Page 103 of The Strength Of A Woman

It must’ve been an authority figure. Someone in the house. Someone who had access to her. Bianca, God rest her soul, brought all kinds of misfits to their place.

It must’ve been someone who spent enough time in their house so they could make a ritual out of this.

And what was Bianca thinking? She wanted to keep Leilani away from me? Really?

She probably told herself her daughter had brought it onto herself.

Leilani finishes showering, turns off the water, and waits in the middle of the glass booth, looking at the wall.

I imagine this was the moment when he rose from his chair, picked up a hairbrush, and pretended she was a doll so he could play games with her.

Testing my theory, I do just that.

Walk to her, turn to my right, and collect a hairbrush from a vanity before bringing my hand to the top of her hair and undoing her bun.

The tips of her hair are damp when I run the hairbrush through them.

She keeps her head bowed down, which breaks my heart, and her hands clasped together in front of her, hiding as much femininity as she can hide.

“What else did he do to you, Leilani?” I ask, setting the hairbrush down.

It takes her a moment.

“He ran his fingers down my back and along my shoulders.”

Her voice is heavy as if she’s on the verge of crying.

I do that, though, watching her skin break out in goosebumps.

There’s no way I can replace this.

I let the back of my finger trace her spine, and I’m tempted to touch her backside.

And then I stop.

“I think our experiment has failed. You won’t be able to desensitize yourself by replacing that memory with something more palatable. Here,” I say, removing a bathrobe from the shelf and draping it over her shoulders, before I nudge her to turn around and I take her in my arms.

Her face is still tilted down, and as I look more closely, I realize it’s covered in silent tears.

I hold her in my arms and let her sob her heart out, shushing her as you’d do to a little girl without chiding her.

“You can still tell me who he is, so I can kill him,” I say against her hair while she stays locked with me as if I’m her only way out of this.

She shakes her head for now, although I’m sure that one day, I’ll know who he is and he’ll become food for the fish at the bottom of the sea.

I make sure she gets to her room, and I tuck her in myself before leaving guards at the door and heading straight to Cosimo’s room.

He’s not there.

He’s having a cigarette with a few other men in the courtyard downstairs.

I head that way.

The thing with the life we live is that every moment is precious.

We can’t delay anything.

We don’t have the privilege of waiting for that perfect moment. We have to grab whatever we can and live everything like it’s a carousel of madness.