Except I won’t. I know that as soon as the thought crosses my mind.
Because then they’ll turn on Donny.
Only Donny has an out from the pact. I never will, as long as my brother lives. I’ll die protecting him.
I brace myself for the intrusion that will inevitably come.
I wait.
And wait.
I hear a door open, and a whoosh of warmer air blows over me. I relish in it for the few seconds I feel it.
Since the lukewarm shower that first day, warmth is a luxury Donny and I have been denied.
It’s gone too soon, of course, and then I suck in a breath as something cold and spiky trails over my tender back.
They’re going to beat me again.
I suck in what little breath I can, trying to ready myself for something I’ll never be ready for.
But the blow doesn’t come.
Instead—
“No!” I cry.
Something tears into the already sore flesh inside me.
My insides are being ripped apart. I’ll never heal from this. Never be whole again.
“Made you scream, bitch!” Low Voice squeals. “Little bitch, that’s what you are. You’ll always be someone’s little bitch.”
I scream again and again. “Stop! Please! It hurts! Mommy, where are you! They’re hurting me!”
“Take it, bitch,” High Voice says. “Take it all.”
Needles, broken glass, sharp talons… They’re all inside me, scraping out my insides and letting them bleed onto the cold concrete floor.
Take it. Take it. Take it.
“Break, you little bitch! Give in!”
The words fly around me as they continue to torture me with the object I still haven’t seen. Don’t want to see.
Until—
“Stop!” I finally cry out. “No more. No more.”
“More,” Low Voice says. “More until you break.”
I’m already broken. I’ll never heal from this. Has to stop. No more. No more.
Tears fall down my cheeks. My nose runs, snot flowing onto the concrete floor.
Can’t. Can’t be strong anymore. Need it to stop. Stop. Stop.
“Please,” I cry. “No more. Do it to someone else! Anyone else!”
“To your little brother?” The pain continues, cutting through every part of me.
No. Won’t say it. Won’t say it. Won’t…
“Yes! Just stop! Please!”
And finally, it stops.
“Dale!”
I’m curled into a fetal position, lying among the broken glass, clutching my birth father’s book.
It’s out.
My deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret.
I threw my little brother to the wolves when I couldn’t take the torture anymore.
I broke.
And I’ll never be whole again.
So long this secret had lain dormant inside me, but now…
Now I feel.
I feel, and my self-hatred is more torment than anything those evil psychopaths did to me.
I deserve nothing good.
Nothing.
And that’s what I’ll get.
“Dale!”
The voice. I know it.
It’s my father.
My father, who helped me escape the torture.
Days passed—I don’t know how many. They dragged Donny away, and all I did was sit in a corner and imagine what horrific acts they were doing to his little body.
Because I told them to.
“Dale!”
I open my eyes. Talon Steel stands above me.
Talon Steel—the man who rescued my brother and me and made us his sons.
My savior. The savior I couldn’t be to my brother.
The heinous picture I’ve kept buried inside for so long. It’s out. I knew the day would come. I tried to fight it off for Ashley, but she awakened too much inside me.
And now I’ll pay the ultimate price.
“Dale! Get up!”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m not getting up. Not for anyone. Not for Dad. Not for Donny. Not even for Ashley.
It’s over. I’m over.
“God damn it, Dale, pick your fucking ass up!”
Strong arms grip my shoulders and haul me out of the family room and down the hall to my library. He forces me into a burgundy velvet wingback chair by the window. The library? This chair? Why not my office? Why not leave me in the family room?
“For Christ’s sake! This is enough, Dale. God damned enough.”
“I can’t do it, Dad. I can’t.”
“You’re going to sit there, and you’re going to tell me everything that’s going on inside that head of yours.”
“You won’t understand.”
“Damn it, Dale. I’m the only one who will.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Ashley
I’m lying on the lumpy hotel bed when someone knocks softly at the door.
Go away.
The rapping becomes louder.
“Go away.” Out loud this time.
“Ashley, it’s Jade. Let me in. Please.”
Dale’s mother. As much as I love her—as much as I need someone to talk to—I can’t. Not to her. I say nothing.
She knocks again. “Please, Ashley.”
I sigh. I’m all cried out. I can’t even imagine what I look like. Don’t care anyway. She may pull the Steel card and pay off the maid to let her in with the pass key. I’m only postponing the inevitable. I rise and open the door.
Jade stands in the hallway, looking lawyerly in a light-gray suit and black pumps. She must have come straight from her office. “May I come in?”
“Nothing stopping you,” I reply sarcastically. Then, “I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”