The name sounded foreign on her tongue.
Just hearing her given name spoken aloud, even by her own lips, brought back that awful night.
The screams. The pain. The blood. Her blood. Her sister’s blood.
“Silvia?” Daire’s tone was worried, not angry.
Had he not heard her confession? Had he not heard her say she wasn’t who she claimed to be for eight years?
Silvia blinked, then looked up.
Daire was in front of her, eyes darting back and forth. “Are you okay?”
She gulped in a mouthful of air. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “Didn’t you hear me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but then you disappeared again. I said your name several times. Where do you go?”
“What do you mean?”
“Silvia, you literally just zone out. Your eyes focus on some small corner of the room, and you go blank.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. And it worries me. What if that happened during a rescue?”
She jerked upright, distancing herself from him. “That would never happen.”
“How can you say that when you don’t even know you do it?”
She wiped her eyes. “I’m a professional, Daire. Have you ever seen me lose my cool on a rescue?”
“No—Well… You did run into a burning building without proper prep—”
She jumped up. “And my actions saved a young boy.”
“Silvia—Christiana, whatever your name is… I’m not questioning you. I’m worried about you.”
“Call me Silvia, please. I can’t afford for anyone to find out I lied on my application.” She sank back to the sofa and blew out a breath. He had heard her. And instead of getting angry, he’d questioned her psyche. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
Daire moved beside her again. “So tell me what happened. Why did you have to use a false name?”
“It’s a long story and, sadly, many wrong turns on both my parents’ decisions and my own led to what happened. But so you know, I didn’t steal the identity. Silvia Markow is my adopted sister’s name. My mother allowed me to build a new life using my sister’s name and credentials. She’ll never use them.”
Daire forced a small smile. “Not that that matters. I know you wouldn’t do anything illegal unless your life depended on it.”
She scoffed. “I’m like that now, but I wasn’t always straight and narrow.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I was such an angry teenager for a few good reasons…and then, just because. I blamed the fact that I was the reason my mother, my sister, and myself were living where we were living…in a horrible part of Phoenix. All because I’d told the truth about my father…what he’d done to my sister. But it went deeper.”
“I’m sorry,” Daire said quickly, obviously understanding the gist of what she’d admitted.
“Sadly, it’s not that rare, is it? Many families suffer that horrible crime.”
Daire touched her cheek. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“No,” Silvia agreed. “But I can’t blame everything that happened on what I witnessed and the fact that I got rid of the loser. As a teenager, I made my own poor choices.” She sucked in another deep breath of air and blew it out. “I was fourteen—in the ninth grade—when I met Dominic. He was sixteen, a junior. I was too young, obviously, but my mother worked two jobs, and I did what I wanted.”
Daire leaned back from her but stared into her eyes, making sure she saw him, it seemed. “Silvia, no matter what happened, I will never reveal your past. You don’t have to tell me anything, but if you want to, you can trust me.”
“I know, Daire. That’s why I want to tell you. I need you to know.”
“Okay.” He offered her that soft smile again, the one that made her want to tell him everything.
Decided, she sucked in another deep breath of oxygen and started from the beginning.
“Dominic was the typical bad boy in high school, and that’s what attracted me to him. At first, he made me feel safe. After every one of my class periods, I’d find him waiting outside the room, ready to escort me to the next class, even if his class was on the opposite side of the school. I started sitting with his brother and friends at lunch. He started picking me up in the mornings to take me to school, drove me home from school. I stopped hanging out with my girlfriends. Basically, if I wasn’t sleeping, I was with him.”
She looked up to gauge Daire’s reaction. Other than a tightening of his eyes, he sat still and remained silent. He nodded for her to continue, so she did.
“When I turned fifteen, he wanted me to quit school. He insisted I be with him 24/7. I didn’t quit school, but I skipped a lot. My grades started to drop. My mom started to worry, demanded I stop seeing him. When I refused, she added new locks to the doors and windows because she knew he was sneaking in or I was sneaking out. I rebelled. I couldn’t believe that she was making me a prisoner in my own home. I didn’t see what my mother saw.”
