Chapter 24: Corrupted Heart: Chapter 24

They say rules were meant to be broken.

It would appear that the woman wrapped in my arms, her breath tickling across my chest, is that saying personified.

I may be the one that chases her. I might be the one that pins her to the ground, and savages her, and drags her with claws and snarling teeth over every line she’s ever had.

But slowly, surely, in ways I honestly never saw coming, she’s the one who’s pulled me as well, far, far beyond lines I said I’d never cross. Shattered rules I set for myself that I’ve never broken up till now.

Given me “firsts” I swore I’d never have.

A first kiss. Being someone’s first. Even the way we’re tangled in each other’s limbs right now across the back seat of the town car I borrowed from Ares.

Aftercare. Pillow talk. Snuggling.

These are things I’ve obliterated from my lexicon. Things I “don’t do”.

And yet, here I am. Here we are.

Maybe it’s not that I don’t do snuggling, just that I never had Bianca before.

I know she’s awake. But her eyes are closed peacefully, her cheek against my bare chest and her small hand splayed across my abs. I watch the way my own large hand slides down the defined muscles of her bare dancer’s back. The way my big fingers splay across her ass, cupping the whole cheek in one hand.

She’s so fucking breakable. So crushable. And yet, I know I’d bleed my last ounce of strength in these arms shielding her from harm, rather than being the cause of it.

Her lips curl into a smile as I reach down and brush a lock of her hair back from her face.

Yes, I was furious when I watched via the hack on her phone as she “reset” her match parameters on the Venom site. In her case, it didn’t do shit, because I’d already locked that function in her account on the back end. But seeing she had that intent made me see red.

The fact that she wanted another man. Another player to go toe to toe with in these games of ours.

I could have stopped it there. I could have found her at the club I knew she was at, dragged her into the bathroom, and reminded her whose she is.

But that’s not really a reminder, it’s a threat. And I don’t want threats being what keeps this woman at my side. I don’t want anything “keeping” her there at all.

I want her to simply want to be there.

So I played her game. I indulged in a role, because I wanted to see—had to see—if she’d truly seek someone else.

In the end, she didn’t. She walked away. And not because she got cold feet.

It was because she realized I’m the only one she wants. And that’s all I needed to see.

…But, I mean, I already had the car borrowed from Ares. And I’d bought the wig and fake mustache. And who am I to turn down a chance to feast on her screams as I chase her through the dark?

I still have questions, though. Something spooked her and pushed her away, and it sure as hell wasn’t just me getting cold with her after she freaked out in the bath.

My teeth grit as I replay that scene, when Bianca threw up her walls, rebuking intimacy—intimacy that takes a lot for me to find within myself. Intimacy I haven’t ever sought out with another person. It fucking hurt. Hence, my frostiness afterward.

“Who is she?”

I frown, pulled from my thoughts as my attention slides down to Bianca’s face against my chest. Her eyes are open now, staring into the dim, cocooned warmth of the back seat as she strokes a finger over my ribs.

“Who’s who⁠—”

Her finger stills.

“That woman, Kratos. Just…tell me,” she says quietly. “Tell me if you fucked⁠—”

It hits me like a backhand to the face and makes me want to roar. It makes me want to break something.

Namely, Amaya’s fucking neck.

“You saw her leaving the house.”

Bianca says nothing. She doesn’t have to. Because in an instant it all clicks into place, and I can see it right there on her face.

She ran into Amaya leaving the brownstone after the bitch stopped by unannounced to threaten me with prison time. I can only assume the miserable cunt did or said something to send Bianca running, because that’s the kind of fucking ghoul she is.

That’s why Bianca left. It’s why she went out, and drank, and tried to find someone else on the Venom site.

Son of a bitch.

I suck in slow breaths, trying to calm the beast roaring inside of me. My arms squeeze around her a little tighter.

“Please,” Bianca whispers, taking my silence the wrong way. “Put me out of my misery. If it’s going to hurt, just do it fast instead of⁠—”

“Her name is Amaya Mircari.”

Bianca stiffens in my arms.

“And no,” I hiss quietly. “I didn’t fucking touch her.”

Bianca exhales swiftly against my chest.

“I’m guessing she insinuated that she did?”

Bianca’s lips purse tightly.

That’s a yes.

I look away, my eyes stabbing viciously out the tinted window into the darkness of the forest.

“I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone.”

I can’t tell her that Amaya is CIA. Not because it could mean trouble for me if the people in my world found out I was talking with the Feds…though it would.

I’m not worried about me. But I’m worried about her. Bianca’s in this criminal world, too. If she knows about this, it could put her in danger. And I won’t have that.

Bianca looks up at me, her eyes darting over my face like she’s working up the courage to say something. Finally, she does.

“Do the two of you have a history?”

I nod.

“Oh,” she says quietly, her voice breaking a little as she looks away.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Kratos, it’s none of my⁠—”

“My father liked to parade me around when I was a kid, like I was some sort of gladiatorial hero. His champion. Even when I was young, I was big and tough, and he liked showing me off to his buddies and business associates, like an attack dog that he kept on a short leash.”

I swallow, my jaw grinding.

“It worked, of course. I got dragged into mafia sit-downs way younger than I had any right to be. Dad thought it made him look tough to have me standing behind him, the whole room knowing I was only like ten and still so menacing.”

Bianca’s face collapses. She lowers her mouth, softly kissing my chest.

