“Damn it,” she heard Vin mutter next to her and then he was standing and pulling the kittens that had been playing at his feet off the floor. He dropped one in her lap, handed the other to Logan and kept the third on his own lap as he returned to her seat. She hid a smile as she took a small bite of the food. It was delicious, but she was careful to eat slowly since her stomach still wasn’t used to so much food at one time.
“Mia, can we ask you some questions?” Dom asked.
She really wanted to say no, but knew that she was well beyond the point where she could deflect this conversation much longer. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed help rebuilding her life and for whatever reason, these men seemed to want to help her to do that. She nodded.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” she said.
Vin stiffened next to her, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Were you in school?” This from Logan.
She dropped her eyes and forced another bite of food down. “I finished two years of college before...” she said, then hesitated, not sure how to finish the thought. So she hedged and said, “I hadn’t picked a major.”
“Before what?” Vin asked.
It figured the man wouldn’t let that part of her statement just slide by. This was why she never should have spoken when she’d come down earlier and heard them talking about her and what had happened that day.
“You finished two years of college before...” Vin said. When she didn’t answer, Vin leaned back in his chair and studied her with those dark, knowing eyes. His perusal had a strange, warm sensation pooling low in her stomach. “Before your father made you a prisoner?” Vin finally finished for her.
That warm feeling dissipated and turned into sour humiliation and she put her fork down, afraid she’d embarrass herself physically if she tried to eat anything else.
“Can you tell us what your life was like growing up with him?” Logan asked gently.
She forced herself to focus on him as she spoke, the kindness in his light blue eyes comforting. “I didn’t see much of him when I was little,” she began. “My mother and I lived in a small house just outside Portland and he traveled a lot for work. He’d be gone for weeks at a time and when he did come home it wasn’t for more than a few days.”
The kitten in her lap shifted and she automatically put her hands on its small, warm body. It arched up against her fingers and she smiled softly as its rough tongue ran over her skin. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there like that for, but a quick glance up showed three sets of eyes on her and she stiffened.
“But then he lost his job and he was home all the time. He inherited the house in Summer Hill when I was fifteen and then he started working in Seattle so we moved and it was just me and Mom again most of the time.”
“When did he start abusing you?”
***
Vin watched Mia tense at his question. He’d been prepared to just listen to her story, but when she’d deliberately left out any details about how her father had treated her, he’d felt the need to force the issue. Anger flashed across her features and he saw her walls go up a second later. Her voice was flat and emotionless as she continued.
“My mother got sick while I was still in high school and by my sophomore year in college she was bedridden so I cut my class load to just a couple of classes a week so I could take care of her. I came home one day and found her dead in her bed. My father knew I had only stayed for her so he locked me in my room. He put the collar on me and showed me what would happen if I tried to leave the property.”
“How did he show you?” Dom asked warily.
“He demonstrated how the collar worked using a stray cat that used to hang out around our house.”
“You had restraint marks on your wrists and ankles when we found you,” Vin pointed out.
Her cold eyes fell on him. “He had chains set up in different rooms so I could still do chores. If I did something that really pissed him off, he’d lock me in a closet with my hands tied behind my back.”
Vin watched with growing concern as Mia easily rattled off the torture that had been inflicted upon her. She may as well have been reading off a grocery list for all the emotion she showed. The only hint that she wasn’t completely unaffected was the way her hands reflexively opened and closed over the small, furry body in her lap. She seemed to catch herself every few seconds as her hands tightened on the kitten and stopped herself before the animal noticed.
“Mia, did you ever hear anything unusual? See evidence...” Dom began awkwardly.
“That he was a rapist and a murderer?” she asked acidly, her eyes pinning Dom. “No.”
Vin knew she was on the verge of shutting down completely. “Why didn’t you speak in the hospital? Or to Dom or the cops?”
“Speaking never did me much good in the past so what would have been the point?” was all she said before standing. Vin handed her the kitten from his lap as she passed and Logan did the same. He watched her walk out of the kitchen and sighed in relief when he heard the dogs clicking their way up the stairs after her – at least she wasn’t running again. Not at the moment anyway.
“That could have gone better,” Logan murmured.
“I’ll talk to her,” Vin said. Dom and Logan both cast him doubtful looks and he flinched. Okay, Mr. Sensitivity he wasn’t, but he could manage to string together enough words to pull this girl from her shell. Hell, he’d made more progress in the last twenty-four hours then they’d made in the last two months. And the sooner he got her talking, the sooner he could get her out of his house.
***
Vin found her in the bathroom, her eyes staring not at her image, but at the towel covering the mirror. She held a pair of scissors loosely in her right hand. He leaned against the door frame and watched her in silence since she hadn’t acknowledged his presence. There was no way she could be unaware of him since the dogs had both greeted him upon his arrival into the room.
