Page 63 of Liberated By Sin
For a second, it felt like the world jolted to a stop.
By choice.
I moved off her body and sat at the edge of the bed, my thoughts swimming and my blood somewhere between ice and hellfire.
“Who?” The word rolled past my teeth more like a growl.
Silence.
She sat up and hugged her knees. “All of them.”
“Amara, what does that mean?”
The first tear rolled down her cheek as she seemed lost in her mind. “He said he’d break me…and he did. They all did.”
I gently took her hands in mine.
“Sometimes I still feel them inside me…in myhead. They won’t die, Santino. So I have to kill them.”
“Oh, baby…” Heart clenching, I brought my lips to her hands and silently begged her to look at me, but Amara remained still, tears running past the seam of her mouth and diving off her chin.
“I won’t stop until he’s dead.”
“Who? Who did this to you? Tell me, and they’ll be dead before sunrise.”
I brushed a scar on her wrist…
Fuck.
My brain failed to comprehend the magnitude of what she’d suffered. Every second I attempted to process her words was a crushing blow.
I shifted beside her and slid the sheet over our bodies. My first instinct was to pull her close, but I hesitated, afraid of her reaction to the intimacy of being in my arms. As if sensing my trepidation, she turned to face me, the palms of her hands on my chest.
“I’m not afraid of you, Santi,” she whispered, blinking away tears.
It was all the reassurance I needed. Our bodies were flush, and my fingers softly moved up her spine and upper back, but something was off. There were small disruptions in her skin I hadn’t noticed before.
“He still owes me for those.”
“Name,” I gritted out, unsure what to do with the rage festering inside me with each revelation.
“Sasha. But he’s just another dead man walking. Because it was someone else…” Amara paused. “I…I haven’t spoken his name out loud. I can’t,” she said again, eyes narrowed.
“Is that who was behind what happened to you?”
“Yeah. He set it all into motion. And it got so fucked. But it was also because of him that I survived.”
It was my turn to pinch my eyebrows in confusion. “How so? I thought you said he—”
“He did. And that’s exactly why there was no way inhellI’d let him get away with everything he caused and what I had to live through.”
The space between our bodies was nonexistent, but somehow, I crushed her closer. “Where is he? Does he know you’re here?”
She released a heavy breath. “He probably thinks I’m dead. But I’ve stayed hidden and kept tabs on him and also on—I wasn’t ready to face him then, but he disappeared a little over four years ago.”
“Maybe he’s the one who’s dead.”
“No. People like him don’t just go quietly. He’s part of something bigger, Santi.” She closed her eyes and rested her head on my chest. “He’s still out there. And I’m going to find him.”