Loving Vin (Barretti Security Series, #1) (4 page)

“That could have gone better,” Logan murmured.

“I’ll talk to her,” Vin said. Dom and Logan both cast him doubtful looks and he flinched. Okay, Mr. Sensitivity he wasn’t, but he could manage to string together enough words to pull this girl from her shell. Hell, he’d made more progress in the last twenty-four hours then they’d made in the last two months. And the sooner he got her talking, the sooner he could get her out of his house.

***

V
in found her in the bathroom, her eyes staring not at her image, but at the towel covering the mirror. She held a pair of scissors loosely in her right hand. He leaned against the door frame and watched her in silence since she hadn’t acknowledged his presence. There was no way she could be unaware of him since the dogs had both greeted him upon his arrival into the room.

Mia took a couple of deep breaths before reaching up to pull the towel down. He watched as she kept her eyes trained on the eyes looking back at her. Some monumental internal battle was going on inside her and he found himself wishing he could wrap his arms around her from behind and tell her everything would be okay so she wouldn’t have to do this alone.

Her eyes drifted down to the scar at her throat and hung there and he swore he saw her blink away tears. Several long, tense seconds passed and then she was raising the scissors. With a quick cut she hacked away at a big section of her hair, the black pieces drifting to the floor in silence. She didn’t seem to care that her work was uneven; she was on a mission and cut away haphazardly at what she could reach. He was surprised when she extended the scissors to him, her eyes still studying her reflection.

Taking the scissors, he stepped carefully behind her, that image he’d had of wrapping his arms around her coming back to him in full force. She was so slight, but he knew she would fit perfectly into his arms. Pushing the thought - and his rising desire - out of his mind, he focused his attention on cutting away the remaining strands that hung down her back. The second he cut the last piece, she tried to move, but he settled his hand on her shoulder. She tensed beneath his touch.

“Let me even it out,” he murmured, as he raised his eyes to meet hers in the mirror. She nodded briefly. Every time his fingertips grazed her as he pulled the hair off her shoulders to trim it, she trembled. He needed to get them back on safer ground before he did something really stupid like his body was urging him to.

“Why’d you dye it black?” he asked.

“I didn’t.”

He lifted his eyes to meet hers so he could ask what she meant, then a sickening realization went through him. “Your father?” he managed to ask.

She nodded, her sharp eyes trained on him. He went back to cutting her hair. “You don’t have to pretend,” she finally said. “I know now why he did it.”

“When?”

“When did he do it or when did I figure out why?” Mia asked.

“Both.”

“I was sixteen. He came home from one of his trips to the city, acting crazy. He had the dye with him and forced me to do it. I knew what he’d do if I fought him so I did it.” Her tone was once again flat, emotionless.

“What would he have done if you fought him?”

“What does it matter?” Mia asked with a huff.

“Would he have hit you?” Vin questioned casually as he continued to work on her hair.

“No.”

“But he had in the past.” At his statement, she nodded. “So what changed?”

“He figured out that he could hurt me far worse by going after my mother.” Vin stilled, but kept his eyes down in hopes that she would keep talking. “She never fought back. So if I did something to piss him off, he locked himself in their room with her and made sure I heard everything he did to her.”

Her voice broke and Vin couldn’t stop himself from stroking his hand down her hair and along her back. “What happened after he made you dye your hair?”

Her gaze dropped to her hands which were now clenched around the countertop. “He pushed me down on the floor...right there in the bathroom,” she stuttered unevenly. “He was on top of me, his hand around my throat.”

“Did he... hurt... you?” Vin asked softly. He shifted closer and was surprised when she accepted the silent comfort he was offering and leaned back against him.

She shook her head as she took in the unspoken meaning in his words. “No, but I thought he was going to. I was crying and begging him to stop and I closed my eyes when I felt him touch me. I tried to scream for my mom, but he covered my mouth.” A sob escaped her and Vin pulled her back farther against him, his hand closing over her hip and his head dropping down to her shoulder.

