against the back wall. It was clean and modern, and not what I’d expected.
“From the look on your face, I figure you thought I’d live in a dive or something,” he mumbled as he popped his neck, before heading into the fridge which he’d evidently stocked because he hurled cans of beer at us. “Ama, what do you want to drink?”
“Just water, please,” she replied from her place on the island, her legs swung back and forth as her gaze darted between all of us.
Was she expecting us to fight? To confront Ink with—hell, with what? He hadn’t done anything wrong. If Ama was sore today, it had to mean that he’d taken her virginity last night so he’d done right by her all along.
I had to respect that, because fuck, I wasn’t sure if I’d have been as good of a man as that.
❖
Ink
Her scream, when it came, didn’t come as a surprise.
I had some haunting and harrowing dreams of my own, so my sleep was never that strong anyway, and ever since she’d become a part of my nightly routine, that had only been exacerbated.
From the way the boys had been touching her? I’d figured they’d worked shit out at the parlor after I’d gone. They’d definitely moved up a gear from just friends.
Deep down, I’d hoped that would ease her mind some, but that was too much to hope for. Love, lust, and sex weren’t cures for what she’d gone through.
Her PTSD ran deep, and I couldn’t fucking blame her.
What she’d gone through, what she’d seen and had to do, it was a wonder she wasn’t more fucked in the head. As it was, the nightmares, the need to constantly have a drink at her side—one she usually always gulped like it would be denied her again—and the habit of never leaving any food on her plate, were minor in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, I doubted I knew every single one of the quirks, but those were the ones I thought manifested the most. The ones Lucie had called idiosyncrasies, and that she believed would be the breaking point in any relationship Ama had with a man. Or, I guessed, men.
Tonight, I curved my arms around her, but I wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Saint and Keys came in.
The three of them had camped out in the living room after Lucie had come and tucked Matty and Seamus into the spare bedroom.
I’d left them watching a movie because I needed to be up early in the morning. It had come as no surprise to stir a few hours later and find her tucked into bed with me.
The scream had evidently woken the others, but not her brothers who apparently slept like the dead because I didn’t hear a thing from their bedroom down the hall. When they clambered in beside her, Saint on the outer edge, Keys beside Ama, I didn’t say a word. Neither did they.
The sound of her sobs tore at me, fucking wrenched at my soul, but even though my hands formed into fists as my outrage powered through me, I shuffled them along so she wouldn’t feel them. I didn’t want her to know how tense her bad dreams made me. How they made me wish to turn back time so I could rip Aaron Sanchez apart again and again, truly make him pay for how he’d messed with her head.
The British had tortured men they suspected of being in the IRA with something called the ‘five techniques.’ They were illegal now, of course, they had been back then too. But they were torture methods that fucked with people’s heads long term.
I knew for a fact that she’d endured at least four of those techniques. Her eyes had been covered for days, and she’d been denied food, drink, and sleep. And, because I’d gone to therapy with her, I also knew he’d very rarely stopped talking. Subjection to noise was usually loud blasts of sound, but the constant chattering of a stupid fucker who had revenge on his mind? Reminders of how he was going to hurt her to punish her fathers? How she was going to pay for what her dads had done to his?
That was just as much a torture method as anything else.
I rubbed my hand down her spine, unsurprised to nudge Keys’ hand, which was on her lower back. What did surprise me, was when I felt her breathing deepen as she returned to sleep.