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Chapter 16 (Lou-Lou)
I feel tears sting the corners of my eyes and the only thing I can do is keep hugging him.
I know DeLuca does disgusting, horrific, deplorable things...but with the exception of what he's done to me, I've never had to witness his brutal acts first hand.
Not like Ricardo.
No wonder he has nightmares.
And my god, that poor little girl.
Obviously, I don't feel bad that my own father is dead...he deserved it. The only remorse I feel is due to the fact that I didn't witness it with my own eyes.
That said, my heart aches for that little girl. From the sounds of it, she had a father who really loved her.
The way a father is supposed to love their little girl.
Jealousy rears its ugly head, but instead of giving into it and turning into a bitch in order to protect me from these hurt feelings... I take a breath.
And that's when I realize there's nothing to be jealous of because there's no doubt in my mind that little girl is damaged and that is something I can identify with.
I'm not the only person who's ever been hurt in this world.
I look up at Ricardo, his eyes are closed and his brows are drawn together, no doubt reliving his nightmare in his head again.
That's when I remember what I heard him scream before he woke up.
I blow out another breath and fidget with my hands, unsure of whether I should push him because I really don't want to hurt him. I just want to know what his demons are.
I want to know him, period.
I run my hand along his cheek. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything.” He leans into my touch and my heart flutters like the wings of a hummingbird.
I never thought I'd be able to touch a man and enjoy it. I never thought I'd be able to trust a man again.
The last thing I want to do is hurt him right now but I really want to know. “Why were you screaming the words 'I'm sorry, Mommy' right before you woke up?”
His face contorts in anguish and I want to kick myself for doing that to him. “You don't have to tell me,” I say. “I don't want to push you.”
He lifts my hand off his cheek and intertwines our fingers together. “I pushed you the other night. You have every right to push me back. We are a team after all.”
He inhales deeply. “Besides, I meant what I said when I told you I wanted complete honesty between us. I have no right to expect that of you if I can't give it back to you. Right?”
My stomach knots because there will always be that one lingering secret between us.
But it's for his own benefit.
“Right,” I say.
“I want to tell you but I don't think I can have you touch me while I say it, Lou-Lou.”
His jaw locks and I quickly get off his lap because it's not often that I see him angry and I'm nervous.
“I know you love DeLuca,” he starts. My stomach drops because it's both true and not true.
“I know you accept that he's a mobster, a murderer, and overall one of the worst human beings that ever lived.” His eyes lock with mine. “But he's also a rapist.”
My lower lip trembles and my head starts spi
All I can think is—how did he find out?
My hands fly to my face. “I'm so sorry I didn't—”
“Know?” he interjects. “I didn't think so.”
Yeah, that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say—'I'm so sorry I didn't tell you, I was trying to keep you safe.'
His statement is like a drop kick to the chest because that means DeLuca's done it to others. Not just me.
I drop my head into my hands and start shaking because there's a gnawing i
“Whoa, breathe,” Ricardo says. He looks like he wants to touch me but I back away. “Give me a second. I need to wrap my head around this.”
It's not a lie...I really do need to wrap my head around how the hell I'm going to process this.
My world is crashing around me. I'm wobbling on my tightrope and I don't know how to right myself.
I guess in my fucked up head I thought him killing my father somehow canceled out what he did to me in the conference room that day.
I was so grateful that he killed him, I kept convincing myself that I provoked him.
I kept telling myself that if I didn't go off on him...he would have told me that he was pla
I kept telling myself that if I didn't provoke him...he never would have done that to me.
I kept telling myself throughout the years that my Bruno made a mistake in the heat of the moment in the conference room...because how can a man be capable of that when he saved me from what he did.
Murder, mayhem, crime. That's all part of mob life...it comes with the territory. It's easy to delude myself about that shit.
I know what Bruno is...he never hid it from me.
But hearing that he did this to someone else? That pill is too hard to swallow right now.
Because that means that tiny bit of goodness the 15-year-old me saw in him, the reason I fell in love with him...doesn't exist anymore.
It means it never did.
“H-how do you know this?”
Maybe Ricardo's mistaken...maybe he just assumes this about him because of who he is.
He draws in a ragged breath. “Because he raped my mother.” He looks so dejected it causes me pain. “And I'm the fucked up consequence of it, Lou-Lou.”
His words hang in the silence like a thick cloud of darkness between us.
I'm the first to speak. “I'm sorry.”
And I am. I'm so fucking sorry for the pain this causes him and the further pain I'm about to cause him when I ask these questions...but I have to know.
I have to know their history because something tells me...it might determine mine.
“How—” I swallow and try again. “How did they meet? Did she know him? Did—”
“She was his high school sweetheart.” The look I give him causes him to pause for a moment. “I know—it's hard to picture DeLuca having a high school sweetheart.”
“I guess that explains why he killed her the way he did. He really did love her.”
“He killed her because of me, Lou-Lou,” he says gruffly. “He killed her because I told him I wouldn't be him and that he was no longer my father after what he did to Graham and that little girl. He killed her to teach me a lesson.”
“Ricardo, I know it's hard for you to believe. But he killed her...it wasn't your fault. That's on him.”
He shrugs off my words. “Anyway, you want to know the truth don't you?”
I give him a small nod because it's all I can manage.
“I don't know much because most of what I do know...I had to decipher through her jumbled ramblings and screams while she was high. When I was in the fight club I was forced to use whatever I could as my fuel to survive in the cage...that's when the flashbacks and nightmares started.”
Jesus, I knew the cage was savage and brutal...but this brings it to a whole new level.
I can't even imagine what stakes you have to be up against to be forced to reach into your subconscious and pull something like that out in order to make it out alive.
He runs a hand through his hair. “My mother had a tough life growing up. Her family was poor, her father had left her and there were plenty of nights where one of her mother's boyfriends would beat on her or worse. She met DeLuca in high school after his father moved them here from Italy.”