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3
Trey
I stareat her sleeping form for far longer than necessary. I don’t want to wake her up, but I don’t want to leave her like this either. Getting a clean washcloth, I soak it in some warm soapy water. I clean the apex of her thighs as gently as I can without waking her up, wiping the blood, and the evidence of my brother's betrayal away. Then I wrap her up in a blanket and move her to the center of the bed.
I’m angry...angry at myself, at Declan, but most of all her piece of shit father.
I don’t understand the things I’m feeling, why I want to make sure she’s okay. Declan is right. She is the enemy, but she’s not the enemy by choice and hurting her makes us no better than her father. I’m conflicted, caught between right and wrong, between getting revenge and protecting her from all the bad in the world.
“You’re getting attached,” Wes says as he enters the room, his eyes going straight to Jessa’s sleeping form.
“I’m not attached. I just have a conscience, and all I can picture is Jessa being hurt like our sister…we’re no better…”
“Don’t. Do not compare her circumstances to what our sister went through. We’re nothing like her father, not even close. She’s given food, a bed to sleep on, she’s not dead yet. That’s a thousand times better than what our family ever got, let alone our sister.”
A blood vessel in Wes’s neck bulges and I know he’s angry, livid even. And I get what he’s saying, because he’s not lying, our sister, our family, they didn’t get a quick death, they were tortured, beaten, and raped, but that doesn’t mean I can shut off my humanity. I still feel like shit for what’s happening to her.
“Did he hurt her?” he asks, and even though I know he doesn’t want to admit it I know he feels shame over what happened. Declan has wanted her dead since we kidnapped her and while the dynamics of everything have changed, he’s still hung up on getting even, burying the knife into her father’s chest so to speak.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know for certain. Watch her while I check on Richards’ surveillance.” I leave the room and go to my own and sit down at my desk. Exhaling I open the laptop and pull up Richards’ email and phone log. He texted his security and called the private investigator to let everybody know that he got another video, but he still makes no attempt to contact us. Which pisses me off further, because just as I said, the video wouldn’t change anything.
Declan hurt her for no reason, and now he’ll have to deal with the guilt that comes with that. I shake my head, trying to wrap my mind around all of this. Richards’ orders are still the same. Find us and eliminate everyone. Fuck. I slam the laptop shut hard enough to break the screen.
Jessa’s useless to us now. He doesn’t care about her, not like we had anticipated. There’s no reason to keep her alive now, no reason to keep this charade going. If we want the flash drive, we’re going to have to go in guns blazing. I rub at my temple, a headache forming. Everything is fucked.
After a few minutes, I get up and find my brothers. We gather in the living room. Declan’s face is masked, but I’ve known him long enough to know he’s feeling something inside that cold exterior.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Declan asks, a stupid grin on his face.
“No asshole, it didn’t.” His face falls as soon as I speak, something close to anger flickering in his depths.
“Fuck,” Wes curses, running a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Yeah, so you hurt her for nothing.” I direct my anger over the situation at Declan.
“I didn’t fucking hurt her. I fucked her, there’s a difference. Plus, she wanted it, and she came, her tight little pussy squeezed painfully around my cock. If she was so hurt, then she wouldn’t have gotten any pleasure, so knock it the fuck off. You aren’t any better than me. We all want the same thing—”
“It didn’t look like she wanted it when we came in,” I cut him off. “We might want the same thing, but I think we have different ideas on how to get it.”
“You’re right,” Wes says in a weird tone. I glance over at him and his face looks like he just had an epiphany. “Maybe we just need a different way to get it.”
Declan and I look at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“What if we change our tactics? If Jessa is telling us the truth, which I think she is, she has no idea the kind of person her father is. What if we show Jessa what her father is really like? We can show her the messages he sent his security.”
“And what good is that going to do,” Declan asks, once again showing his disapproval.
“Maybe she can help us get to him. Maybe she knows stuff we don’t. If we use her against him in a way other than hurting her, if we show her that we care about her, maybe that will give us the edge we need,” Wes adds, and I have to admit the idea is a good one. We’ve been hurting her since we brought her in, using her fears against her, and clearly, it’s backfired on us.
Declan shakes his head. “No fucking way. I’m not trusting her, absolutely not. Not one single fucking bit. She’s the enemy or have you both forgotten that?”
“Her father is the enemy. If she’s our enemy now, then it’s because of what we did to her.” I stare Declan down, making certain he hears my words.
Declan clenches his fists, his jaw tightening, “I don’t believe for one second that her father doesn’t care about her. Why keep her sheltered? Why have so many fucking guards? It makes zero sense, and although you are my brothers, I can’t agree with you on this.”
“He did care about her until he realized she would most likely be returned to him as damaged goods, or in pieces,” Wes starts, but I cut him off.
“Like he said, he has no time to fix something like that and it doesn’t matter how much he cares about her, he’ll always put himself first. That’s what people like him do. We should have seen this coming. He is a fucking psychopath. We can’t hurt him like he hurt us because he doesn’t love anyone, no one but himself.”