“As I got older, he pushed for me to do more than just stand behind him. I went to drops, stopped by the offices of people who owed him money, that sort of thing. I was a fucking twelve-year-old mafia enforcer…which is exactly what he wanted.”

My eyes close. A razor drags over my heart.

She needs to know this. I’ll keep Amaya’s CIA connection from Bianca, but she needs to know what made me the way I am. Why I’m the way I am. If that sends her running, so be it…

I want her to know.

“I met Amaya when I was thirteen,” I growl. “She worked for some influential people that my father wanted to curry favor with, and she had an ‘interest’ in me. They worked out a trade. He got in with the powerful people, and she got what she wanted from me.”

Bianca’s brows knit. “And what⁠—”

Her face goes white as she visibly chokes.

“Oh my fucking God…!”

“I was thirteen,” I say quietly. “She was thirty.”

Bianca chokes on a sob, clinging to me as she presses her face tight to my chest. Her body hitches, her tears hot on my skin as she kisses my chest, my neck, my face.

My heart wrenches as my arms tighten around her. The razorblades of the past slash into me, slicing the skin and flaying me open. And yet, there’s a balm right in front of me.

A soothing, healing touch.

A cure.

“It went on for years,” I continue slowly. “It’s pretty much why I picked a college in London.”

“Kratos…”

“She…taught me things.”

Bianca’s face turns ashen. Her head shakes side to side, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why are you telling⁠—”

“Because I need you to know,” I growl, cupping her face as my eyes stab into hers. “If you’re going to stay⁠—”

“Of course I’m going to stay.”

My eyes search hers. “Then you need to understand, Bianca. You need to know why I’m…” I look away. “What broke me.”

Her soft touch lands on my cheek. Small, delicate fingers stroke my skin, pulling my gaze back into hers.

“You’re not broken, Kratos,” she whispers in the dark.

I shake my head. “Yes, I⁠—”

“Just because you’re made differently it doesn’t mean you’re broken. The scars you bear or the pain you’ve suffered don’t either.” Her eyes capture mine. “You’re just put together different.” Her mouth twists in a wry smile. “Like me.”

My lips press softly to hers, kissing her deeply as my arms encircle her small body. When she hitches out a small cry, I pull away sharply with a furrowed brow.

“Babygirl…”

“I…” Her eyes are blurry with tears. She wipes them with the back of her hand, looking away. “I have to tell you something, too.”

My jaw goes rigid as I stroke her hair back from her face. I slide a thick finger over her cheek, brushing away a teardrop.

“When you tried to wash my hair earlier…”

“Don’t worry about⁠—”

“No, it’s…” Her eyes squeeze shut and she takes a heavy breath. “It’s not that I didn’t want you too. I’d love it if you washed my hair,” she chokes. “It’s just…”

I cup her face again, stroking her cheek with my thumb. Her hand wraps around mine, pulling me closer.

“When I was a sophomore in high school, I started going out with this guy, Tim Ciglione. He was a senior, and all the girls mooned over him. You know the type: rich, popular, captain of the lacrosse team. And smug about all of it.”

Her mouth tightens. Her eyes go a little darker.

So do mine as my blood begins to simmer.

‘His dad had this huge, luxury penthouse with a rooftop pool and hot tub and everything, so when Tim decided to throw a party when his dad was going to be out of town, it was the party to be at. We’d only gone on a few dates, but he told me he wanted the night to be special, and that he really wanted me to be there so he could show me off to all the cool, popular people he was friends with. So, I arrive at the party and he’s instantly all over me. Smiling at me, laughing at all my dumb jokes, touching me…”

The beast inside me snarls.

“Giving me drinks. Soon, I was pretty drunk, and in the hot tub alone with him.” She looks at me furtively. “We… We’d never done anything besides kissing, so that’s what we were doing…just kissing.”

Rage explodes in my chest, but I nod for her to continue. I know in my heart that I don’t want to hear this, but just as I needed her to know about Amaya, she needs me to know about this.

If it goes where the acid in my blood thinks it’s going, though, I know there’s only one conclusion to this story: me, finding this Tim motherfucker, and putting him in the goddamn ground.

“Eventually, I told him I had to go home. But he started pushing for more. You know, wanting to put his hands under my bikini, that sort of thing.”

I see pure red.

“I said no, so he started pressing me to touch him. He…”

She swallows, looking away.

“You don’t have to tell me, babygirl.”

“Yes, I do. I want to.”

She takes a shaky breath.

“He pulled his dick out, grabbed my head, and tried to, like, guide it there.”

Mother. Fucker.

He’s a dead man. Fucking dead.

“When I said no, he pulled harder. When I tried to move away, he…” She grimaces. “He pushed my head underwater and tried to force his dick into my mouth.”

She shudders in my arms. I shove aside my rage as I hold her tight, wrapping my arms around her as she cries softly into my chest.

She doesn’t need my rage and vengeance right now. She just needs this.

Vengeance can, and will, come later.

“Ever since then, I can’t do water over my head,” she says in a brittle voice. She laughs coldly. “And I used to love swimming. I was even on the dive team, and I was good. Now?” Her lips twist. “You should see my bathing routine, it’s fucking pathetic. I mean, I wash my hair bending over the bath⁠—”

“It’s not pathetic,” I growl, taking her hand in mine. “It’s survival. It’s how we keep it together and cover the scars. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Our eyes lock in the darkness. My fingers tangle in her hair, pulling her lips to mine.

I was wrong.

There’s nothing breakable about her at all.