Cut Too Deep (36 page)

“It’s not what you think.” Hadley sighed resolutely. This wasn’t the time to argue his obsessive ways. “Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

They sat side by side on the couch.

“The man in the SUV is Isaak. He works for my grandmother.”

“Valentina?”

“No. Sascha Mihaylov.”

Miller’s eyebrows furrowed together.

“The ballerina?”

“The one and only. Evidently, she’s my father’s mother,” Hadley admitted.

“What did she want?”

“To know me.”

Hadley filled Miller in on her conversation with her grandmother, telling him how Sascha never knew she had a granddaughter, how she works at the ballet, and wants Hadley to audition.

“That’s great. Are you going to do it?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Hadley looked at her hands. “I need to process all of it.”

“You know she’s not the only family you have that would like to know you.”

Her head shot up, glaring at him bitterly. “If you are about to open up a conversation about Valentina, don’t! They’re not the same. Valentina abandoned me.”

“Not intentionally.”

“Miller!” Hadley warned. “You don’t understand the torture I lived through. I feel nothing but distain for that woman.”

Miller’s phone vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket.

Nick: I have a name, Harold Duwatski. He’s in New York. I’m running background now.

He wanted to reply, but slipped the phone back in his pocket to finish a conversation that had been a long time coming.

“I do understand what you’ve been through, but she’s your family. She wants to get to know you.”

Miller’s sense of family was a characteristic Hadley adored about him, but in her case, the relationship was unrepairable.

“They never tried to help me.” Hadley closed her eyes and swallowed, searching for courage. “I prayed every night for rescue, and they lived within miles, ignoring they had a granddaughter.”

He gazed at her thoughtfully. “They didn’t know you needed them.”

“That’s crap! I spent years in foster homes with people who didn’t love me. Christ, my first time was on a filthy floor in gas station bathroom with one of my foster parents’ sons. I was only thirteen. I spent years under the control of a guardian who was also supposed to ‘protect me’, but he didn’t. Where were they while all this was going on? Pretending I didn’t exists. They told my guardian very clearly that they didn’t want me.”

“They thought you were safe. Salvatore was very sick with lung cancer when your parents died. When first approached, they did deny you, but they changed their minds and called your guardian. A man and woman came to see them shorty after. Russian. They said you were their niece and they were taking you back to Russia. Your guardian signed off.”

Her lips pressed flat. She squeezed her eyes closed. Hadley had more to say and could only hope he would still love her. She opened her eyes. Her mouth opened next, and the painful truth poured out.

“I wasn’t safe, and their story sounds like a bullshit excuse to cover up to their friends what nasty people they were. My guardian would never sign off on that. He wanted to keep me for himself to torture and abuse. He’s a demented fuck, who thought he owned me and treated me like a slave. He fucking hurt me! Badly. Really goddamn, badly. My grandparents let that happen to me. How am I supposed to get past that?”

Her confession made Miller’s mind race with plans of revenge.

“Tell me what he did!”

“What?”

“Hadley! You have to tell me.”

“I can’t!” Her shoulders shook. “I can’t say it!”

“Tell me, or so help me, I’ll find out myself!” His threat came out in a roar. “You know I will.”

“You won’t want me anymore.”

Miller placed his arm around her and yanked her close.

“Love, there is nothing you can say that would stop me from wanting you.”

Hadley sniffled and rested her head on his chest. “I promise you, you won’t. I’m used goods. You’ll think I’m disgusting.”

He stilled, and then turned to her. His hands gripped her arms above her elbows. “I think you’re beautiful. Nothing can change that. You’re my fucking family now, and I take care of my family.”

It took a while, but Hadley finally found her voice and some much needed bravery.

“When no one came to claim me after my parents died, I was put in foster care and assigned a guardian to make sure I attended therapy and oversee my finances. Not that there was much. I received social security and my father had some money from gambling, roughly twenty grand. The first time I went to see my guardian for money, I was almost sixteen. I lived with a girl named Laura and her family. I had been with them for two years, longer than any other family. Laura was like a sister to me. She taught me to dance and I wanted money for lessons. He denied my request, telling me it was his money, not mine, and that I didn’t deserve it for what I did. He would not support activities for fun and sent me on my way.”

