by Tee, Marian
The words made Damen’s heart crack into a thousand pieces.
If any of the gods could hear him now, let them take his life in exchange for turning back time and preventing Mairi from ever knowing that Cleon Frangos existed.
But if there was indeed a god listening to Damen, it was the god of vengeance and he struck ruthlessly, filling Damen with visions of a pale and shaking Mairi, fearful and alone, with no one to turn to for help as she found herself locked inside a room with Cleon Frangos.
“I was aroused by her fear. It made me want to fuck her even more. I couldn’t stop staring at her breasts…”
Pure instinct had Damen taking a step towards Cleon. It didn’t matter that what Cleon was saying had already taken place. Something in him wanted to protect Mairi – even if it was only the imaginary Mairi in his mind, the one who could not cry out because she was so damn afraid.
“She told me she did not want it, but I told her I could make her want it. I unzipped my pants and showed her my dick…”
In Damen’s mind, the story took on a life of its own, and in cruel irony, his imagination was able to stay a step ahead of Cleon’s story, painfully accurate in its ability to foresee what Mairi would have done. Because he knew her that well. Because he loved her that much. Because he had always known, had always fucking known deep inside himself that Mairi loved him so much she would do anything for him. Anything.
In his mind, he saw Mairi making the decision to run.
“She bolted from her seat and ran…”
He saw Mairi dashing to the door…
“I caught her just as she reached the door…”
Mairi would try to open it…
“She managed to open it, but I kept her from leaving. I started rubbing my dick against her butt. She was trapped between me and the door…”
There would be a crazed look of fear in Mairi’s eyes, a second where she would feel nothing but fear and desperation because she was trapped. But then the sanity would return, her instinctive courage. Mairi would not cry for help.
“She didn’t plead for me to stop.”
She would think of a way to get out. She would not give up easily.
“I was waiting for her to knee me. I was ready for that. But she didn’t. I forced her on her knees.”
And she would have a plan. Because his Mairi was not just beautiful and loving, she was smart and courageous, too, and she would not have let anyone hurt her just like that.
“She punched my dick.” Cleon’s face screwed up in remembered pain and fury, something in him still hating Mairi Tanner for that one act even though he had been the one to force himself on her. Mairi had not been the only girl to try fighting off his advances, but Mairi had been the first to succeed.
Cleon was about to say more, but suddenly his blindfold was torn off. The light blinded him for a moment and he groaned as he blinked rapidly. When his vision cleared, what Cleon saw made him wish he was still blindfolded and left blissfully unaware of who he had been repeating his story for.
Damen Leventis.
It was Damen Leventis in the flesh, and the look on the billionaire’s face told Cleon his days were numbered, that he would have been better off making a confession to the police.
He started to babble, desperate to save his life. “I swear, Mr. Leventis, if I had known she was—”
“Quiet.”
That one word was as sharp and cold as a killer’s blade.
Cleon wanted to pee again.
Damen said tightly, “I will not hurt you right now. I will let you go. I will let you heal. I will let you lull yourself into thinking I’ve forgotten you or that you’re untouchable because I know you’re that stupid. And I don’t mind that you’re that stupid. When the day comes that you are at your strongest, that you are at your most arrogant, I will come back for you. And that is when you will pay.”
Damen
~ Four ~
The ringing of the phone tore Damen out of his most terrifying memories, and for a moment he was disoriented, his senses on alert, his instincts bordering on murderous. He was ready to kill anyone who dared to even consider hurting Mairi.
The phone continued to ring, and sanity kicked in a moment later.
He swiftly crossed the room to pick up the phone.
“Damen Leventis?” the voice on the other end of the line asked hesitantly.
Damen did his best to make his voice even, but memories that had not completely faded made his voice tight with guilt and self-hatred as he asked, “Is this Mandy?”
“Yes.” A moment later, unable to stop herself, Mandy demanded, “Has something bad happened to Mairi? She hasn’t been answering her phone the past few days.”
Hope died with those words, Mandy unknowingly answering the questions he had yet to ask. Damen said hollowly, “I had called hoping you would be able to tell me where she is.”
Mandy paled. “You don’t know where she is?”
“Do not lie to me.” Terror, an emotion that he had only become familiar with since he had learned of what Mairi had gone through, made his voice especially sharp.
“I’m not lying. I don’t know where she is and you’re not helping matters when you tell me you don’t know where Mairi is either!”
Mandy’s voice had risen at the end of her outburst, and the note of panic in it was unmistakable. He knew then that Mandy was not lying, and terror swallowed more of the few remaining tendrils of hope that survived inside Damen.
“I’m sorry. I did not mean to be sharp with you. I am angry at myself, not you, for…” He almost laughed, realizing that he had no idea where to start about the innumerable things he had to be sorry for.
For every instance that Mairi had proven she loved him, there were ten things he did to make her think that he did not value her love at all.
“D-do you think she’s in trouble?” Mandy demanded.
