“Did she…” she stopped and swallowed loudly. “Did she rape you?”
“Not completely. Not in that way, at least.”
A tear fell slowly down her cheek, tearing me up inside as I watched it. “How did you get away? What about Dale?”
“Your family and the Montgomerys. I don’t know what they saw, but they started inviting us over all the time, including us in Thanksgivings and Christmas, and they gave us a sanctuary. At the time, I thought they were doing it just because they love everyone, but when I went to college, I started to think they knew more than I realized. I’d spoken to Dale and told him Chantal was hurting me—he was too young to know what was going on—and he moved into my room in the house. That meant she couldn’t continue to do what she’d been doing because I was always there.”
“I hate her,” she croaked, more tears falling now. “It sounds weak, but I hate her so much that I have a pain here,” she hit her chest. “Why didn’t you tell your dad?”
This part was the biggest betrayal out of all of it.
“We did. I even went to him with evidence, but she told him I needed to see a therapist because I obviously had issues from losing Mom. She was such a caring person,” I hissed, my hands clenching tight, “that she even gave him the name of one.”
Ari’s jaw tightened even more before her eyes squeezed shut. “He denied you’d been assaulted, didn’t he?”
“Considering he was her boyfriend, yes, he did,” I confirmed, and her eyes popped open in shock.
“I thought you were going to say she paid him off. That’s… holy shit.”
My mouth turned up in a smile that wasn’t even close to a humorous one. “Yeah. See, after I left home, I did some investigation into why a therapist would lie for someone. Before I’d moved out for college, I’d made a point of installing one of those motion detection cameras in front of Dale’s bedroom door. Dad thought I was being overly protective of my brother ‘in account of me losing my mom, and all,’” I muttered, shaking my head at how twisted his mind was over the situation. “I also installed them outside his window, and in other places I knew she’d be able to corner him in. She was pissed, and shortly afterward, I got an alert on my phone that the camera at his bedroom door had been deactivated. So, I called Dale and told him not to go home, and he stayed with Mark Montgomery for a week while I called Dad up and got him to get a technical specialist round to look at the camera. The guy just put the cable back in the little receiver box and told Dad to be careful no one tripped on it again.”
Looking like she felt sick at the thought, Ari shook her head slowly. “That twisted bitch.”
“Anyway, I also discovered she’d been in a relationship with the therapist for a couple of years, and marrying Dad was a sort of financial arrangement between them. He was a sick fuck, too, and apparently liked that she’d been molesting me.”
“How do you know that?” she gasped.
Clearing my throat and cracking my neck, I fought against the flight reaction that wanted to take over. I’d discussed this with my doctor, and I wanted Ariana to know all of this, so I had to do it in a way that didn’t make me close up. That meant saying what I was comfortable with, but this part she needed to know.
“I found a video in her home office that she’d taped to the underside of her desk. In it, they were fucking while he asked her to repeat what she’d done and my reactions. She lied about most of it, saying that I was screaming as I came and started crying afterward, but I never did any of that. I never let it get that far. The second she touched me, I’d wake up and move out of her reach.”
More tears fell as she digested it all. “I want to hurt them both.” When I went to say something to her in response to this, she held her hand up. “No, I’m serious, Parker. I want to cause them pain so bad, it’ll torment them for the rest of their lives. I’m not talking about killing them or anything, I’m talking about hitting him in the nuts with a baseball bat, or her in the tit with it.”
This time, the smile and small laugh that came out of me was genuine. “Well, that’ll definitely be hard to forget.”
Turning so she was facing me with her leg on the couch between us, she reached over and carefully took my hand, giving me time to say no if I didn’t want her to touch me. Part of me didn’t. I’m not going to lie, I had issues with being touched unless I was the one controlling it. But, a large part of me wanted her to do it, too, because it might anchor me and help me feel less vulnerable. So, I didn’t argue when her soft fingers wrapped around my palm.