I narrowed my eyes. “You punched something. What was it?”
“Might have been a wall.”
I fought back a smile. “And you punched a wall because…?”
His face hardened. “Esposito escaped on my watch. It’s my fault he’s out there right now, even if he is in the hands of murderous thugs.”
Incensed at his self-deprecation, I tried to break his hold so I could give him a firm talking to.
He only tightened it.
“It is not your fau—”
His hands froze on my back.
It wasn’t until that moment I realized where exactly on my back he was touching me. What exactly his fingertips were brushing over. They had snaked beneath my strapless bandeau top and were touching them.
His eyes flared wide, shock and outrage warring for prominence in his features. “Lexi? Is that…?”
It was going to happen sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.
With tender prodding, he turned me around before I could come up with a response. Gingerly lifting my top, he exposed the entire middle of my back.
Every inch of which was covered in burn scars.
I couldn’t believe what the hell I was seeing.
Scars spanned the center of Lexi’s back—burn scars by the looks of them. They were concentrated in a strip that was at least six inches wide. They stretched from her left kidney to just below her right shoulder blade. The skin was lighter colored and tighter than the surrounding tissue, suggesting they’d been healed for some time.
“Christ.” My fingers lightly caressed the burned areas. “Legs… How did you get these?”
I’d murder a motherfucker that second if she only gave me a name. If someone had actually done this to her, they would feel pain like they couldn’t possibly imagine.
And how had I not seen this before?
I thought back to everything she’d worn since I met her and realized with startingly clarity that she’s always managed to keep it covered. Clearly having become meticulous about the cuts of her clothing, every dress and top had always concealed this part of her back from view.
Guilt stabbed through me when she sighed wearily. I was about to tell her she didn’t have to talk about it if it was too difficult.
But then I didn’t.
I needed to know how she’d come to endure such pain. Hearing it from her somehow seemed…vital.
“It was in a fire at the orphanage in Siberia where I grew up.” She said it like a rote, as if she’d told this story one too many times. “I was seven.”
Seven?
Good God, she’d been a child.
If I thought too long about a tiny, blond-headed Lexi, surrounded by scorching flames and screaming in terror for help, I’d unravel into a psychotic, killing beast. So, I shoved those disturbing images out of my mind.
“The fire started upstairs in one of the storage rooms,” she continued. “Bad electrical wiring or something. It was down the hall from where all the kids slept, but the staff members were able to get everyone out before the flames reached the bedrooms. Everyone except me.”
Unholy fury had my blood boiling. “They left you?”
She shook her head. “No, they didn’t see me. I was hiding under my bed at the time because I’d had a nightmare. It happened a lot, and I always felt safer under my bed for some reason.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Strange, isn’t it? Kids are always told that monsters lie beneath their beds, not comfort.”
Jesus, baby.
She was breaking my heart. Something I never thought could be broken because it had never felt whole to begin with.
“Anyway, I was under the bed when the staff members ran in and screamed for everyone to get out. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it scared me even more than the nightmare, so I stayed where I was. In the chaos and confusion, they must have assumed I was already with the group when they saw my empty bed.”
My fingers started stroking that strip of skin before I could command them to stop.
“I don’t know what snapped me out of it, but I eventually figured out that the building was on fire. I ran out of the bedroom and made it to the stairwell before the fire blocked it from me. But just as I reached the first level, part of the ceiling collapsed on me.”
It felt like there were flames in my fucking throat.
I couldn’t talk, couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe.
She reached back and ran her index finger along the path of scars. “I was trapped under a wooden support beam