Page 91 of Breaking Conviction
“Ugh, too soon.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, sorry. You’re right.”
“But it’s not just that. I don’t think you’re a monster because… because you stopped.”
“What do you mean, I ‘stopped’?”
“As soon as I jumped on your back, you stopped mid-swing. It was like your body just knew I was there and then I had my Wes back. Even in the midst of a fight, you were able to keep it together to keep me out of danger. That, more than anything else, told me I’m safe with you.”
Wes nodded, understanding where she was coming from. Being around people who didn’t know whether they were hitting friend or foe was more than dangerous. It was deadly.
Fighting was a lot of things, sometimes violent and senseless, but sometimes necessary and purposeful. Knowing when to throw a punch was just as important as knowing when to pull one.
“The injuries you saw on Ascot, they were a mistake. I let my emotions get in the way, but I would never let them interfere with your safety. And I can promise you I’m working on it. I’ve gone to therapy for years. I thought I’d gotten better, but obviously being back in the field has made me realize I need a few—erm, alot—more sessions.”
“Can I ask you something?” Her fingernails tracing his pec made him shiver, and he barely resisted the urge to flip her on her back and have his way with her again. But when her finger paused, he remembered she was expecting an answer.
“Anything, my queen. I am your humble servant.”
She snorted at his affected speech and he could almost feel her roll her eyes at him. Her fingers traveled up the tattooed snake on his chest, spiraling down its coils all the way to where it bit the inked version of the heart that beat so strongly for her.
“Can you tell me where your rage comes from?” Her whisper was light, but he heard it. It was the conversation he’d been avoiding since the day he met her at Sasha Saves. On some deep level, he’d known even then that at some point he was going to have to bare his soul to her.
Now that she was in his bed, away from that maniac of an ex, he wanted nothing more than to share his story with her. Hopefully, his past would solidify her decision to stay well and away from that lunatic.
“Okay, here goes.” He blew out a breath. “My mom was the most beautiful, kindest woman in the whole world.”
“Was?” The whisper against his bare chest made him shiver, but he couldn’t stop. If she wanted this story, he was going to have to say it all in one fell swoop.
“She was short and round, the perfect size to run up to and wrap my hands around her waist and clasp them behind her back. Her voice was soft and gentle, never said an unkind word to anyone. Not even the man who deserved it most. She was pure, and whole, and good, and everything anyone would ever want in a parent. But my dad… was not.
“Everything my mother was, my dad was the opposite. Selfish, jealous, manipulative. No one knew what was going on behind closed doors, and as a kid, that just didn’t make any sense to me. We weren’t allowed to talk about what happened when my dad got mad, but I never understood how no one knew. It seemed obvious as fuck to me. Now I realize they might’ve been avoiding the truth just like we were.”
“What was going on behind closed doors?”
“My dad. He’d… beat on my mom. When he had a job, he’d come home from work late, already drunk somehow, and let loose on her. Living like that was like walking on eggshells all the time.”
“Yeah, except the eggshells are shards of broken glass.”
His huff of laughter was cynical even to his own ears. “Exactly. Anyway, my sister and I would beg my mom to leave, but she never would. My aunt said she tried to leave him once before she had me, but she found out she was pregnant with me and believed it was too late. Mom was convinced a boy needed his father.”
Naomi shivered against his chest, and he wondered if she understood too well.
“I was my mother’s anchor and my father’s weapon. Whenever she had the chance to swim to safety, he used me to tug her back down, drowning her with threats of stealing her child away. By the time my sister came along, my mother’s will to fight was already gone.
“That last night, my father was in worse form than usual. He’d just gotten laid offagain, and he was taking it out verbally on me and my sister before my mom got home from work. When she did, he picked a literal fight with her. She never fought back. In the end, she excelled at being silent and had learned to make herself small in every aspect of her life. Her cowering in the corner of our kitchen was the epitome of what that man had made her become.
“I don’t know why that night broke me, but I snapped. He was going in on her, and I jumped in to defend her. But I was a ten-year-old kid against a man who’d been honing his ‘craft’ my entire life. He knocked me good, forcing me to the side. Fear and anger drove me after that. I kept trying to go back at him, but he swatted me away each time. Her screams were worse than I’d ever heard. He’d just kept shouting over her to be quiet all the while landing hits on her until… until she wasn’t screaming anymore.”
Wes closed his eyes against the memory, but all he could see was the man who was supposed to be his family’s protector, staring at the broken heap that had once been Wes’s mom.
Even decades later, he couldn’t get away from the image. He saw that man in the mirror every day. His mom had always said he was the spitting image of his father. Stretching out his hand, he watched his inked skin roll with the veins underneath as he clenched a fist. At least the tattoos helped disguise the monster of his past.
“My sister called 911. After that, things went pretty fast. We went to my aunt’s. My dad did the one good thing he’s ever done in his life and turned himself in. He got sent to prison for the rest of his life, which turned out to be not even half the amount he’d tortured my mother for. He died of liver failure a few years in. Too good a death for a man like that.”
“Is that why you don’t go to Sasha Saves? Is… is that why you kept asking me why I wouldn’t leave?”
Wes nodded. “Yeah, I think going to Sasha Saves that day, seeing your injuries, it woke some anger in me that I thought I’d taken care of. Obviously I haven’t, but I’m going to reach out to the therapist my aunt got for me and my sister. I’ve had him forever. It’ll be good to check back in.”