“Shhh, you’re safe now,” he reminded her as she began to shake.

“And then he just stopped. He kept saying something about my eyes...that they weren’t right and he was so mad and then he just let me go. He never did it again, but he wouldn’t let me cut my hair or change the color back. I told my mom, but she made me promise not to bring it up ever again.” She took in a couple of deep breaths to get herself back under control.

Vin forced himself to release his hold on her and picked up the scissors.

“My eyes weren’t the right color. That’s what he meant, right?”

Putting her through this was the last thing he wanted to do, but she had a right to know everything. “He liked blue eyes.”

“Black hair and blue eyes.”

Vin nodded. “He had an obsession with Logan’s sister. She’s about a year older then you. He raped her when she was seventeen.”

Mia paled as she connected the dots.

“The murders appear to have started shortly after Savannah left the state to go to college,” Vin said as he finished her hair.

Mia fell silent and studied herself in the mirror, her fingers drifting up to the scars on her neck.

“They’ll fade,” Vin offered.

“Not enough. I can’t cut them away too.”

Vin put the scissors down and turned her to face him. “One day you’ll see what I see when you look at these,” he said, his thumb grazing the raised flesh. “Someone who survived hell and came out on the other side. Until then, take off every door in the place, cover every mirror – do whatever you need to do until that day comes.”

His head told him to release her and walk away but then his eyes met hers and he felt himself drowning in the warm, whiskey colored depths. Her skin trembled beneath his fingers and he felt his gut clench when her lips parted and a soft breath escaped her. Jesus, she was turned on. And by the confused look that settled over her, she didn’t even know it.

“Vin?”

The way his name came out sounding more like a question than anything else had him taking a step back. He needed to remember that she was twenty-one and even though she’d lived through horrors most people could never even conceive of, she was still innocent...vulnerable. His body wanted her fiercely but he wasn’t the knight in shining armor that a girl her age was inevitably looking for and the sooner she figured that out, the better.

“I’ve got some stuff I need to do,” he said coldly and left the bathroom.

***

“H
ey buddy,” Vin said as Briego appeared to greet him as he closed the front door. As usual, Bane was a no-show and Vin nearly laughed at the idea that he’d officially been dumped by his own dog. The house was dark and quiet, exactly like he liked it, but  tension had set into his body long before he pulled up to the stately house that he’d spent years working with architects and contractors on to get just right. It made no sense that having Mia around would be as distracting as it was because he rarely even saw her. On the few occasions they’d crossed paths in the last two weeks, she’d ignored him and hurried on with whatever task she’d been engrossed in.. She’d even managed to keep her menagerie of rescue animals quiet and out of his way.

But his body didn’t seem to notice or care that Mia had made herself scarce. He usually managed to keep his lust at bay during the day as he acclimated himself to working in an office again so long after spending day after day in the unforgiving terrain of the Middle East, but nights were an entirely different story. He kept hearing the way she’d said his name in a haze of confusion and desire and he couldn’t help but wonder how it would sound if she were screaming it against his lips instead as he buried himself deep inside her. His dick had absolutely no issue with the fact that he was fucking old enough to be her father.

Vin tossed his keys on the side table and started to climb the stairs to his room when he heard Briego whine behind him. It was then that he noticed a shaft of light coming from the den at the end of the side hallway. He followed the dog to the room and stopped when he saw Mia sitting on the small leather loveseat that was facing the fireplace with the huge flat screen TV above it. The TV was on but there was no sound. Her back was to him and all he could actually see was that curtain of wavy, auburn hair. But her distress was clear because she was rocking back and forth.

Vin entered the room slowly and as he neared the loveseat he saw that Bane was draped across her lap. Mia’s fingers were clenched around the dog’s neck but if she was hurting the animal, Vin knew Bane wouldn’t protest. For whatever reason, the dog had chosen where his loyalties lay and they were definitely with the young woman who was desperately hanging onto him for support.

