“I know he did it because I was still having a really hard time with Mom dying. So, even though I didn’t want to be there, I did because he’d organized it. I drank a little, a couple beers, maybe.” His hand stopped caressing. I looked up at him. “I can’t remember much after my friends left.”
He tucked strands of hair behind my ear, and as gentle as his touch was, there was an underlying rage burning in him.
“I went to my room because I didn’t feel so well. Dizzy. And disoriented. Everyone was outside by the pool, and they were laughing, and the music was really loud.” I looked at him. “I don’t remember how I got to my room, but… it was in the beer, wasn’t it?” I didn’t wait for a response. “I didn’t drink or eat anything else and…. One of his friends offered to get me another a beer and I didn’t even think about it. I just said sure.”
I shuddered and stared down at our linked fingers in my lap. “I know it’s not my fault, Vic. But sometimes…. Sometimes I think that if I hadn’t gone swimming earlier with the guys around. That maybe because I’d—”
“No.” He squeezed me to him. “Baby, fuck. No. Even if you walked around naked, no guy has the right to touch you unless you give him permission.” He inhaled a breath. “You were drugged. In your own fuckin’ house. He took away all your choices.”
I nodded, the heavy fog surrounding me like a suffocating blanket. “I remember laughter. Not just one person, but like…. I don’t know, it was a bunch of people far away. Like it was on the other side of the door or outside or something. And there was this sugary smell. It reminded me of caramels.”
Vic stiffened, his hand stilling on my back. “Caramels.”
I nodded. “Or toffee. Something like that. The smell makes me nauseous now, and I get this sensation….” I stopped and looked at him, tears pooling in the rims of my eyes. “Doom. It’s like impending doom in the pit of my stomach, and all I want to do is run. But I can’t. It’s like I’m standing in quicksand. Sinking. I can’t move and everything is heavy. Even my screams. All I want to do is get away from the smell. But I can’t.”
“The cans of kidney beans in the grocery store.”
I turned my head to look up at him. “You know about that?”
“Small town, baby. The caramel smell was from Dale Richards. He owned a caramel factory.”
“Oh.”
He shifted, and with one movement had me turned and straddling his lap with his hands on my hips. I placed my palms on his chest, feeling the erratic thump of his heart.
“Vic, if my brother knew, he’d have beaten every single one of those guys to a pulp to find out who did it.”
His jaw clenched.
“He’d have gone to jail. He’d have ruined his career.”
His fingers tightened. “All of that is true, baby. But what about you? What about what you went through? Having to hide what happened. Living with that hanging over you. That a man drugged and raped you. Jesus, you were seventeen, and your dad did nothing. The bastard responsible walked away, Macayla. No punishment or consequences for what he’d done. That doesn’t go down with me.”
My dad had told me that it happens, that it was just one of the guys who got too drunk, and I wasn’t to cause issues for Ethan or the team. I didn’t tell Vic that. As strong as Vic was, I didn’t think he could handle it without losing it. Because underneath his strength, determination, and coldness was a deep vulnerability. I think that was why he tried to keep everyone from getting too close—so he didn’t feel too much.
“When I realized I was pregnant, I was five months already. My period was never regular, and I just… ignored the signs, maybe. I just wanted to forget it happened. I know that sounds stupid because I couldn’t remember the night anyway, but that’s what I did, Vic. And when I couldn’t deny it any longer, I had no choice but to tell my dad I was pregnant. He told me to get rid of it, but it was too late and… I wouldn’t… I couldn’t do that anyway.” I heard Vic’s teeth as he clenched his jaw. I inhaled a ragged breath. “Ethan was gone by then because the hockey season had started, so it was easy to keep my pregnancy from him. Dad took me out of school so no one would know, and I finished school online.”
I chewed my lip and shrugged. “And you know the rest,” I whispered.
Vic didn’t say anything for a long time, maybe digesting everything. I was still digesting it myself because I’d never told anyone everything out loud before. And as hard as it was to talk about it, to remember, it was also cathartic.
He ran his hand up my side and back down again. “Baby, Ethan needs to know. He’ll know who was there that night, and I can—”
“No!” I shook my head. “No. I don’t want him to know. Ever. And I don’t want to know who did it, Vic. I don’t want to see his face every time I look at Jackson. And Jackson is never to know. I’ll never put that on him. He already thinks he was unwanted.”
Vic’s jawbone pulsed, and his brows dipped low over his darkening eyes. I could see he was trying to stop himself from arguing. Insisting that he find the sick bastard. It was what he did. He protected.
I cupped his cheek and stared up at his hard gray eyes. “I know you want to find him. You’ve made it your mission to save the world from scum like him.”
He grunted and was about to say something when I scooted closer so I could kiss his lips.
“You may not see it like that, Vic. But I do, and so does Jackson.”
“I’m not a superhero, Macayla,” he ground out, almost annoyed.
“You know what Jackson said when you left. He said it was okay you were gone because you were out saving people who needed you.”
He cupped my chin. “I don’t do it to save them from the scumbags, Rainbird. I do it because I enjoy torturing and killing the scumbags.”