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“Please, Joe, it’s important to hear the whole thing before you talk with her,” Angelina said softly.
He nodded.
Nick began by telling him how he noticed the bruises on the base of Elizabeth’s neck and on her forearm, and that he drew conclusions as to what happened, and his assumptions turned out to be true. He told him how he and Angelina confronted her and though she didn’t want to talk about it she eventually opened up.
Nick paused and sucked in an audible breath. “While Elizabeth was in New York last weekend...she was raped.”
Joe sat silent, not knowing what to say or do. His body temperature rose, sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. His heart bled for Elizabeth. He wanted to go to her, but he sat frozen in his chair. “What did you say?”
His brother repeated the word, ‘raped,’ and he still couldn’t believe what he’d heard. His mind spun. Both fury and sorrow jockeyed for position. He found himself able to mutter only one word at a time “Who...how...why?”
Nick continued. “Patrick James.”
Joe remembered how Elizabeth told him she didn’t like Patrick, and that he always hit on her and made her uncomfortable.
His brother stopped talking for a moment, as if to let him absorb what he’d just told him, then he cleared his throat and relayed the information Elizabeth had told him.
Joe had never heard his brother speak with such care and concern as he did when telling him what had happened to Elizabeth. Nick had always been the tough, blunt one. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about people, it was just the way he was, and the years on the force had hardened him.
Nick hesitated, “I’m sure the fact she was a virgin made it even worse for her.”
“Virgin,” Joe whispered.
He lifted his forearm to his brow and wiped the sweat with his shirt sleeve. His chest tightened, nearly squeezing his heart to death. He raked his hands through his hair, and did his best to suppress the anger building inside him. His clouded mind worked to process what he was hearing. He choked down the lump in his throat.
“So she didn’t report it?”
“No.”
“What is she going to do now that she’s told you?”
“Well, she pretty much begged us not to say a word to anyone, with the exception of telling you. For some reason, she’s more worried about the impact of what this would do to the company and Mr. James, if word got out, versus the impact to her,” Nick replied.
“At the very least, she needs to go to the doctor and get checked out,” Angelina interjected.
Joe thought of the possibilities. His heart plummeted to the bottom of his chest cavity.
His sister caught his gaze. “She’s very worried about how you are going to feel about this. She’s convinced you are going to hate her for it.”
“Why on earth would she think I would hate her? It wasn’t her fault this happened to her.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you,” Angelina replied.
After excusing himself, he headed down the hallway toward his sister’s bedroom, quietly opened the door, and stepped inside. He pulled the rocking chair up to the edge of the bed, sat, and leaned his head against the back of the chair before he folded his arms over his chest. He simply watched her sleep for a while, rocking in the chair to the rhythm of her breathing. Her loose, brown curls rested softly on her pale cheeks.
He wanted so badly to hold her, take care of her, and make all this go away. Hopping a plane to New York to teach Patrick a life lesson crossed his mind several times. He wondered if Nick would even let him out of the house...or maybe come along with him. It crossed his mind to call on the family, old Uncle Al Balistreri, on his mother’s side, for assistance in this matter. But he quickly dismissed the idea, knowing it would only upset his dad, who’d sworn off the family business years ago because it didn’t look good for a Police Captain to have that type of connection. No, under these circumstances, his dad would understand, and would probably make the call for him.