“Her aunts should know where she is.”
There was something off in the Greek billionaire’s voice. Common sense told her that she shouldn’t believe Damen Leventis, but Mandy for once did not want to be practical. She told herself that she was just imagining things and that what Damen had said was true. Nothing bad had happened to Mairi. Her aunts would know where Mairi was and her friend would be fine. Was fine.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Five days now,” Damen said hollowly.
“Have you talked to her aunts?”
“I will call them after this.”
Another strangely tense moment of silence followed, and Mandy again felt afraid for Mairi. She whispered, “What happened?”
Damen wanted to say that nothing happened, but he knew he did not deserve to say that. He spoke tonelessly, not hiding a single fact. He told Mandy about how he had been stupidly and foolishly blind to Mairi’s suffering, how he had forced her into a situation that had almost gotten Mairi raped. He told Mandy how he had constantly doubted Mairi’s love, to the point that he had believed a stranger over Mairi, to the point that he had thrown Mairi out of his house and treated her no better than a gold-digging whore.
He waited for Mandy to shout at him.
But she did not.
When she next spoke, she was crying. “I didn’t know...Velvet or I didn’t know any of this. We told her not to apply anymore because she kept getting rejected…”
Fate, once again in a cruelly ironic mood, interfered, giving Damen’s imagination the kind of accuracy only a powerful clairvoyant would have…or one whose love was so great that when it was betrayed, its ability to hurt was unparalleled.
Damen did not have to close his eyes to imagine Mairi forcing herself to smile, to laugh and chat like she was not worried at all about what the future held for her as she received one humiliating rejection after another.
He knew how Greek society worked, knew that those who were firmly on the side of Esther Leventis and the Kokinos clan would not hesitate to treat her like a leper and embarrass her with every opportunit
y they had to do so.
And again, he knew that she did it because she loved him that much.
Oh God, Mairi, how can I ever make it up to you?
I’m so sorry. There are no words, Mairi. I’m so sorry.
“We told her to tell you…”
But she hadn’t wanted to. His beautiful, selfless, and courageous Mairi had refused to tell him because she had always considered herself a burden to him, someone who still had to prove that she was worthy of becoming a Greek billionaire’s wife.
He wanted to throw up, as if his system felt he was undeserving to digest anything that nourished him because he was that fucking useless. Worthless. She had it wrong. She had it the other way around. She never had a need to prove that she deserved him. With every day they spent together, it was he – Damen Leventis – who had to prove that he deserved her love, which was something not even all his billions could be enough to buy.
“But we didn’t know,” Mandy sobbed. “We didn’t know that she was almost raped. Why wouldn’t she tell us? Why?”
Because of him.
Because he was always to blame.
Because by choosing to love him, Mairi had also chosen to isolate herself, being smart enough to know that anyone she considered a friend would be a potential target of the enmity of Esther Leventis – his own fucking mother – and the Kokinos clan, a family whose fury she didn’t do anything to earn but became a target of anyway because of Damen.
It always came back to Damen.
Always.
Again, the most painful question lacerated his mind.
How many times did Mairi have to suffer just because she loved him?
“I’m sorry that my relationship with her has made Mairi avoid you and Velvet, but I promise you,” Damen vowed grimly, “I will make the man who had attempted to…” He had to stop speaking, had to unclench his fingers so he would not accidentally crush the phone in his hands. “The man who tried to violate her will pay. This I promise you.”
But even as he said the words, even though he knew he meant every word, Damen knew it was not enough. He feared that it would never be enough.
Damen
~ Five ~
Two months earlier
The man in the mirror wearily gazing back at Damen Leventis looked like hell. His hair was uncombed, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was haggard and unshaven. He wore expensive clothes, but they were yesterday’s clothes, crumpled after he spent the whole night tossing and turning. They hung loosely about his body, which had grown noticeably thinner.
He had not been able to sleep without the aid of drugs or liquor ever since he had learned of Mairi’s attack.
How could he when he was still not sure that she was indeed fine, that she was even alive?
The rational side of his mind told Damen that he was worrying over nothing. That if something had happened to Mairi, then her two American aunts would not have been living their lives normally. He knew from the investigative report he had ordered that the two older women loved Mairi fiercely – perhaps just as fiercely as he loved Mairi. They would not be able to pretend everything was fine if something bad had happened to their beloved niece.
But the irrational part of Damen?
It worried, desperately, and it made up the larger part of his mind. It told him that if Damen had not had a single inkling of Mairi’s suffering when she was fighting off Cleon Frangos, how could he allow himself to believe that it would be different this time…that he would know if Mairi was suffering now?
Tearing his gaze off his reflection, he bent down to splash cold water on his face, needing himself sober. After switching the tap off, he grabbed the towel hanging from the rail and patted his face dry, feeling more and more awake with each passing second.
By the time Damen sat down in front of his laptop, his mind was completely alert, his body alive, and his heart remained beating with the hope that there would come a day he would see Mairi again.
