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I didn’t want to tell him. But North never gave up on something once he got it in his head. And having found out I’d been watching his sister, he wouldn’t let go of it easily.
“I met her before I knew you. She was in the police station with your mom the day my brother drowned.” His eyes narrowed. He didn’t know I’d had a brother. I’d never told him, or any of the guys. “She was five.”
He swore beneath his breath and his hands curled into fists.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the tree, flicking my eyes to the house to make sure she was still inside. I had no intention of telling him everything. That was mine and mine alone.
“She talked to me for a while, and it meant something to me. She wasn’t scared of me and didn’t look at me… differently.”
“She was fuckin’ five. She didn’t know better.”
“That may be true, but I was a kid too. She invited me to her birthday, and I never intended on going, but after losing my brother, I don’t know, I just went and watched her celebrate from a distance.” She’d stuck green gummy bears all over the sides and top of her frosted vanilla birthday cake.
His weight shifted and I was ready for him to jump me again, but he didn’t.
“The Yoda?” he asked.
I shrugged. “She’d left at the station by accident.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and as good as I was at reading people, North was just as good at concealing his emotions when he wanted to. Something you learn in the fight ring.
He glanced back at the house and then at me again. “Zero Crow.”
My insides coiled.
“You know what that means, asshole. It means I don’t want you to ever go near her again. No fuckin’ birthdays. I won’t have my sister stalked and polluted with your fuckin’ demons.”
Then he walked away and headed for the house.
Vic
After Addie and Jaeg picked up Jackson, Macayla escaped into the shower. And I knew it was an escape because she wouldn’t look at me.
I wasn’t in any hurry to have this conversation. Fuck, I didn’t want to have it at all, but there was no chance in hell it wasn’t happening. She could shower all day and I’d still be here waiting. I also informed Jaeg not to bring Jackson home until he heard from me.
As soon as she’d said raped, my mind went dead. No anger. No disbelief. Nothing. It was a large black hole of emptiness, and I was spinning around inside like a black cloud unable to stop the falling. The sinking further and further into the void.
It was her voice that pulled me back. Just like it had always done.
And then it churned and ripped and scraped the walls of my insides.
There was no slow-burning anger. It had been an out-of-control wildfire as everything inside me detonated.
I’d done shit to people. I’d put scars on people. I’d fucked them up so bad they begged for death.
But when it came to her…. Knowing what that sick motherfucker did to her. It raged through me and shredded the shield, leaving me raw and vulnerable.
Vulnerable. Fuck.
She’d been vulnerable. Her.
The kitchen counter creaked under my grip.
I didn’t think of the girls I rescued with my ex-military brothers and what they’d been through. I thought about what I’d do to the disgusting bastards. I thought about the pain I’d inflict on them for what they did. About the moment the light would be snuffed from their eyes.
But looking into her eyes… my mind became a cesspool of images.
Yeah, I wanted to slice and dice the motherfucker who did that to her. I wanted to hear him scream like she must have done. I wanted to make him suffer for days, weeks, months. No, I’d hang him by his fuckin’ fingernails for years.