Mia took a couple of deep breaths before reaching up to pull the towel down. He watched as she kept her eyes trained on the eyes looking back at her. Some monumental internal battle was going on inside her and he found himself wishing he could wrap his arms around her from behind and tell her everything would be okay so she wouldn’t have to do this alone.
Her eyes drifted down to the scar at her throat and hung there and he swore he saw her blink away tears. Several long, tense seconds passed and then she was raising the scissors. With a quick cut she hacked away at a big section of her hair, the black pieces drifting to the floor in silence. She didn’t seem to care that her work was uneven; she was on a mission and cut away haphazardly at what she could reach. He was surprised when she extended the scissors to him, her eyes still studying her reflection.
Taking the scissors, he stepped carefully behind her, that image he’d had of wrapping his arms around her coming back to him in full force. She was so slight, but he knew she would fit perfectly into his arms. Pushing the thought - and his rising desire - out of his mind, he focused his attention on cutting away the remaining strands that hung down her back. The second he cut the last piece, she tried to move, but he settled his hand on her shoulder. She tensed beneath his touch.
“Let me even it out,” he murmured, as he raised his eyes to meet hers in the mirror. She nodded briefly. Every time his fingertips grazed her as he pulled the hair off her shoulders to trim it, she trembled. He needed to get them back on safer ground before he did something really stupid like his body was urging him to.
“Why’d you dye it black?” he asked.
“I didn’t.”
He lifted his eyes to meet hers so he could ask what she meant, then a sickening realization went through him. “Your father?” he managed to ask.
She nodded, her sharp eyes trained on him. He went back to cutting her hair. “You don’t have to pretend,” she finally said. “I know now why he did it.”
“When?”
“When did he do it or
when did I figure out why?” Mia asked.
“Both.”
“I was sixteen. He came home from one of his trips to the city, acting crazy. He had the dye with him and forced me to do it. I knew what he’d do if I fought him so I did it.” Her tone was once again flat, emotionless.
“What would he have done if you fought him?”
“What does it matter?” Mia asked with a huff.
“Would he have hit you?” Vin questioned casually as he continued to work on her hair.
“No.”
“But he had in the past.” At his statement, she nodded. “So what changed?”
“He figured out that he could hurt me far worse by going after my mother.” Vin stilled, but kept his eyes down in hopes that she would keep talking. “She never fought back. So if I did something to piss him off, he locked himself in their room with her and made sure I heard everything he did to her.”
Her voice broke and Vin couldn’t stop himself from stroking his hand down her hair and along her back. “What happened after he made you dye your hair?”
Her gaze dropped to her hands which were now clenched around the countertop. “He pushed me down on the floor...right there in the bathroom,” she stuttered unevenly. “He was on top of me, his hand around my throat.”
“Did he... hurt... you?” Vin asked softly. He shifted closer and was surprised when she accepted the silent comfort he was offering and leaned back against him.
She shook her head as she took in the unspoken meaning in his words. “No, but I thought he was going to. I was crying and begging him to stop and I closed my eyes when I felt him touch me. I tried to scream for my mom, but he covered my mouth.” A sob escaped her and Vin pulled her back farther against him, his hand closing over her hip and his head dropping down to her shoulder.
“Shhh, you’re safe now,” he reminded her as she began to shake.
“And then he just stopped. He kept saying something about my eyes...that they weren’t right and he was so mad and then he just let me go. He never did it again, but he wouldn’t let me cut my hair or change the color back. I told my mom, but she made me promise not to bring it up ever again.” She took in a couple of deep breaths to get herself back under control.
Vin forced himself to release his hold on her and picked up the scissors.
“My eyes weren’t the right color. That’s what he meant, right?”
Putting her through this was the last thing he wanted to do, but she had a right to know everything. “He liked blue eyes.”
“Black hair and blue eyes.”
Vin nodded. “He had an obsession with Logan’s sister. She’s about a year older then you. He raped her when she was seventeen.”
Mia paled as she connected the dots.
“The murders appear to have started shortly after Savannah left the state to go to college,” Vin said as he finished her hair.
Mia fell silent and studied herself in the mirror, her fingers drifting up to the scars on her neck.
“They’ll fade,” Vin offered.
“Not enough. I can’t cut them away too.”
Vin put the scissors down and turned her to face him. “One day you’ll see what I see when you look at these,” he said, his thumb grazing the raised flesh. “Someone who survived hell and came out on the other side. Until then, take off every door in the place, cover every mirror – do whatever you need to do until that day comes.”
His head told him to release her and walk away but then his eyes met hers and he felt himself drowning in the warm, whiskey colored depths. Her skin trembled beneath his fingers and he felt his gut clench when her lips parted and a soft breath escaped her. Jesus, she was turned on. And by the confused look that settled over her, she didn’t even know it.
“Vin?”