Miller wanted to spew forth the outrage he felt, but needed to hear everything, and there was definitely more. He scrubbed his face, and then stopped, holding his hand over his mouth.

“A couple of weeks later, Laura convinced me to sneak out of the house with her. A guy she knew worked at a club and could get us in. We were drinking and hanging out with her friends. My guardian was there and beyond drunk. He hauled me into the bathroom and smacked me. He took me into one of the stalls and told me if I didn’t have sex with him, he would report that I was drinking. That I’d be sent to a juvenile detention center until I was eighteen. I would have to leave Laura’s and quit dancing. I tried to fight him, but he hit me again repeatedly until I knew he was going through with it.”

Hadley paused with a tormented expression that made Miller want to punch something. His skin burned. He inhale deep through his nose. She leaned into him, and he kissed the top of her head. She had to fight the ugly voice screaming at her to keep quiet, that Miller would see her as trash if she continued. As much shame as she felt, she refused to turn back.

“I gave up, Miller. I was out of fight. He stripped me from the waist down and had me straddle the toilet with my back to him.” She struggled to get the words out, and Miller nearly begged her to stop, but he had to know. “I convinced myself to suck it up, that it would be over soon. But, I wasn’t prepared for what he wanted. He slammed by head into the wall and raped me in the ass. He left me in the bathroom, bare and bleeding. I had to find Laura and pretend I was fine. I told her I slipped in the bathroom and she believed me. The pain was excruciating. I could barely sit in class the next day. He broke me…that was the first time I ever truly wanted to die.”

A murderous rage consumed Miller. He wanted to leave and find this man, to show him what the wrath of a territorial animal felt like. His time would come. Hadley flinched when he tried to hold her and it damn near destroyed him.

Hadley held up her finger.

“Let me finish. He told me he filled my record with lies of drug abuse and depression, painted me to be a rebellious and out of control teen. He convinced me I was a murderer, who the court would believe was troubled enough to make up lies about him.”

She took another pause to maintain composure. Miller watched Hadley with careful eyes. Confessing the darkest days of her life to the man she loved was the most difficult thing Hadley had ever done. She wanted to get through it with her dignity.

“A few weeks later, I was in a store with Laura and her friends. They were all stealing candy. Her friend slipped a pack of Skittles into my bag. I knew, but I didn’t want to be uncool, so I left them there. We got caught and Laura’s mother drove me to his office for a meeting, telling him he needed to deal with me because I was a bad influence on her daughter.”

“Didn’t you have a social worker?”

Hadley laughed with disgust.

“One that was a thousand cases over her ability. She was never around, and somehow Laura’s mother knew to call my guardian.”

“His doing no doubt,” Miller spit bitterly.

“When I went to his office, I thought I’d be safe, that he would be sober and remorseful for what he did to me. There would be plenty of people around and he wouldn’t be bold enough to try again. He was. He took me out of the office, three blocks away to a hotel. He raped me again and drove me back to Laura’s house. He spoke with her mother as the concerned and caring guardian, requesting she drop me off for weekly visits to follow up with my behavior, even volunteering to bring me home so she wouldn’t be inconvenienced any. Sex in that hotel became part of every visit. I had no choice."

This time when Hadley stopped, she bent forward and buried her face in her hands, fighting off the ache of impending tears. Miller rubbed circles on her back. The inside of his cheek was raw and bleeding from the hole he’d chewed in it while trying to stay calm. She didn’t want to cry over a man she hated so strongly. He’d taken enough from her. She breathed through the mounting pressure and sat tall.

“After a few weeks, I tried to kill myself for the first time. I wanted to die, but I failed. That made it worse. I was thrown out of Laura’s house. He beat me as punishment and began taking pictures. In the end, I stopped fighting him. I tolerated being with him, told him I loved him and pretended like I cared about him. For a couple of years, I tried every escape: drugs, alcohol, and sex with nameless men, anything not to feel, to stay numb. Ultimately, I hated the lack of control, so I stopped. I went to college and studied hard because I knew it was the only real way to free myself from him. To get a degree and a job, so the court would see I didn’t need to check in with him, that I could handle my own finances. If I could make it to twenty-one and support myself, I could be rid of him.”

