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“Ellie had been beaten unconscious, so the police couldn’t question her right away. However, when they’d finally been able to question her, Trent Hendricks had gone missing. Everyone had assumed that he must have fled the state or something, but those of us close to the situation knew better. Trent Hendricks didn’t have the smarts to evade the police. At least, not in the manic state that he’d been in.”
“So, the Benettis took care of him, robbing you of your chance to avenge your sister,” she surmised correctly.
I nodded. “I’ve never asked for details or clarification, but I knew that Saveria Benetti had taken care of Trent. The woman…even as a young girl, Ria had always been…something else.”
Posie let out a soft chuckle. “I know what you mean.”
“Yeah, Lennon and Ria seem to have a lot in common,” I remarked. “So, without Trent Hendricks to take my anger out on, I had to find something else to tame my fury. So, I started the foundation, named after a tattoo that Ellie has, and whenever I came across a phone call where the rapist had gotten away with it, I made things right. I still do.”
Posie didn’t say anything for a long while. She just sat on her side of the couch, absorbing everything that I’d just told her. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but as long as she wasn’t getting up to leave, I was counting it as a good thing.
Finally, she said, “I need you to know and understand something.”
“Okay,” I drawled out carefully. “Go ahead.”
“No matter how much I might come to love you, no matter how long this thing lasts, no matter if we get married and have children, I will always choose Lennon if I’m ever forced to make a choice.” My entire chest felt like it’d been kicked in. Though she’d said as much earlier, we weren’t arguing right now, and she sounded serious as fuck. “I know that might be…weird to hear, hearing someone choose a friend over their husband, but…”
This was not the time to trail off. “Posie, you can tell me anything.”
“Lennon…hijacked me in the sixth grade,” she said. “For whatever reason, she saw me and thought me worthy enough to become her best friend. Well, second to her brother, Crew.” That got a smile out of her. “Anyway, I hadn’t wanted to be friends with her because…well, she was Lennon Marlow. Enough said, you know. Nevertheless, Lennon refused to take no for an answer and fear hadn’t been enough to make me stand up to her.”
“Fear of what?”
“My father used to beat and rape my mother,” she said, and it was like all the wind had been knocked out of me. “When I was five, I’d heard noises in the middle of the night, so I had gone searching for my parents. When I’d found them, my mother had been a bloody, broken, crying mess, my father raping her from behind, calling her ugly names and just…well, raping her.”
“Jesus,” I swore quietly under my breath.
“When my father had noticed me watching them, instead of stopping, he had kept on, telling me that she was nothing but a whore, but at five-years-old, I’d had no idea what a whore was. After that, after his secret had come out, he no longer hid his evil from me. He raped and beat my mother regularly, and not just her. He raped our servants, her friends, anyone that caught his eye.” Posie let out a dark laugh. “The only reason that he never saw the inside of a jail cell was because he had become a pro at paying women off, and my mother hadn’t been about to give up her extravagant lifestyle to send him to jail. I stopped seeing her as my mother when I was about eight.” She let out a deep breath. “When I hit puberty, my father would let his business associates make remarks about me, and that’s when I had practically moved in with Lennon.”
“And your brother?” Upon her background check, I’d found out that she had a brother.
“He was off living his best life, completely ignorant of what had been going on at home,” she answered. “He’d been sent to boarding school, so he hadn’t had to witness what I had.”
“I’m sorry-”
Posie threw her hand up to stop my apologies. “Lennon knew,” she said. “Lennon suspected something was off when we were about nine, and…even at nine-years-old, Lennon was not one to shy away from difficult or scary situations. The girl dives in headfirst.”
“I can see that,” I muttered.
“Anyway, knowing what was happening at my house, our slumber parties had always been over at Lennon’s house. Then, one day, she had insisted on having one at my house, so I’d had no choice but to explain why we couldn’t.” Posie sighed again. “It’d been a mess, but Lennon had basically moved me in with her whenever my parents were in town. Granted, they hadn’t been home much, but when they had been, Lennon had been hard to control.”
“So, what you’re saying is…?”
“Lennon’s been saving me since I was six, so that’s why I’ll always choose her,” she replied.
Chapter 37
Posie~
Killian blinked, and I could tell that he had so much to say, probably just wanting to plead his case on why I should choose him over Lennon, but it wasn’t that simple.
“Terrified that people might find out about my father, I’d been scared and reluctant to make friends,” I went on. “So, Lennon was literally my only friend in the world. Even though we’d been inseparable, it’d still taken years for me to be comfortable enough to call her family mine. For years, they had all tried to…coax me out of my shell, and for years, I had resisted. Still scared that they would…judge me or…or I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Anyway, since the sixth grade, Lennon has been by my side for every dark corner came around, and the woman never stopped and took off running the other way.”
“Loyalty,” Killian murmured. “I think I’m getting the picture now.”
“When…what I’m about to tell you, I’ve never spoke to anyone outside my family, and by family, I mean Lennon’s family.” Killian nodded for me to go on. “One night, Lennon had pissed off Kenneth Thomas, a kid that we’d gone to college with. We’d been at a party, and Kenneth and a couple of his friends had been about to jump Camden.”
“Camden Prince?” he asked. “Lennon’s husband?”
