“Why didn’t you tell me?” Marcus answered sharply, turning me around to face him again.
My own fury became unleashed. “I didn’t want to tell anyone. What difference would it make? It’s not like they’re going to be brought to justice in a court of law. My brothers would all want to kill the terrorists.”
Marcus’s expression was outrage. “Fuck that. I want to kill them just for touching you. Believe me, if they weren’t already dead, I’d do the job myself.”
I wrapped my arms around my own body to comfort myself. “Can you keep my secrets?” I asked in a raspy voice. “There’s really no reason for anyone to know.”
“You’ll need counseling, Danica,” Marcus answered hoarsely. “But yes, I can keep your secrets. What you tell people is completely up to you.”
I sat down on the bed, my knees ready to give out from fear. I wanted to talk to somebody, but not my family. He was right. I probably would need therapy after what had happened, but I really didn’t want to share this with my family. My sense of shame and humiliation was too raw. They all thought I was crazy to be running into turmoil and war zones. I didn’t want them to know all the consequences of my job. All it would do was worry them when I eventually wanted to go back to work.
Marcus took off his suit jacket and tossed it over a small dresser in the room, then took a seat in a chair near the bed. “I’m listening, Danica. Maybe you can’t call me a friend, but I’m here to help if you need me.”
He was composed, seemingly ready to hear about my experience.
The pain.
The terror.
The revulsion and humiliation I’d experienced when I was raped and beaten so often that I wasn’t able to keep track of how many times it happened. And that once the rebels were finished with my body, how I’d wondered if that time would be the last.
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat as I glanced at Marcus’s unreadable expression. Uncertain whether I could keep looking him in the eyes while I dumped my entire experience with the terrorists on him, I reached over and switched off the overhead light before I sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed.
Maybe I couldn’t tell Marcus every single detail of my experience as a captive, but I knew I needed to vent and let some of my anger and fear exit my body by putting it all out in the open.
Satisfied that I couldn’t see much of his expression in the dim light, I started to talk…
As promised, Marcus listened, occasionally letting me know that how I was feeling was perfectly natural considering what had happened.
By the time the flight was over, I’d collected myself and said a brief goodbye to the man who’d been my comfort and my confidante before I joined my sister in Washington, D.C.
It would be a year before we met again, and he’d be responsible for stealing me away from somebody else one more time, but in very different circumstances…
Billionaire Unveiled ~ Marcus is now available for preorder
Release Date July 25, 2017