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Chance shifted in his chair, his energy was changing, but he didn’t say anything. He let me talk. I knew he was holding his reactions at bay because his hands were fists on his knees.
“I didn’t want to go. I begged him not to make me. But he had his father’s gun, and he said I had to do as he told me because if I didn’t, he would kill me. And I believed him. I believed him because when he branded me, when he heard my screams and could see how much pain I was in, he showed no emotion. No remorse. No fucking fear for what he was or for what he was doing. So when he said he would kill me, I knew he would.” I held my pain at bay with gritted teeth. “He made me drink some liquor. Then he forced me down onto the dusty floorboards. Even then I didn’t really know what he was going to do. Not until he ripped my underwear off. Then I knew.” I blew out a shaky breath as the memory rattled its way through me. “That was when he raped me.”
Chance stood up with a rush. His jaw flexed and his nostrils flared as he struggled to contain his rage.
“Son of a bitch!” he snarled. He shook his head and smacked his lips together, unable to hide his wrath. Wild energy poured off him. “Did they know? Your parents? Did they know what he did to you?”
I nodded and his face lit up with barely contained fury. “Fucking sons of bitches!”
“At first they didn’t believe me. They thought I was making it up. Barrett was an overachiever in school. Especially his senior year. He was good at everything he did. Sports. His classes. And boy was he popular.” I shook my head and sniffed back the cold lump of pain that had lodged in my throat. “No one could believe that Mr. Popular would rape his foster sister. They thought I made it up. That I wanted the attention. So they refused to believe it. And that’s what made it so easy for him. Because he didn’t just steal it from me once. He kept stealing it for the next three years.”
CHANCE
Rage slammed into me.
Three years.
He sexually tormented her for three fucking years.
And don’t get me started on that scar.
The sight of that scar made me want to go medieval on his ass.
I wanted to crush him. Break him. He branded her like she was cattle. Now I wanted to brand him repeatedly with my fist.
Little did I know, Cassidy was just getting revved up, filling me in on Barrett’s depravity.
“When I was sixteen, he got me pregnant.”
And just like that things got infinitely worse as she took me down to depths of despair I could only imagine.
“He knew he was in trouble. Up until then, he could charm his way out of anything. He could talk the talk. Convince you it was nighttime while you were standing in sunlight. But he knew he couldn’t talk himself out of a pregnancy because there would be some kind of investigation.” She paused. “If I had the baby, of course.”
The air exhaled from my lungs in a rush. Her story was already bad, but I could tell it was about to get substantially worse.
“He waited for a night our parents were out. We lived on a big property just out of Sacramento. There was large pond on it. With reeds and lily pads. When I ran from him that night, he caught up with me right by that pond, and that’s where he attacked me again. And while he was brutalizing me, he was laughing. He got off on the struggle. And that night I struggled more than I ever had struggled before. Because I knew what he was going to do before he even dragged me to the edge of that pond and tried to drown me.”
Red-hot rage hit my brain like a shot of dope. And for a moment it blinded me.
What she had been through. What he had done.
I wanted to end him.
My hands curled into a fist at my side, and I could barely breathe. I had never wanted to end anybody as much as I wanted to end him.
“He would’ve killed me, if it wasn’t for our parents arriving home when they did. He panicked and let me go.” Tears swam in her eyes and her chin quivered. “I remember my foster mom calling out to me in the darkness. I remember climbing out of that pond covered in mud and reeds, staggering toward her voice. I remember the taste of pond water in my mouth as I stood in front of her, watery blood saturating my nightgown—”
“Cassidy—”
“I lost the baby.” Tears dropped down her cheeks. “Finally, they listened to me. They couldn’t live in denial and sweep his behavior under the rug anymore. They had no choice but to act. After all, we were the prominent Silvermane family. It wouldn’t do well for Kerry Silvermane’s son to be convicted of raping his foster sister. The one they made a big media circus about fostering. So they sent him away. Told me it was to some medical facility in Switzerland where they treated behavioral disorders. It wasn’t until years later I learned there was no such place. That the medical facility they told me about was actually an exclusive college where rich boys got to enjoy the finest in away-from-home learning. He enjoyed his status. Wealthy friends. Trips to the Alps in winter and the French Riviera in summer. While I struggled and dragged myself out of the fire pit he threw me into when I was just a girl, he was living it up in Europe. He was never punished. My parents had too much money and social status. They couldn’t afford the scandal. So they did what they did to protect themselves. They swept it all under the rug.”
