Page 141 of Shattered Pieces

She thankfully didn’t fight me on it, getting into bed and taking the pills carefully.

“Thanks. I don’t know why I thought Skeet would listen to me about you. He’s always been hard to talk to about things. He just flies off the handle or shuts down,” she said as best as she could, sipping the water some more. “I wish he’d just listen.”

“His loss, babe. If you ever have a problem, you know you can talk to me, right? I’m a good listener.”

“I can’t talk to you about personal shit. I still don’t like you.”

“You totally do. We’re besties now,” I teased, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I know you couldn’t always be honest with Skeet, but he’s always been a pig-headed asshole when it comes to feelings.”

Her nose scrunched, and I could tell she was annoyed. “I can’t believe he fucking shot at me instead of listening. He wonders why I don’t talk to him about things that bother me. This is why. I know he cared about me, he’s not the type to lie about that, but when I needed help, I should’ve been able to talk to him.” She coughed and took another sip of water, her voice almost gone now.

“I feel like there’s something you want to talk about,” I said carefully, not knowing if it was something that would upset her or not.

“It was why Slash and I kept our relationship quiet. Skeet wouldn’t have listened, he’d just throw punches. That's why I never told him about my birthday either.” From the way she flicked her eyes away from me as she choked again, I knew what she was talking about.

“You never told him you got assaulted on your birthday?” I murmured, keeping my anger contained. All this time and she hadn’t told him? Any of the guys? She shook her head, making me frown. “Why not? Skeet might be an asshole, but he would’ve done something. He’d hate knowing you felt like you couldn’t talk to him about something like that.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “How did I tell him that it was his best friend without starting a war?”

It took me a second to process what she’d said, confusion hitting me. “What do you mean?”

She blew out a breath, looking away from me to toy with her hands. “Slash broke in and lost his mind. Held a gun to my head and everything. Then he forced me to strip before raping me.”

“You absolutely let him start a war over that,” I bit out, reining it in before I could dig that piece of shit up and riddle his corpse with more bullets. “Slash is the one who assaulted you? The guy you had feelings for? Were you actually together or did he force you into that too?”

“It was all real. The night I had to get hold of you to take his drunk ass home? He’d shown up to grovel. It was rather pathetic, actually. My feelings were confused on my birthday because I was attracted to him, and I got caught up in the moment until it was over and gave myself emotional whiplash.” She downed more water, trying hard to keep her voice clear enough to understand. “He instantly snapped out of it and panicked, but he couldn’t take it back. We had a magnet between us, constantly pulling us closer together with some kind of twisted attraction. I couldn’t sleep with one of the other guys because what if I reacted badly to their touch and they instantly knew something had happened?”

“You could have told them.”

“I couldn’t!” she growled, her voice breaking and hurting her in the process as she winced, but she shook it off. “They would’ve gone after him, and I was in too deep. We started hooking up as feelings grew, and then when we were going to come out about our relationship, he was killed. I refuse to change people’s perspectives about him now that he’s gone. That’s not fair to those grieving him.”

“If Marco did that to you, I’d kill him, best friend or not. That’s not on you, that’s on him. Skeet needs to know about it, Rory. He’s pinning all this hate on you, when he should be angry with Slash.”

“What’s the point? He won’t listen anyway,” she mumbled, peering at me as I reached out to cup her cheek.

“I’ll always listen. I don’t care who it is, if anyone hurts you, you tell me.”

She nodded, pulling back from my touch after a second, her voice so quiet I barely heard her. “I’m going to go to sleep. I’m tired.”

“Come get me if you need me,” I said seriously, knowing I couldn’t push the sharing the bed thing now after that conversation. “Ice on your neck.”

She laid down and placed it against her throat, and I stepped out of the room and gently closed the door. It was really hard not to tear the house to pieces with how angry I was on the inside.

I’d known Slash a really long time, and to know he’d forced himself on Rory after everything she’d been through? And how much he hated his brother for that kind of shit?

He was lucky he was already dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

RORY

“Morning, Princess.” I jerked upright and almost smacked my forehead into Marco’s grinning face. “Hunter had to run out and handle something for a few hours. He told me to make sure you iced your throat.”

“Did he tell you to wake me up? Where’s Ty?” I demanded, wincing as my throat burned and half my words didn’t come out properly.

He tsked, sitting back from my personal space to grab my water for me.

“Stop talking. Ty’s fine, he’s gone to school. Want to piss Hunt off? Let’s go do something.”