Silvia felt tears well up and swiped them away.
“My mother is Costa Rican. I thought she didn’t like Dominic because he was Mexican-American. My father had been Mexican-American, a mutt really, a combination of Irish, German, and Mexican, I guess, typical American really. And from a wealthy family that will have nothing to do with us because of my testimony. He was born in Phoenix, and he and my mother met when he was surfing over spring break in Costa Rica. They married, but he turned out to be a total loser, and that’s what my mother saw in Dominic. I didn’t know who Dominic was—not really, but my mother insisted she knew exactly who he was. He was just a boy when we met. I knew the people he hung out with looked like bad dudes, but I was stupid. I liked the fact that he had a car. That he bought me nice things. But then he started to buy me the clothes he wanted me to wear, telling me he wanted me in miniskirts and cropped tops, so he could show me off to his friends. He also demanded that I only wear the colors he wore. I didn’t know they were his gang’s colors.”
Daire touched her knee. She wasn’t sure if he was comforting her or if he wanted to interject something, but she didn’t want to stop. She couldn’t stop. If she did, she might not be able to finish.
“He wanted his name tattooed on my chest.” She pointed to the upper part of her shoulder. “To show the world I was his. I had started to see who he was, began to question how he made his money, and I was ready to break up with him. But I was afraid. Although he didn’t belong to a famous gang, his brother’s gang was bad news. Plus, I’d seen how Luis treated his women. One day, one of his girls would have a new gold chain; the next day, they’d have a black eye.”
Daire groaned but didn’t interrupt.
Silvia stared up at him. “I was done. I told Dominic I wanted to finish out my high school years single. That I wanted to go to college and be someone. That I didn’t want to be part of his lifestyle anymore.”
Silvia blew out a long breath.
“It was my sixteenth birthday. I was home depressed. I had no friends of my own anymore. My mother was working, and even if she hadn’t been, we didn’t have money for gifts. The doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and saw a large bouquet of roses. I was so excited. I didn’t think for a second—” She choked on her words. “I was scared of his lifestyle, but deep down, I never thought Dominic would really hurt me; he’d never raised a hand to me or even shouted. I was actually happy that he showed up, even though I told him I never wanted to see him again. I thought maybe he’d come to tell me that he wanted the same things I wanted.”
She dropped her head, and Daire moved closer, wrapping his arms around her.
Silvia pushed his arms away. She wasn’t ready to be comforted. What happened after she opened the door was her fault. Everything that happened had been her fault because she’d gotten involved with the wrong sort.
She gave her head a good shake. She knew that was the wrong way to think. My abuser is at fault, not me, she reminded herself, even though it took every ounce of training she’d learned over the past eight years to convince her heart of that truth.
“I opened the door,” she continued. “He was wearing a hoodie, so security cameras couldn’t capture his face. It happened so fast that my brain couldn’t compute what I was looking at. The contrast between him carrying flowers and wearing a mask didn’t make sense. He dropped the flowers on the porch and forced me back inside the apartment, and then, I saw a flash of silver—”
Silvia lifted her shirt over her head. It was cold wearing nothing but an exercise bra—it was always cold in Alaska—but she wanted Daire to see her scars before they went further. She needed Daire to see what she looked like without a shirt.
She ran her hands over the marks on her side and chest. Each of the thirty-one welts was approximately an inch long and had faded to an off-white color slightly lighter than her normal skin color. Dominic had wanted her branded with his name, but she ended up being forever marked by his fury.
Daire started to speak, so she quickly continued, “I didn’t even have a chance to scream before I felt something hard hit my chest and side.” I thought he’d punched me. It happened so fast that I didn’t realize what was happening and why I couldn’t scream. I opened my mouth, but nothing but gurgles came out. I was choking on my own blood. I reached for something, anything to stop him. The only thing I could reach was a lamp, which smashed onto the tile floor. I remember being worried that my mother would be upset.” She scoffed. “I was being stabbed, and that actually went through my mind. “Then I wished I hadn’t made any noise because my sister ran into the room and tried to stop him.”
“Oh, my God, Silvia.” Daire touched the scars. “How could he—what would make a man do this to a woman he supposedly cared about?”