“Mia?” Vin said softly as he made his way around the small piece of furniture. She didn’t respond and he was startled to see tears flowing silently down her cheeks as her wet eyes stared at the television. Vin gently pried Mia’s hand off Bane and eased the dog off the loveseat so he could take the animal’s place. Mia’s hand tightened around his automatically but she didn’t seem to realize it was now him beside her instead of Bane.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered as he reached up with his other hand and forced her eyes off the television. The move did the trick and she reared back a bit as she finally noticed him. He expected her to pull away from him but she just sat there as more tears coursed down her face.

“They found another one,” she managed to get out as she glanced back at the TV. Vin looked up and it took him several long seconds to realize what she was watching. A headline reading,
13
^th
Body Discovered
flashed on the bottom of the screen as two men carried a body bag across a field to a plain white van. A long shot on the screen showed the old white farmhouse that had been Mia’s own personal hell.

“They think she’s a runaway that was reported missing last year. She was only fifteen,” Mia said in a strangled voice.

Shit, how had he not heard about this? He could have tried to soften the blow...

An image of Mia flashed on the screen next to a picture of her father and he saw her turn her face away. The picture was clearly the one that had been taken of her in the psych ward and Vin quickly reached for the remote and turned off the TV.

“Look at me,” he said.

Mia shook her head and tried to stand but he still had hold of her hand and refused to release her.

“Mia, none of this is your fault,” he said gently as he pulled her back down to sit next to him once more.

“Tell that to that girl’s parents,” she said quietly.

“How could you have changed what happened to her?” he asked. She was still trying to tug her hand free so he began rubbing his thumb over her wrist. “Was there anything you could have done differently that would have changed the outcome for any of those women?” he asked softly.

She fell silent at that and stopped fighting him. “Maybe if I’d tried again,” she said so quietly he barely heard her.

“Tried what again?”

She looked up at him as if surprised she’d said the words aloud.

“Tried what again?” he repeated as he slid his thumb along the back of her hand and then turned it over so he could stroke the soft skin of her palm. Her eyes fell to where they touched.

“I should have asked for help again,” she muttered.

It took everything in Vin not to freeze up at her words. “You asked for help?” he prodded.

She nodded. “Twice. A teacher asked about a bruise on my face when I was in the fifth grade and I told her my father had done it.”

“What happened?”

“Someone from Social Services showed up at my house but my mom told them I’d made it up because I was mad at my father for not letting me go to a party. They believed her.”

“And the second time?”

Her eyes finally came back up to meet his. “After that day in the bathroom I told a police officer even though I promised my mom I wouldn’t,” she said on a half-sob. “I was so scared he’d do it again and that he wouldn’t stop the next time.”

Vin nodded in understanding and linked his fingers through hers. “It’s okay,” he reassured her and sighed in relief when she continued.

“The police officer went to my house and questioned my father. He convinced him I was lying and my mother backed him up,” she said brokenly as tears began to stream down her face again. “If she’d just told the truth maybe we could have gotten away from him. Maybe they would’ve seen him for what he was and those poor women...” she cried.

Vin dragged her against his chest and felt the tears leaking quickly through his dress shirt as her sobs consumed her. When she finally quieted, he asked, “What happened after that?”

“I was waiting at the police station,” she choked out as she fought to get herself under control. “I thought it was over – I thought they’d arrest him and I could go home and my mom and I could pack our stuff and leave...start over.” She took in a couple of long breaths. “And then he walked into the room and I knew...” she began.

“Your father?” Vin said as he stroked his palm up and down her back.

She nodded against his chest. “He beat her so bad that night that I was sure she would die. I never said another word about it to anyone else,” she said softly.

“How’d you get out of the house, Mia?”

“I snuck a spoon out of the kitchen and used it to pry one of the nails loose on the board covering my window. It took all night and most of the next morning because the spoon kept bending. When I did finally get out, I saw the van and I knew he was back and it would just be a matter of time before he realized I was gone. I couldn’t go back into that place...” she whispered harshly.