“When I was so close I could taste it, I started fighting back and told him how grotesque he was, how much I hated him. He beat me to the point he almost killed me and told me if I reported it, he would put the pictures he had on the internet, that he would lie and say I violently attacked him, anything to make me suffer. He convinced me no one would believe a whore with a violent temper looking for attention. I believed him, and whenever I started to feel strong, I’d hear his voice in my head, reminding me of exactly how weak I was. Harold Duwatski had a sick fantasy that I was his sex slave and he paid good money to have me.”

“After the courts finally agreed I didn’t need him, all I had left was dance. And then, he took that too. If I accepted the apprenticeship at the ballet, the court worried what I would ‘resort’ to in order to support myself since the ballet paid very little. They ruled that unless I kept my job at Jensen, I would remain under financial guardianship with that monster. What a joke, right?” Her voice broke and a few tears sprang free. “Now, tell me, how I’m supposed to forgive the grandmother who allowed that to happen? Huh? Tell me?”

Miller blinked, eyes of fury stared back at her, wordless.

Oh, God. Is he angry with me? Does he think it was my fault?

Her heart sped and a few more tears spilled. Hadley felt like vomiting. It was the reason she never told anyone. They would blame her, assume she did something to warrant her guardians behavior, tell her she was a slut and deserved it, or worse—not believer her. That was always his threat; no one would listen to her word over his.

Is that it? Does Miller think I’m lying?

As Miller re-assessed everything she shared with him, his rage became more forceful. He wanted to rip her former guardian’s heart out with his bare hands, and in those seconds before the man died, Miller wanted to force him to watch his own heart beating in someone else’s hand. Then, Miller wanted to destroy it, much like this beast did to Hadley’s heart. He paused his vengeful thoughts, focusing on the man’s name.

“Say something, damn it!” Hadley snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You’re scaring me.”

Miller’s features softened immediately.

“Say his name again.”

“Why?”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and held it up for Hadley to read.

“What is this? Who is it from?”

Miller sighed and set his phone down.

“It’s from Nick, an investigator that works for me. The memory drive I discovered in Thailand had your name on it, your real name. That’s why I was so worried. I thought someone purchased you and would come to claim you. I had no idea they already had.”

“I don’t understand. Are you saying that sick bastard bought me from a sex ring? How is that possible?”

“I don’t have the answers yet. I’m waiting for Nick to piece it together.”

“Holy fuck! He used to say things when he was drunk about how much I cost, and it was my duty as his slave to submit to him. I thought he was delusional, but he meant it.”

Miller picked up his phone and held it to his ear.

“Yeah, Vito, it’s me. I need a favor, and I’m going to need everyone… Fine!... Meet me at my office tomorrow, eleven am.”

He ended the call and tossed his phone on the table. His teeth clinched tight. A vein bulged in his temple.

Hadley touched his arm, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“Miller what are you going to do?”

“La Famiglia, Love. That nasty fucker is going to pay for what he did to you. The full weight of the Lorino family is about to come down on him.”

She shook her head.

“No, I don’t want you or your family to get in any trouble. He has no control over me anymore.”

“He never should have had any to begin with. He used his power, and now he’ll know what it is to be on the receiving end of real power.” Miller placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Listen to me. I promise you, he will never fucking touch you again, and when we’re done with him, he’ll wish he never had. I know it’s hard for you, but I’m asking you to trust me. Can you do that?”

Hadley nodded and their eyes closed, enjoying a silent connection until Miller sat up.

“Do you still want me?” she asked hesitantly.

Miller grabbed her hands and roughly pulled them to his chest.

“Of course, I still want you. There is no one else for me. That man is an animal. You’re an innocent. His power over you is finished and he will be dealt with.”