Thirty

Damian

Fuck, she won't look at me. In all honesty, I didn't believe her in Marfa when she said she was going to just cancel the wedding and allow me to still be a part of our daughter's life. I wouldn't have let her cancel the wedding, but I still didn't believe it. I thought she was trying to save herself. I fucked up big time. My heart aches.

I look at Marvin, a qualified therapist and a family friend and brigadier. He nods for me to continue, knowing I must get this out.

"When our fathers got together with this plan, I was only twelve. Until then, I thought I would train to be Alexandr’s second, and Sergi would his sovietnik. But then they told him about his ADHD, and how his lack of focus was a detriment to leading the family. He would become my third, and I had to make a mafia princess fall for me. I was an unruly teenager, and I was pissed.

I didn't want the job, and I sure as hell didn't want to court an arranged bride I didn't even ask for." She flinches at that, and I breathe deeply, hating that I hurt her but knowing I have to get this out, so she understands. Sofia hasn't looked up from her lap, so I look at Marvin.

"When my father took us outside to meet my future bride, I was too busy scowling to give a fuck and refused to look up, all I could think about was having to be a leader and possibly losing the fun that I had just started having a year before." I link my fingers together, sit forward, and lean against my thighs. "I didn't want any of it, but then I heard this giggle and looked up in shock to see my dog, who didn’t like most people, laying on this scrawny little girl, her hair in pigtails and wearing overalls with flowers on it. I got nervous." I look down at the carpet. "She loved that dog more than me, I think, and she cried for a month when he died.” I wonder how Sofia would feel if I got a dog for Mila. I come out of my thoughts when Marvin speaks, and I look up at him.

"Why did you get nervous?" he questions.

"Because I knew this little girl would be the end of me," I say with a little chuckle and a sigh. Sofia finally looks at me with questioning eyes. I turn my body so I'm facing her and continue.

"You made my heart skip. I felt like my stomach was doing somersaults, and I could not breathe. I fell into denial. You weren't even scared of me; you grabbed my hand without a thought and attached yourself to me since then. It scared me, so I did what every idiot does and pushed the feelings aside, keeping you at arm's length, even though you had no idea.

I slept around with more women than I could count. I even had one of the women answer my phone when you called. I panicked because you never called, and I reacted badly.” I look down in shame.

Sofia speaks in a rasp, making me look up. "I called because that day is the day Mattia tried to rape me for the first time. I was finally going to tell you what was happening, but when she answered, I thought it was useless, so I kept quiet and cried myself to sleep."

I hang my head as she wipes her tears as mine form. Shit, I can't breathe.

We sit silently for a few minutes while I process what she just admitted.

Marvin clears his throat, clearly affected by Sofia's words. "Do you want to continue, Damian? Or should we hold it here?" I know he's giving me an out, but I only have six more weeks to get her to stay and even fewer sessions. He squeezed us in as a favor for his Pahkan and friend.

I shake my head and continue. "I will always regret not answering, baby. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life," I rasp and swallow the lump in my throat.

"For twelve years, I pretended my feelings weren't there. I kept trying to think of you as a little sister, and I would sleep around to prove that what I felt for you wasn’t real. After you turned sixteen, picturing you was the only way I'd get hard. The more it happened, the more pissed I got— at myself, at our families, and at you. It was wrong, I know, but I couldn't give in to my feelings. I felt like I was giving up a part of my life I hadn't lived yet, and refused to understand that my life was yours.

When I was intimate with Candice before our wedding, it wasn’t sex. I got her off, and the only reason why I got hard was because I pictured you." She tenses, but I know I must finish.

"I thought I heard a gasp, but I didn't realize at the time it was you until I saw the video you left me. I will always regret my decisions. I lost you, and I lost our daughter. I even lost my mother for six months when she realized what I had been doing.” She looks at me in shock, knowing my mother's world revolves around her husband and children. I nod. "I know you have every right, but please don't punish her for my actions, she loves you like a daughter. She's heartbroken that she can't see you and or meet her granddaughter."

More tears fall from her beautiful eyes. I take her face in my hands and wipe them away with my thumbs, then kiss her forehead, before dropping my hands onto hers.

I take a deep breath, squeezing her hands tight. "For the past three years, despite looking for you, I tried to move on; I fucking tried nearly every night." She tenses and tries to pull her hands away, but I tighten mine around hers and continue; she needs to know. "I tried to get hard, and nothing would work, even picturing you. I would get hard, but as soon as I touched a woman, I'd deflate.

I tried fingering women, having threesomes, watching girl on girl action, even had the strippers at the club grind themselves to orgasm on me, but nothing. You broke my dick, and I got pissed, and I started lashing out. Instead of sending my men to do the grunt work, I went. I was hurting because you left me, yes I deserved it, but you still left instead of fighting, and at that point I had no clue about Mila, so in my mind at the time…." I take a deep breath, hoping she doesn't smack me. "In my mind, I thought you were a bitch for leaving without fighting for me, for us, and when I went to find someone else, it wasn't the fact I couldn't get hard that pissed me off, it was the fact you broke me and I couldn't find you. After years of searching, we had no hope of finding you until your father sent me a text saying London was a bust, but you had been sighted in Texas. We weren't hopeful because we knew how much you hated the heat, but when I realized it really could be you after reading the details, I went into shock. I threw up because instead of trying harder to find you through the years, I was trying to forget you for just a few hours a night and how much I ached without you."

Sofia doesn't say anything, but Marvin fills the silence with his words.

"Do you think you were trying to punish Sofia?" he inquires calmly, but it does nothing to stop the pain in my gut.

I nod. "I was thinking that, if I did find her, I wanted her to feel the pain and suffering I felt when she left me, even if it was of my own doing, not recognizing the hell I'd put her in."

Sofia lets out a sob, and I grab her, not caring if she doesn't want me to. I pull her on my lap, placing her head into the crook of my neck, and threading my fingers through her hair.

"I'm so sorry, baby," I whisper repeatedly.

"I think you both made progress today. I'm proud of you both," Marvin states.

We both look at him, my wife in my lap, my arms holding her tight.

He continues, "You've made a breakthrough. All the heartache and pain you never got to work through is now out in the open.

I have homework for you both. Every other day, I want you to do something together; have a date, or even have a family day with Mila. I want you to see yourselves as a couple again, and as a family, too. Damian, you’d been in denial for years, and now you regret not being more open. But you cannot turn back time, you can only improve the present. You hold a lot of guilt. I want you to start forgiving yourself, because if you keep blaming yourself for the things you’ve done, your relationship will fail. You were given a lot of weight to carry; you made the wrong decision, and your wife left, but she’s willing to try with you."

He looks at Sofia.

"Sofia, I want you to work on forgiveness, not just with Damian, but also with your parents, and his family. They love you very much. Yes, they made mistakes, but you need to try and process the positives instead of the negatives at this point, and the positives would be: their mistake gave you Damian, and he gave you Mila. I want you to think of the positives of all that has happened. You met April, Adam, Bruce, Gloria, and Rachel. Many wonderful people who have shaped you into who you are now, and helped you become a strong, independent woman you like to look at in the mirror. Their mistake gave you a bigger family." He closes his book, and then states, "So, your homework is forgiveness you, dates to become a couple again, and to get the feel of it, and to ensure this is what you both want. Also, plan family outings to give you an idea of what should have been for the last three years. You both made a lot of progress. Our time is up, so I will see you in a few days."

We nod at him and thank him, then head out the back way to avoid the receptionist, whose name I don't even remember.

When Sofia grips my hand, I smile.

Progress.