Page 68 of The Retaliation You Deliver

It’s him.

The same cunt who ruined my life.

But we both know what he did to me. What he took from me. What I want to know is how he crushed her soul, her spirit because I already know it was in a different way to me.

I’m glad it was different. I’m glad he never touched her like that. But I know that there are plenty of other things that could have hurt her just as badly.

“Leon?” she questions when I turn into the overgrown dirt road I brought her down the night we had our first date. Only this time when the trees open up before us, there is no canopy or twinkling fairy lights. It’s just the two of us tonight. Two broken souls that have dark secrets that the rest of the world have no right knowing. “You’re not playing fair,” she whispers breathily.

“I wanted us to be alone.”

“There are a million places that could happen. Why bring me back here?”

“Because it holds good memories, and I think we’re going to need them around us for what we need to talk about.”

“Why?” she asks, still refusing to look at me.

“Because I want to know everything. I want to understand. I want to take your pain away.”

“You can’t, just like no one can take yours.”

She pushes the door open and climbs out before I get a chance to say anything.

I stay in my seat and watch as she walks toward the lake’s edge.

She kicks her shoes off and steps into the water.

I give her ten seconds more before I push the door open and join her.

Coming to stand beside her, I leave a couple of inches between us despite the fact I’m damn near dying being this close and not touching her.

Swallowing around the giant lump in my throat, I clench my fists and start talking.

“I thought he saw something special in me. I knew I was better than most of the boys at camp thanks to our father’s endless training and insistence that we be the best. I thought that was why he invited me to his office the first time to see his trophies, to experience what a successful career in the NFL really looked like.

“Of course, I’d lived every day of my life listening to my father talk about it, but hearing stories from someone else about how it’s the best job in the world was addictive. I ate up every single word he said.

“I might have been forced into football but it was still my life. The sport ran through my veins from the day I was born. It still does. It’s just tainted with pain now.”

“Leon, you don’t—”

“No, Macie, I do. It’s time I let some of this out.”

Toeing off my shoes, I move a little deeper into the water, not caring about the fact it’s going to start soaking up my pants. All I care about right now is Macie and finding a way out of this black hole I’ve been living in for so long.

“I thought he genuinely cared, that he just wanted me to succeed because I was his friend’s son. I was so wrong. And I trusted him way too easily.”

“We were out training one day and I pulled my hamstring. It wasn’t bad, not really but it meant I had to sit out the afternoon which pissed me off.

“Richard told me that he wanted me to get it checked out and to head up to his office once the others all headed back to their rooms to shower and get ready for dinner.

“Well,” I say with a shudder. “Safe to say he never actually checked my leg, and when I finally left that room, my hamstring wasn’t the only reason why I was limping.”

A sob rips from her throat, her hand covering her mouth, and I know that if I were to actually look over, I’d find tears glistening in the moonlight on her cheeks.

“I was so ashamed of what I let him do,” I continue. “All the others, Luca included, were in the cafeteria having dinner by the time I got back but I walked straight past them and threw myself into bed.

“I had every intention of pretending I was asleep by the time they all reappeared but I don’t actually remember them coming back. I think I cried myself to sleep. My body allowing me the reprieve from the memories and the pain that ripped through my body.”