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“What’s there to see?” I asked, my hands clutching the counter behind me. “And I don’t go by Lele anymore.”
Torin was looking fixedly at me. “I told you to get over here, Lele Reilly.”
Fear shot through me at his tone, my knees turning to liquid at the dark expression on his face. “No! I don’t just do what you say anymore.”
His eyes narrowed slightly but otherwise his face didn’t change expression. “Is that so? It hasn’t been that long, baby girl.”
“It’s been 10 fucking years!” I cried, moving sideways a few steps to put the table between us. “You don’t know me at all.”
“It doesn’t matter how many years it’s been,” Torin said. “I know you, Lele Reilly. And I know when you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying,” I protested.
I retreated further, stumbling a bit as my back hit one of the drawers in the cupboards.
My brother watched me with his arms crossed across his big chest, his eyes narrowing further.
“You haven’t contacted me in 10 years. I just want to know what you want from me,” I said, forcing my voice to be steady as I glared at him across the kitchen.
“Lele, I said I’d come get you when I got out,” Torin replied coolly. “I’m out now.”
There was a bite of silence as my brother’s eyes scanned my face.
“What did I tell you would happen when you turned 18?” he asked sternly. “I’d make you fully mine. And, sweet sister, I’m here to do just that.”
And it was true. Deep down I hadn’t believed any of the maybes, the probablys, the potentiallys.
I knew Torin Reilly would come to collect.
“Come here, baby girl,” he said. “I want to see what you look like.”
“No,” I croaked. “I’m not your baby girl.”
My heart was pounding so hard my chest ached. Oh, I remembered that voice. Low, gravelly, hard.
My hands felt slick with sweat.
He pushed off the counter and walked toward me. My brother had always had that lean predator’s walk, despite how big and broad-shouldered he was, and I was momentarily frozen as he moved toward me.
Then I started to run. But he was faster than me. He had always been faster than me. Bigger, faster, stronger.
And there was nowhere to go. Torin was on me before I had sprinted halfway to the door, grabbing my arm and whirling me around, my skin burning where he touched me.
My brother pressed me into the counter, his body only inches from mine. I had no choice but to look up into his face. I felt a chill to realize it was still as familiar to me as my own, but while my eyes had always been soft, his were hard and cold. I shivered as his arm kept me trapped, his other hand reaching for my hair, gently rolling one of my curls between his big fingers.
His eyes flicked across my face. His fingers, the tips calloused and rough, moved from my hair to trace the lines of a scar I’d gotten when my uncle threw a beer bottle at me.
Torin had gone right up and hit my uncle across the mouth. He was only 10 at the time, and my uncle had beaten the shit out of him.
I remembered crying helplessly to see my brother’s black and blue face. But he didn’t cry, just took me to the sink and washed off my cut. Then later we walked the two miles to my uncle and aunt’s house and slashed the tires in their truck with one of the broken bottles.
“You look exactly like I knew you would,” he said.
I suddenly wanted him to say what he meant by that, but I couldn’t get any words out as his hands traced the lines of my face. Torin had always thought he had the exclusive right to my body. No one else had ever been allowed to touch me, for as long as I could remember. Not my aunt trying to rub off a bit of extra lipstick. Not any of the boys in high school trying to get a hug. They had all been met with his frown or his hands.
As far my brother was concerned, I was his and no one else’s.
He skimmed a hand down my throat, running it across my collarbone, sending a flush of trepidation through my body, and I raised my hands to shove him away. “Ok, that’s enough, Torin.”
