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Sometimes it doesn’t work, though, and I’m forced to watch my little brother be used and tortured, forced to hear his screams.
“Close your eyes, Donny. Close your eyes. Think of something nice. Think of a dog or a flower. Anything.”
I don’t know if my words help him. They don’t help me. As much as I try to escape into my mind while the masked men do the unthinkable to my little body, I’m never successful.
Someday, though. Someday we’ll get out.
Someday I’ll make the monsters pay.
I awake with a jerk.
The dream changes, but it’s always a scene from the horror of those two months.
This is why I began sleeping out here in the first place. To help combat the dreams. The dreams never go away, though they only come one or two times a week now instead of every night. But the vineyards calm me. Enshroud me as if they’re protecting me from the horrors of my past.
So long ago now.
I never got to make the monsters pay. They’ve been dead and buried for decades now, and the trafficking ring has been long since exposed and broken up.
My life has been wonderful for the last twenty-five years. I never forget that, never forget how much I owe my mother and father for adopting Donny and me.
My father especially. He gets me. He always has. I’m not sure why, but he does. What a hard thing, to adopt two troubled boys who’d been abducted and horribly abused and on top of that had lost their mother.
My parents are our saviors. Donny and I make sure they never forget that.
Even now, I sometimes wonder why they did it. My dad and Uncle Ry rescued us, got us away from the horror, but they didn’t have to make a lifetime commitment.
I’ve asked my father many times, and his answer is always the same.
Because I could give you what you needed.
He has. He gave me a home, a family, food to eat, and all the money in the world. But he could have given any child those same things.
Why Donny?
And why me?
Because I could give you what you needed.
A home? Check. A mother and father? Check. Therapy? Check. Many others could have given us that much. Maybe not such a lavish home, but a home nonetheless.
My father’s words have a hidden meaning. I’m sure of it. I’ve asked Aunt Mel, but she always says I need to ask my father. And when I do, the words are always the same.
Because I could give you what you needed.
My father hides behind his words. There’s something he’s not telling me. I always thought he’d come clean once I hit adulthood, but I’m thirty-five now, and he hasn’t.
Thirty-five—the same age he was when Donny and I came here.
Our lives have come full circle, it seems.
I check my phone. I was only asleep for a half hour. Funny that I can go into a dream state so quickly, but it sometimes happens that way.
Diana and Ashley are probably in the hot tub, finishing the sparkling wine and chattering about who knows what.
The stars above are shining down upon them as they are on me.
And suddenly the world seems small.
Chapter Fifteen
Ashley
“Your brother is a tough nut to crack,” I say to Diana after finishing my flute of champagne—err, sparkling wine.
“I was wondering how long it would take for you to bring him up.” Dee laughs. “It’s been nearly a half hour since we got in the tub.”
“He’s…”
He’s…what? Magnificent to look at? He is, but he’s her brother. She doesn’t think of him that way. He’s brilliant? She already knows that. He’s a rude pain in the ass? She may not know that, but it’s hardly something a sister wants to hear about a big brother she adores.
I finally decide on, “…interesting.”
“He’s just a loner. You’ll get used to it.”
“He pretty much told me I’m not needed here. He thinks this internship is a waste of his time.”
“Yeah, he made that pretty clear. I’m sorry about that.”
“Why is your uncle forcing him to work with me, then? Why doesn’t he work with me himself or assign someone else?”
Diana wrinkles her forehead. “Honestly? I don’t know. Uncle Ry must have something up his sleeve.”
“Dale told me his uncle said he needs to improve his people skills.”
Diana spits her mouthful of wine into the tub. “Shit! Sorry about that.”
“No problem. I’ve always wanted to bathe in champagne. Fuck! Sparkling wine! Why do I keep doing that? I’m an oenologist, for God’s sake.”
“Dale actually told you that?”
“He did, and I told him he had to actually have people skills in the first place to improve them.”
“Oh my God. What did he say to that?”
What had he said? Something about having plenty of people skills but only using them when necessary. Hell, I was so enamored with the sound and color of his voice, some of it’s a blur. “He defended himself, of course.”
