Although I shouldn’t have, I drew her into my arms. “Shh, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
She shook her head wildly against my chest. “No, it isn’t! It will never be okay ever again! Not as long as my father lives. Not as long as he makes me lie and lie and lie!”
When those words left her lips, she tore herself away from me and started pacing madly around the rose bushes. I’d never seen her in such a manic state. Her entire body trembled and jerked while she wobbled on her feet, and she continued mumbling about lies and hurting people.
As I stared helplessly at her, my mind went to something Rafe had told me about Maeve. He wanted to understand the complexities of what was between the two of them. That it wasn’t just lust or pursuing someone he couldn’t have.
When she was just eighteen, Maeve had been raped by the man her father was forcing her to marry. After time passed, she was desperate to be able to have a man’s hands on her and not think of her rape. She’d tried and failed with a man at the club, and Rafe was there to pick up the pieces.
Was that what had happened to Drea? Was her father making her lie about something from her past like an assault?
After joining her, I gently placed my hands on her shoulders. “Drea, did someone…hurt you?”
She blinked at me in confusion. “I just told you what my father does.”
“You’re talking about having to lie. Did some bastard…”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. It was too agonising even thinking it, least of all speaking it. It’s been hard enough hearing what had happened to Maeve. I’d wanted to help Rafe hunt down the man and torture the screams from him for days and days and days.
But Drea…I would burn the entire fucking world down to ensure the man who hurt her would pay.
“Were you assaulted?” When her dark brows furrowed, I shifted on my feet. “Like…raped?”
Her dark eyes popped wide. “God, no. Why would you think that?”
“Because it happened to someone I know, and they had a similar reaction to how you are right now.”
Drea shook her head adamantly. “No, I wasn’t raped. Or even touched.”
As a relieved breath whooshed out of me, I realized I had a villain. He wasn’t guilty of what I’d imagined, but he was causing her agony.
“What did your father do?” I demanded.
“It’s…I can’t.”
Searching her face and neck for marks, I asked, “Did he put his hands on you?”
“Worse,” she replied in a pain whisper.
The anguish in her words and expression caused a tightening in my chest. “I’ll kill him,” I pronounced.
While I expected her to argue with me, she smiled sadly instead. “I know you would. Not just for me, but for Rafe. But you can’t.”
“Wars have been fought over less,” I countered.
“But not ones where your brothers and yourself could be casualties.”
I hated that she was right. Feeling utterly emasculated by not being able to solve Drea’s pain, I grabbed a pair of shears off the table next to us and hurled them across the room.
“FUCK!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
When I started to tear my hand through my hair, Drea grabbed my hands. “Don’t hurt yourself for me.”
Shaking my head, I countered, “Don’t you get it? I’d do anything for you. I’d fucking cut myself and bleed out if it meant you wouldn’t feel pain.”
Her frantic graze bounced left and right. “Leo, you can’t say those things to me.”
“Why the fuck not?”
