SHATTERRED VOWS, STOLEN SHADOWS
"You don't understand, Julian. You don't know what he can do."
"Then tell me," I said. My voice was a calm, steady anchor, but beneath my ribs, a cold, sociopathic rage was already uncoiling, tasting the air. "Tell me exactly what Mark Evans does to you in the dark, Clara."
The dam finally broke.
She didn't just cry; she shattered. The glass slipped from her fingers, thudding onto the thick rug, and she pulled her knees to her chest, hiding her face in her hands.
I pulled her into my lap. She didn't fight me. She collapsed against my chest, her tears soaking through my shirt as the ugly, brutal truth spilled from her lips in broken, jagged sentences.