Page 10 of The Castle (Endgame 3)
“It was the only way to keep her safe. Every hour she would have had to work, I paid for her to sit in her room. Alone. None of the men with their fucking hands on her.”
My hands clench in Gabriel’s shirt, pulling him close. It suddenly strikes me as absurd that he’s still dressed. Because he just had his mouth on my most private places. And because he’s baring the darkest parts of himself right now.
“It cost everything I had saved up, thinking I was going to leave. And it cost years of my life, working for my father, doing whatever he said, shaking down drug addicts, keeping the girls in line.”
My throat tightens. “You did what you had to.”
“How do you know that?” He sounds disgusted with himself. He sounds furious. “How do you choose between one woman and another? How could I force so many women to spread their legs while keeping one safe?”
“She wasn’t a woman,” I whisper. “She was a little girl.”
He shakes his head. “I was so sure, then. I knew what I needed to do. I would have fucking killed anyone if they’d laid a hand on her. Even my father. And I probably would have been killed in the process, so this way I kept everyone safe.” A rough laugh. “Everyone except so many fucking women.”
“They understood,” I say, even though that’s not true. How could a woman understand her oppressor? Why should she have to? “And even if they didn’t, I understand. You had an impossible choice.”
“In the end it wasn’t my father who killed her.”
My throat tightens. “She died?”
His expression is grim. “While I was so busy keeping the men out of her room, she was plotting for ways to escape.”
“No,” I whisper, but the picture already unfolds in my mind—gruesome and stark.
“I think she knew how little was keeping her safe. A kid with more pride than sense. That was me. And her age. Once she was older, I wouldn’t have had any excuse for keeping her locked up.”
I bury my face against his chest, bracing myself for what’s to come. What he’s lived with.
“She came up with a plan to run when I wasn’t there, out on a fucking errand. That’s the part that sticks with me. That I had kept her in that room. That she was afraid of me. I was the one she hid from.”
“Gabriel.”
“And the men who found her,” he says, his voice almost painfully emotionless. “They didn’t see a little girl, not anymore. They saw a girl old enough to work on her back, like all the others. They fucked her. And then they left her there to bleed out.”
I stare at him, horrified. I knew the story had a tragic ending, but this is beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s not even human. Not animal. These were monsters. “Oh God.”
“And it was my fault,” he says, his voice still flat. “Because I let her escape.”
“No,” I tell him. “You aren’t responsible for them.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” he says coldly. “Those people are out there. The ones who would hunt you down. Who would fuck you. Who would watch you die.”
Ice floods my veins. “You’re not just keeping people out, are you? You’re keeping me inside.”
“Do you really want an answer to that?”
I think I already have one. “I’m not a little girl.”
He looks down, studying my bare legs, spread around his hips. “I know that, little virgin. I’ve made sure of it.”
“Stop.”
“I had your blood on my cock proving the point, didn’t I?”
I swallow hard. “Stop it. I know you want to punish me. You want to punish yourself, but you don’t deserve that. What happened was awful, too awful for words. And not your fault.”
“That’s my secret, Avery. I’m paid up. Now tell me your fantasy.”
My mouth drops open. “I can’t—not after that. I can’t talk about sex.”
“That was our deal. Don’t you dare go back on your deal. I think of all people you should know the steep penalty for doing that with me.”
I flinch, unable to stop myself. “I’m not holding back. I just… You told me something terrible. Something horrifying. I can’t tell you about some secret fantasy now. You don’t even want me to.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t I?”
“You’re just trying to punish me. That’s what this is.”
“What would I be punishing you for?”
“For asking. For pushing. For wanting you to open up to me.”
He laughs, the sound hollow. “If I had wanted a girl who didn’t ask questions, I would have paid for one. Instead I bought you.”
A shiver runs through me. “If you want to know my fantasy, I’ll tell you.”
“Rose petals?” he asks, his voice mocking. “Candles? Champagne?”
“So I’m innocent,” I retort. “You could have bought a girl who wasn’t. Instead you bought me.”
He strokes the backs of his fingers against my cheek. “Don’t you see, little virgin? This is why I need you. So many girls, broken so young. Not only her. All of them. Whether they were nine years old or sixteen, the end result was the same. A hard life and a shallow grave.”
