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“I’ve got you, Eli,” he murmured against my ear. “I’ve got you.”
I wished Jace would stop talking, but he continued. “Eli, he drugged you.”
It took me several long seconds to process what Jace had said. I turned my head on Mav’s chest so I could see the other man. “What?”
“There was a small bar in the den. It had a refrigerator in it, do you remember?” Jace asked.
I nodded. “That’s where he got the beers from.”
“The security camera captured him putting something in one of the bottles after he opened it and before he handed it to you. He did it to the second beer too.”
I straightened and wiped at my face. “I saw the video…he tried to stop me from…”
Jace shook his head. “My guess is the video he showed you was one he edited to make it look like you instigated the whole thing. Did the video you saw have sound?”
“No.”
Jace pointed to the flash drive in Mav’s hand. “The real video has sound. And you are clearly saying no from the moment he first touches you.”
Logically, I understood what Jace was telling me, but I couldn’t process it. Because along with this new reality came a worse one. I’d made so many decisions based on that one video…on those few seconds of seeing myself seduce my mother’s husband and the friend of the one man I admired above all others.
This time when the bile crawled up my throat, I knew there was no stopping it and I ran to the bathroom. I heaved into the toilet over and over again until my stomach was empty. My throat ached as tears streamed down my face. A washcloth was passed over my face and then a plastic cup of water was handed to me. I rinsed and spit the water out in the toilet, but I couldn’t find the strength to stand. Mav was kneeling in front of me, his eyes heavy with concern.
“He raped me,” I finally whispered, the words making my throat burn. “He fucking raped me,” I said again in disbelief and then I just let go.
Completely and terribly. I couldn’t hold back the anguished sobs that tore from my throat as I absorbed the truth about what had really happened that night and the path of destruction through my life that had followed. Every time I’d let Jack touch me after that had been because I’d believed his lies…
“Oh God, what did I do?” I cried in disbelief as everything came crashing down around me. And when I no longer had the strength to keep myself upright, Mav was right there waiting to catch me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mav
“Do you think I should watch it?” Eli asked quietly, his voice rough. We’d been lying on the bed for more than an hour with me leaning against the headboard and Eli resting his head on my chest. Jace and Caleb had moved to the room next door to give Eli some space to process what had happened to him, but Jace had left his laptop on the nightstand for me so I wouldn’t have to search out mine.
Eli had let everything out in that bathroom and I’d been completely helpless to do anything but hold him. When he’d finally calmed down, I’d helped him to his feet and we’d gotten into bed fully dressed and with just the small light next to the bed turned on. My hope had been that Eli would fall asleep so that I could watch the videos on my own using the ear buds I had stashed in my bag, but I suspected the stress was keeping him too wound up to get the rest he so badly needed.
“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. The idea of Eli having to witness what had been done to him was unbearable to me, but I was also worried that a part of him would never truly believe what Jace had told him. His stepfather’s doctored video had had a profound impact on him and his brain might not be able to rid itself of those images without proof that they were all lies. I let my fingers trail down Eli’s spine as I tried to deal with everything that had happened in the past 48 hours. A few hours ago, I’d been contemplating if I could really have the life I’d been too afraid to hope for in the years since I’d left my life on the reservation behind me.
But now?
Now I knew.
And I was fucking terrified.
“I lied to you,” I whispered.
Eli tensed, but didn’t move away from me like I’d expected him to.
“When?” he asked softly.
“On the plane. You asked me if I wouldn’t even try to love you,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I lied when I said no because I already knew then that I was in love with you.” I swallowed hard. “I love you, Eli. More than you’ll ever know.”