“Thirty-one…times,” she sputtered. “The news media called it a crime of passion. Passion.” She sneered. “He managed to stab me thirty-one times before my sister came into the room.” Silvia sniffed back the tears. “My sister…she’s…a big girl. So sweet… Her screams… God, hearing her screams every night kills me. But she did scare him enough to stop. Not before he hurt her, too, though. But she’s loud. The neighbors came. I don’t remember much after that. I was lying on the floor, just staring up at the ceiling.”
“Oh, dear God, Silvia.” Daire’s arms wrapped around her, and she didn’t stop him this time. He rocked her back and forth. After a few minutes, he pulled back to look at her. “But I don’t understand. Why… Why did you have to run? Surely, this dirtbag went away for his crime, right?”
She choked back her tears. “Yes. Not long enough, but yes. He was put away. It’s not Dominic I’m worried about; it’s his brother, Luis.”
~ Daire ~
Daire smashed his hands against his face. He hadn’t even been there, yet he couldn’t erase the images of what that maniac had done to Silvia.
“I’m so sorry, Silvia.”
“Thank you, Daire.” She sniffed. “But so you know, the reason I’m even telling you about this… Something good came out of it.”
He shook his head. “How can you say that?”
“Well, I miss my mother and sister, of course. I wish I could see them again. That’s why it drives me crazy to hear you complain about your brother—Sam. I would give anything to be with my family. But…the attack, after the attack. The first responders saved me. If it weren’t for them, I’d be dead. I’d lost more than half of my blood. Their quick actions saved me. And now…”
“You save others,” Daire finished.
“Not just in accidents and fire, but like that woman who agreed to get help from her domestic abuse. That’s who I really want to help. And now, I can. I wasn’t destined for this life. My mother was a social worker. That’s how she came to adopt my sister. But I never wanted to be a civil servant. I wanted material things. Fancy cars. Gold. Designer clothes. Look where it got me back then.”
Daire reached for Silvia again. “You’re nothing like that now. I actually wondered if you owned anything other than your station pants and shirts. Other than your joggers, I’ve never seen you dressed in anything else.”
“No, I’m not like that anymore. I don’t own much. And I’m good with that. If I hadn’t coveted—”
“Don’t.” He kissed off her words. “You know that’s not true. You see the people we help. Things happen.”
“But I did make a choice, Daire. I chose a dangerous lifestyle, which almost killed my sister and me. So, yeah, I do carry a lot of guilt.”
“It also brought you to me.” He moved a hand behind her back and the other under her legs and lifted her onto his lap. “Silvia…” He ran his hand through her hair. “Costa Rican, huh? So that’s why you mentioned that you thought I liked blondes. I don’t care what your name is, your natural hair color, or even where you’re from. I love you.”
This time she kissed him. Her lips, so small but full, felt so soft and warm. He wrapped a hand behind her head and pulled her closer. He could kiss her all day—forever. For the first time in his eight years of dating, he understood what had happened to his brothers when they fell in love. Each one had told him, when you know, you know. Daire had never thought that he could feel so much warmth and yet, angst for anyone, but he knew he would walk into a fire for Silvia. And without a doubt, if this Dominic hadn’t been put away, he knew within his very core that he would track him down. He pushed the thoughts aside the best he could and focused on Silvia’s embrace.
After the mind-blowing kiss, Silvia leaned back. Even after reliving that horrible experience, she offered him a soft smile. “I love you, too, Daire.”
She moved off of him, standing, then reached for his hand, pulling him up.
Daire followed, but when they reached her bedroom, he paused. “Silvia… No, not tonight.”
She stared up at him. “I want—”
“I want so much from you, Silvia. God, if you only knew how long I’ve wanted to hold you. And that’s all I’m going to do tonight, hold you.” He scooped her up and carried her to her bed, pulling back the thick comforter. He lay her down, then moved beside her, pulling her head to his chest. “I just want to hold you tonight.” He rested his hand against her face and kissed the top of her head. Warm tears slid down his fingers. “I’m here, Silvia. I’m here.”