaddeus, my father.”
The cane snapped across Damian’s ass again. “Then I wouldn’t have had you, Pup. Jun never would have met you.”
“But Armada wouldn’t have been touched.”
“And Jun would have. Sins can’t be traded like options. They’re actions, always owned by those who commit them.”
“But I knew.”
The cane struck again.
Damian screamed, baring his teeth against the pain. He was raw now. And yet he still needed to argue his case. “No one else knew.”
“They did, Pup. They did.” Richard stepped closer, his arms coming around Damian, his hands pressing against Damian’s heaving belly and chest. “They were simply okay with it, and you were not.”
How could they be? Damian screamed, pulling at the cuffs, rattling the bolts in the woods.
“You were not even eighteen, boy. They laid the blame at your feet because then you were silenced.”
Tears of rage coursed down Damian’s cheeks. “They couldn’t have known what was happening in that house, not like I did.”
