Free Colour Series Box Set by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

up and retreat to my room, this time I close the door and lock him out. I’m broken. I don’t remember what it feels like not to be broken. But I know Rowan can’t fix me, he’s like my father and I won’t pay for his sins too. I need to get away from him. But I can’t. I somehow know he won’t let me go, not ever, not even if he knows the truth. The monster in his eyes and heart will never let me go, I will never be truly free, because of what my father was there will always be a monster waiting for me.

I SAW HER SPIRIT breaking as I held onto her. What had he done to her? She says was revenge for Mick’s crimes and I have no doubt in my mind he hurt her in more ways than I can tell.
    Who is Lorenzo ‘Renzo’ Baldini really? And what has he done to that beautiful woman. God, did he kill Mick? I know in that moment without a doubt in my mind that he did. I swallow a hard lump in my throat at the thought of what she may have had to live through the last eight years.
    I’m still sitting on the dining room floor. I came in here when I heard her cries from the other side of the house I was terrified that something was wrong. That she was hurt. She cried in my arms and all I could do was hold her. I could smell her vanilla shampoo in her hair as her sobs racked her body in my arms, it felt so right to hold her like that I felt like I was finally doing my job. Protecting her like I should have done from the start. She had made me so angry earlier on by acting like a child I just wanted to smack her at dinner. I am not used to sharing my time, or space and even less used to people acting childish it irritated me and I lost control. Now I want to hold her again. Holding her stirred a feeling in me, I don’t feel and that scares the shit of me, that she made me feel in those moments with her sweet fragile body tucked against mine. I felt, I had feelings, guilt and sorrow and remorse and anger at the thought of her being as she so harshly put it broken. I didn’t want to let her go, I don’t want to let her go, ever, truth or no truth I feel like she belongs here. She belongs to me. I can keep her safe here, fix what I messed up. She is dead to everyone except me. I am a bad man just for thinking it but I know that I will not let her walk out of here broken, even if I can’t fix her I want to keep her. She is mine, on some crazy level I believe she was always mine.
    “Snap out of it Rowan, she is not a pet.” I yell at myself as get up off the cold slate floor and head towards my room. Her door is closed; she has closed herself in now. I put my hand on her door wanting to go in wanting to finish what we started earlier I want her to tell me her truth, her pain. I want to tell her mine just as much. That thought scares me right back into reality and I go back into my own room. I switch off my music and I can hear her crying next door and it makes me feel again so I turn the music back on to drown it out. I remember the last time I kept a girl for myself. I stare at the ceiling wishing these fucking feelings would go away I don’t want them.
     
    Past 1997, Glasnevin, Ireland
    MICK LEFT TWO DAYS ago with his baby girl. He told me that I have two weeks to get my shit together he was moving me to South Africa to work with him there he needed a man he could trust. He also enlightened me that my best friend Callum was being banished to Africa too. He had pissed his Pops off big time and was going to be sent to man his operations in Johannesburg as punishment. Well at least I won’t be all alone, Mick won’t have me in the Cape near him he is too worried about his daughter so I will be staying with Callum.
    I never wanted to leave Ireland, ever. My Ma kept me here, but when she passed last year I felt my last shred of humanity died with her, Mick is the only thing I have that is even close to family so I guess being closer to him makes sense. We have talked a little about the move and I did some digging on South Africa, it