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He takes care ofme with his touch He’s especially careful around the tender area ofsure not to add to my discomfort To my relief, it doesn’t look like the skin is broken anywhere My ass is pink with so, but there is no trace of blood anywhere

When I’uides me back to bed He’s silent and so ae state I was in earlier It’s as thoughholding entle touch

We lie down together, and Julian turns off the lights, wrapping us in darkness I lie on my stomach, because any other position is too painful He pulls me closer to him, so that my head is pillowed on his chest and e, and I closemore than the oblivion of sleep

"My father was one of thelords in Colo the fine hair near un to fall asleep, but I’ inme to be his successor when I was four years old I held htly stroking ht"

I’m so horrified that I just lie there, frozen in place by shock

"Maria was the daughter of one of the anization," Julian continues, his voice low and emotionless "I met her when I was thirteen, and she elve She was everything that I was not Beautiful, sweetinnocent You see, unlike my father, her parents sheltered her from the reality of their lives They wanted her to be a child, to know nothing about the ugliness of our world

"But she was bright, like you And curious So very, very curious" His voice trails off for a second, as though he’s lost in some memory Then he shakes it off and resumes his story "She followed her father one day to see what he was doing Hid in the back of his car I found her there because it wasspot"

I can barely breathe, unable to believe that Julian is telling ht?

"I could’ve told her father, gotten her in trouble, but she begged so prettily, looked atbrown eyes that I couldn’t do it I uards take her home instead

"After that, she caet to know me better, she said To be friends with me" There is a note of reh nobody in their rightlike that

I s,boy he had been once Had he even had friends, or had his father stolen that from him too, just as he had destroyed Julian’s childhood?

"I tried to tell her that it wasn’t a good idea, that I wasn’t somebody she should be around, but she wouldn’t listen to me She’d find ive in and start spending tiether, and she showed me how to draw" He pauses for a second, his hand still stroking "

"What happened to her?" I ask when he doesn’t say anything else for a ely hoarse I clear ain "What happened to Maria?"

"One ofme We had just raided his warehouse, and he was pissed So he decided to teach hon end, and I feel a chill roughening oosebu, and I want to tell Julian to stop, to go no further, but I can’t get a single word past the constriction in my throat

"They found her body in an alley near one of s" His voice is steady, but I can sense the agony buried deeply within "She had been raped, then e to me and my father Back the fuck off, it said"

I squeezeout, but it’s a futile effort I know Julian can probably feel the wetness on his chest "A e? To a thirteen-year-old boy?"

"By that time, I was already fourteen" I can’t see Julian’s bitter se didn’t matter Not to my fatherand certainly not to his rival"

"I’m sorry" I don’t knohat else to say I want to cry--for hi boy who’d lost his friend in such a brutal manner And I want to cry for myself, because I now understand my captor better--and I realize that the darkness in his soul is worse than anything I could’ve iined

Julian shifts underneath me, and I become aware of the fact thatinto his skin I force ers and take a deep breath I need to get a hold on

"I killed those h I can feel the tension in his body "The ones who raped her I tracked them down and killed them, one by one There were seven of them After that, my father sent me away, first to America, then to Asia and Europe He was afraid all that killing would be bad for business I didn’t come back until years later, when he and my mother were killed by yet another rival"