AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Of course, he did. My gaze slid over the scars on his upper body, noting every inch of the suffering he endured as a child.
“Who did that to you?”
“One of my m-mother’s boyfriends.”
“Shit.”
He shrugged, but I knew it wasn’t that simple. “Who h-h-hurt you, Heather?”
My fists clenched. I didn’t want to say.
“It’s okay. I won’t pry it from you. If you don’t want to discuss it, I won’t pressure you.”
Really?
“But I need to know a little so I can be there for you.”
His sincerity alleviated my anxiety.
“I was five years old. A baby,” I whispered. “Why does he still scare me so much if I was so little when it happened?”
Country tugged me closer, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “I d-don’t know. I was s-s-seven when I was hunted.”
I jolted at those words. “Hunted?”
“John h-hunted me like an animal. For sport.”
“Oh my God.”
“He used me as a p-personal ashtray. Actually, my m-mother did it a few times, too, when h-h-he ordered her to do it. She was too afraid to r-refuse.”
I threw my arms around his neck. A sob shook loose as I hugged him. “I’m sorry.”
“Then you g-get how I f-feel. I’m worried. Your h-h-hesitation has me th-thinking the worst. Tell me what h-happened. Don’t hold onto that s-secret anymore. It doesn’t help you to k-keep it behind locked doors.”
How correct that statement was. My father never spoke of that day or the registered sex offender who moved into the neighborhood and took three little girls in the first week.
I was the last one.
Uncle Hale and my father found me before I ended up in a dumpster in Las Vegas like the other two.
My body shook as I thought about that man’s vile intentions. He was on a spree, knowing it would catch up to him. Vinny Miller never anticipated the Royal Bastards MC would find him with the daughter of a member and what they would do when they saw that little girl naked and bleeding on his bed.
Five hours and twenty-seven minutes. That was how long he had me in his house. He didn’t waste one minute.
My dad never told me what happened to Vinny, but I knew from the news that he disappeared. The police never found a body. The day after I returned home, I saw the dusty motorcycles parked outside my house like they had taken a long, hard ride into the desert. No one had to tell me the RBMC got justice for me and the other two little girls that day.
The problem was I still lived with Vinny’s ghost.
“Heather?”
Country held me as I refused to look at his face. I stared at the wall across the room, blurting out what happened as I began trembling. The words tumbled out of my lips, finally set free from the prison where they festered inside me.
“A stranger picked me up and took me to his house. He shoved a sucker in my mouth that tasted funny, and it made me sleepy.”
Country squeezed once to let me know he listened.
“The man was scary but told me we were going to play a game, and I would like it.”