The way his name came out sounding more like a question than anything else had him taking a step back. He needed to remember that she was twenty-one and even though she’d lived through horrors most people could never even conceive of, she was still innocent...vulnerable. His body wanted her fiercely but he wasn’t the knight in shining armor that a girl her age was inevitably looking for and the sooner she figured that out, the better.
“I’ve got some stuff I need to do,” he said coldly and left the bathroom.
***
“Hey buddy,” Vin said as Briego appeared to greet him as he closed the front door. As usual, Bane was a no-show and Vin nearly laughed at the idea that he’d officially been dumped by his own dog. The house was dark and quiet, exactly like he liked it, but tension had set into his body long before he pulled up to the stately house that he’d spent years working with architects and contractors on to get just right. It made no sense that having Mia around would be as distracting as it was because he rarely even saw her. On the few occasions they’d crossed paths in the last two weeks, she’d ignored him and hurried on with whatever task she’d been engrossed in.. She’d even managed to keep her menagerie of rescue animals quiet and out of his way.
But his body didn’t seem to notice or care that Mia had made herself scarce. He usually managed to keep his lust at bay during the day as he acclimated himself to working in an office again so long after spending day after day in the unforgiving terrain of the Middle East, but nights were an entirely different story. He kept hearing the way she’d said his name in a haze of confusion and desire and he couldn’t help but wonder how it would sound if she were screaming it against his lips instead as he buried himself deep inside her. His dick had absolutely no issue with the fact that he was fucking old enough to be her father.
Vin tossed his keys on the side table and started to climb the stairs to his room when he heard Briego whine behind him. It was then that he noticed a shaft of light coming from the den at the end of the side hallway. He followed the dog to the room and stopped when he saw Mia sitting on the small leather loveseat that was facing the fireplace with the huge flat screen TV above it. The TV was on but there was no sound. Her back was to him and all he could actually see was that curtain of wavy, auburn hair. But her distress was clear because she was rocking back and forth.
Vin entered the room slowly and as he neared the loveseat he saw that Bane was draped across her lap. Mia’s fingers were clenched around the dog’s neck but if she was hurting the animal, Vin knew Bane wouldn’t protest. For whatever reason, the dog had chosen where his loyalties lay and they were definitely with the young woman who was desperately hanging onto him for support.
“Mia?” Vin said softly as he made his way around the small piece of furniture. She didn’t respond and he was startled to see tears flowing silently down her cheeks as her wet eyes stared at the television. Vin gently pried Mia’s hand off Bane and eased the dog off the loveseat so he could take the animal’s place. Mia’s hand tightened around his automatically but she didn’t seem to realize it was now him beside her instead of Bane.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered as he reached up with his other hand and forced her eyes off the television. The move did the trick and she reared back a bit as she finally noticed him. He expected her to pull away from him but she just sat there as more tears coursed down her face.
“They found another one,” she managed to get out as she glanced back at the TV. Vin looked up and it took him several long seconds to realize what she was watching. A headline reading, 13th Body Discovered flashed on the bottom of the screen as two men carried a body bag across a field to a plain white van. A long shot on the screen showed the old white farmhouse that had been Mia’s own personal hell.
“They think she’s a runaway that was reported missing last year. She was only fifteen,” Mia said in a strangled voice.
Shit, how had he not heard about this? He could have tried to soften the blow...
An image of Mia flashed on the screen next to a picture of her father and he saw her turn her face away. The picture was clearly the one that had been taken of her in the psych ward and Vin quickly reached for the remote and turned off the TV.
/>
“Look at me,” he said.
Mia shook her head and tried to stand but he still had hold of her hand and refused to release her.
“Mia, none of this is your fault,” he said gently as he pulled her back down to sit next to him once more.
“Tell that to that girl’s parents,” she said quietly.
“How could you have changed what happened to her?” he asked. She was still trying to tug her hand free so he began rubbing his thumb over her wrist. “Was there anything you could have done differently that would have changed the outcome for any of those women?” he asked softly.
She fell silent at that and stopped fighting him. “Maybe if I’d tried again,” she said so quietly he barely heard her.
“Tried what again?”
She looked up at him as if surprised she’d said the words aloud.
“Tried what again?” he repeated as he slid his thumb along the back of her hand and then turned it over so he could stroke the soft skin of her palm. Her eyes fell to where they touched.
“I should have asked for help again,” she muttered.
It took everything in Vin not to freeze up at her words. “You asked for help?” he prodded.
She nodded. “Twice. A teacher asked about a bruise on my face when I was in the fifth grade and I told her my father had done it.”
“What happened?”
“Someone from Social Services showed up at my house but my mom told them I’d made it up because I was mad at my father for not letting me go to a party. They believed her.”
“And the second time?”
Her eyes finally came back up to meet his. “After that day in the bathroom I told a police officer even though I promised my mom I wouldn’t,” she said on a half-sob. “I was so scared he’d do it again and that he wouldn’t stop the next time.”
Loving Vin (Barretti Security Series, #1) Page 3