He began to type.
Dear Mairi,
I’m not sure if you will be able to read this letter. On the off chance that you are and this is the first letter of mine that you are able to read, I want you to know that I’m sorry.
I wish there’s a better way of putting it, but there is none. There are no excuses for my foolishness and cruelty. I have failed you. I failed to trust you when you never gave me any reason to distrust you. I failed to believe you when you have always been true, even in the times that I did not deserve your loyalty and faithfulness.
I hurt you, deliberately, mercilessly, and cruelly, and till the day I die I will always remember and never forgive myself for it.
I doubted you, I hurt you, and I know I do not deserve to say the words, but I will because I am and have always been a selfish bastard and I cannot just let you go without trying – without giving up my life trying to make you take a chance on me again.
I love you. Even when I hated you, when I thought that you only wanted to be with me for my money, I loved you. You are always in my thoughts. I see you wherever I go, I hear your voice even when all is silent, and I feel you now even if you only exist in my memories.
I will not give up searching for you. I will never tire of looking for you because I need to know you are fine – that you have survived despite my worst attempts to drown you in the pain of my cruelty.
I hope and I pray to all the gods in heaven that you are indeed able to read this letter because it means that you are alive and well. If you are fine, please – I know I do not deserve your pity, but please, I beg of you – let me know that you are fine. I need to know you are fine.
I love you.
I know I’m not making any sense – I started my letter like I know what to say but as I end it, my thoughts are jumbled and all I can write are those three words.
I love you.
They are all I have left.
Yours forever,
Damen
His gaze was blurry when his fingers moved away from the keyboard. Damen struggled to breathe, his emotions weighing heavily on him.
I love you, Mairi. I love you. I love you.
Sometimes, he just had to say the words, even if it was only in his mind. He felt like he was going to explode if he didn’t.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Slowly, his fingers moved back to the keyboard.
He typed a postscript.
Forgive me. Please. I am yours to punish, forever if you want, but please just let me stay by your side.
Damen hit Enter and the email was sent.
He knew there would be no reply, as there had been no reply to his other emails. But he waited anyway. He would wait forever if he had to. It was better than thinking something had happened to Mairi.
Seconds turned into minutes, which then turned into hours. He only closed the laptop when morning became noon and it was time to leave. He would never tire of waiting for a sign that Mairi was fine – would more than welcome any news of Mairi perhaps celebrating as she drank to her freedom from her hellish life with him. But for now, there was a place he needed to go so he could fulfill his vow.
****
Cleon Frangos was indeed a stupid and foolish man. When weeks turned into a month and he still had not heard from Damen Leventis, he convinced himself that he had nothing to worry about. Slowly but more carefully this time, he began to rebuild his life.
Sadly, there was no way to reclaim his old job. The board had fired him, and Cleon had at least been smart enough to know that appealing his case would have been useless. Ioniko Vlahos’ mother was one of the school’s board members, a fact that made getting his job back an impossibility.
He was not without friends though, and by pulling a few strings, Cleon had gotten one of his older cronies to smooth his way into getting a job as faculty head in an all-girls school outside Athens. The pay was pathetic for a man of his stature, but the number of girls that he would be in control of was good recompense.
A k
nock sounded on his door, and Cleon wetted his lips in anticipation. He had recently convinced the guidance counselor to send her most troublesome students to him, and today he would be “consulting” with the first of them.
“Come in,” he called out, keeping his voice deliberately abrupt so he would instill fear in the girl outside his room.
The door opened.
Cleon’s face blanched.
The door slammed shut.
“No—” Panic made him turn to the windows behind him and claw them open. If he had to jump out of his office windows, so be it. Anything was better than facing the man—
Hands so strong they felt like steel settled on his shoulders and spun Cleon around, and he forced himself to look into the dark eyes of Damen Leventis, which glittered with rage.
“Please,” he blubbered, “I haven’t contacted Mairi, never even spared her a thought—” Damen’s gaze darkened even more at his words, and Cleon’s voice faded.
“Do you think I will be pleased to know that you are the kind of man who does not spare a thought for his victims?”
Cleon gulped. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just—”
“Shut up,” Damen snapped. He hauled the hefty man away from the windows, his rage lending him strength, enabling him to easily toss Cleon over his desk.
The heavy man fell to the floor in a loud thump as pens and papers from his desk rained everywhere.
Cleon heard something drop next to him with a clattering sound. When he opened his eyes, he saw that it was a sharp knife, sharp enough to cut through flesh.
“Take it,” Damen said coldly. “I want you to fight me with the knife. It is the only way I will have any satisfaction beating you into a pulp.”
Cleon did not hesitate. He grabbed the knife and, pushing himself to his feet, he lunged wildly at Damen. Panic made him move faster than usual, allowing him to slice the flesh of Damen’s left thigh open. He laughed maniacally, thinking he had won, but his laughter died when he saw not a flicker of expression pass through Damen’s face.