Page 26 of Unorthodox
But then, surprising me, he says, “Your father is a fucking piece of shit,” and just when I thought he was a monster, he’s fucked my head again. Offering me scraps of something that feels like compassion.
I bite my lip once more, refusing to let the tears pricking behind my eyes emerge as he keeps running his hands over me, gentler than I’d think him capable of.
His thumb grazes over the small, circular scars on my chest, and I see a question in his eyes as he stares at my skin, but he doesn’t voice it.
I exhale, thankful that I don’t have to give him more of my dirty secrets.
And when he finally drops his hands, letting me go, I don’t feel free. I don’t feel relief. Instead, I want to hide. Cover my body and curl into a ball. At least when he was closer to me, his eyes could only see so much. But when he steps away, I’m fully exposed.
“Turn around,” he says quietly, eyes back on mine. I’m confused about the eye contact, worried any misstep will have another gun in my mouth, have me back against the wall, but I don’t ask him about it. Instead, holding my breath, I do as he says, my body tense.
He runs his fingers down my back, and I wonder if the marks from Ben’s whip are still there. He leans close to me, his body brushing mine. “Relax,” he says against my ear. “I’m not going to hurt you again in here. Stand still, and I’ll take care of you.”
I don’t miss the warning in those words.
He washes my hair, his fingers firm but gentle against my scalp, and despite my rigid posture, some part of me softens with that touch. When he runs conditioner through my ends, and the scent of coconut envelops us in the hot shower, I almost groan, my eyes closed as he runs his fingers through my hair, rinsing me. And when he washes me with his bare hands slipping between my thighs, just barely grazing me, I know I am well and truly fucked.
Something is wrong with me, and I’ve known it for a long time.
His hands just confirm what I already knew.
Because I don’t fight him again. I don’t cry. I don’t scream.
I just…enjoy it. When you’re given nothing but pain your entire life, you take the good parts where you can get them, even if they’re from the monsters.
But that other part of my brain, the part that doesn’t want me to get hurt, that knows I’m all messed up, that part gently reminds me that,someone will come for me.
Later in the evening,after the shower with Addison, Dante knocks three times on my office door. Sharp raps in quick succession.
Even still, I reach for the gun on my desk and rise from my chair.
I cast my eyes around my office. It’s a strange habit I have of checking my surroundings before another body enters the room, even if I am already in it. My black curtains are pulled closed on the floor-to-ceiling windows to my right, dark oak bookcase full of books to my left.
Satisfied, I call out, “Ven aquí.”Come here.
It’s my favorite phrase in any language. It’s also the only two words that Dante will actually open my office door to.
The matte black knob turns, and I keep my grip on the gun, but don’t aim it at the door. It’s an instinct I’ve had to train myself not to do. Since I got my first weapon in my hands after my mother’s death and Oliver’s disappearance, it’s been a reflex to aim it at anyone entering any room I’m in.
I’ve nearly shot Dante countless times since I first met him. I saved him from the middle of a shootout down in Tijuana.
He was bloody and beaten, barely recognizable as a human being at all. Technically, he hardly was. He was a sex slave. An American boy whose American parents sold him for American drugs.
If North Carolina wasn’t the best place to hide the worst crimes, I’d leave this country and never come back.
But the money…it’s too good to pass up.
I don’t remember why I dragged Dante out of the heap of bodies behind the warehouse packed full of explosives I’d stupidly marched off to in order to save my merchandise. He was seventeen at the time, five years ago, naked and caked with blood and grime.
But in the pile of corpses, he was still moving.
Maybe that drew my eye; his determination. He’d come with his owner, and his owner was a coward for bringing him to what would have been his death sentence.
His owner died.
I don’t feel much in the way of vindication, but I doubt anyone was much sorry for the death.
I think of Oliver, for one brief second, wondering if he’s had a better life than Dante did. It’s just one moment in time I allow myself, as if holding his young face in my mind for any longer than that will break me down completely.
