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Isa was beaten, nearly raped, by a guy who fathered her nephew. When Jacks found out, he fell apart. And it was me and Brooks who were there for him. When he needed us to help him uncover what happened, we did, without question because we knew, however long it took, that Jacks would one day make that asshole pay. And we know, whenever that day comes, we’ll back him up.
Now, I need him to back me up, because my woman—my life—have been hurt. Not threatened, not harmed,hurt, and I didn’t even fucking know about it.
Hunter walks in and sets down a brown paper bag, and then he heads down the narrow hall toward the kitchen, coming back seconds later with three shot glasses. He settles onto the couch and pours liquid into all three, pushing them toward us.
“Ask,” he says. “Ask, and I’ll tell you what I know—Brooks can fill in the rest.”
“How long have you known?” This time I look at Hunter.
He doesn’t flinch. “Since last winter. So a little over a year.”
“Goddammit.” I slam the shot back and put the glass back down, ready for another. He fills without asking. “How did you find out?”
Jacks slams his own shot back, rolling his glass between his hands. “It was right when Isa started working for me. She had a run in with a guy who worked for me at the time—he tried to get fresh when she told him he was doing shitty work. He pushed her around, she put him on his ass with a knee to the balls.” He pours more into his own glass. “When I was telling Nala, her reaction was pretty intense. Set some things off, and it all kind of clicked.”
My stomach roils with nausea, and I slam down the other shot, hoping to burn it away. “What else do you know?” He hesitates, and I pound my hand on the table. “Don’t fucking keep it from me.”
“What’s your end game?” Brooks speaks now. Looking at me, he swallows back his own shot. “From what you’ve already said, you know most of it. Nala was raped.” We all pause, the pain and disgust and fear settling way down deep. “She was young—it took her to a place she couldn’t deal with, and when no one was really willing to bet on her side of the story, she stopped trying, stopped caring. When I finally got her to listen to reason, she already had a misdemeanor on her record, and a host of other bad choices behind her.”
Like she was trying to forget…or to prove something to all of us.
But what? What was she trying to do by going out harder, making choices that could hurt her?
“When?” I’m repeating the same question, and no one has really answered. I know when they do—really do—everything will fall into place. “When did this happen? Fucking tell me,” I say when I watch them glance at each other. “Don’t you dare fucking keep something else from me. Not when it comes to her. When, goddammit? When. Did. This. Happen?”
Brooks clears his throat, leaning forward so he can look me in the eyes. I see the answer before he speaks, and it guts me. “The spiral started after you told herno. The…rape,” he chokes on the word. “Happened a few weekends after that. She was at a party, you were there…she was dressed like she was a college kid instead of barely in high school and you told her that, told her to go home. When you walked upstairs with some bimbo, no one could find her. We thought she left,” he says, voice breaking. “We were all fucking there, doing our own thing with our own girls, and she was being fucking hurt.”
He downs another shot, standing to walk to the doors and step outside. I stay where I am, not moving a muscle. That night…it didn’t really register. I was hammered—kind of how I always was when I came home for any amount of time that year. Being without Nala…it had left a hole in me that wasn’t easy to fill, but I tried. I came home less, I rode harder, partied just as much, and did my best to stay drunk and disinterested anytime I saw her.
And I told myself it was all for her—that I was a bastard, the product of an abusive man and a weak woman, someone unworthy of Nala. Only now I know that’s truer than ever.
I left her, and she got hurt.
“Don’t do it.” Hunter’s words are sharp, coming out in a whip. “Don’t blame yourself. Were you a dick? Yeah, probably. Could you have handled it better? Yeah, you could have. But fuck, Mal, you weren’t even eighteen when you came home, you’d lost your dad the year before, your mom and sister only a few years before that. You were fucking scared of losing the one person who meant everything to you.”
“But I lost her anyway,” I say, stomach cramping, hands shaking. “I walked away, broke her heart and my own, all because I thought I was protecting her.” Rage pulses through me, and before I can register what I’m doing, my hand grips the edge of the wood and metal coffee table and sends it flying onto its side, glass and liquid spilling everywhere. Jacks stands, but he doesn’t acknowledge the fit. He just stays where he is, eyes on me.
“You can blame yourself for a lot of things…but not for what happened to her. You didn’t rape her.” Those words, they break me. Keeling over, I let loose a roar, and it comes perilously close to a sob. A heavy hand lands on my shoulder, and then another, and I know my brothers are with me.
“Neither of you are responsible for what happened. So you have a choice.” It’s Brooklyn’s voice now. “You can either blame yourself, like she blames herself, and lose the love of your life, or you can sober up and go find her, and you can show her, tell her, promise her, that everything you are lives for her. No matter what happened in the past, this, right here? It matters more.”
