“You don’t want to hurt anyone?” I asked. “You assaulted me and knocked me out, raped numerous women, and terrorized countless others. The amount of hurt that you’ve already inflicted—including to Shonelle—is insane, and you’re saying you don’t want to hurt anyone now?”
“I was patient with you, Sadie. I waited for you to hit sixteen, so you can’t be upset that I had relations with other women.”
“You didn’t have relations, Orson, you raped and assaulted them. You were tried, convicted, and sentenced for those crimes, too.”
“But I didn’t touch you until you were sixteen,” he snapped back, like that one fact solved everything, but he was wrong.
“I was fifteen,” I whispered, taking great delight in throwing that information back in his face. “Fifteen when you attacked me and tried to rape me, and sixteen when I had to give evidence and listen to the stories of those poor women. The amount of evidence they found in your house showed you’d been stalking me since I was twelve.”
Elijah’s brothers stood silently, absorbing the information as the muscles in their jaws ticked, but none of them wanted to move in case he shot the weapon that was still pointed at me.
What I’d said pushed him over the edge because he leaned forward and screamed, “I said I was sorry!”
That’s when a fat, bald blur appeared out of nowhere, wrapping itself around his ankle, and started biting and scratching him through the thin material of the trousers he was wearing. Jesse and Marcus shot into action simultaneously, with Jesse tackling me down to the ground as Orson waved the gun around and yelled, and Marcus knocking him out with one punch to the side of the head.
Covering me with his body, Jesse looked over his shoulder to make sure his brothers had taken care of the threat and then looked down at me with concern. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
“Jesus Christ,” Remy roared, running up to join Jackson at the doorway as Marcus stood up. Pulling some zip ties out of his pocket, he moved Orson onto his stomach and started securing his hands behind his back. “What part of don’t touch him in case he shoots you didn’t you understand?”
“The cat didn’t get your memo,” Jackson replied seriously, watching Dobby retreat to where his fiery pits of hell awaited.
I don’t know if it was the prospect of never having to worry about him again—hopefully—but I burst into tears and didn’t stop when Jesse picked me up off the ground and carried me over to a chair, rocking me like a kid.
Orson might not hold any power over me anymore, but I’d had nightmares for years. I’d been afraid for so long, and it was all because of him. I’d built him up in my head to be this huge imposing man, powerful and capable of doing anything to me, and it was all over.
Even the grunts and groans in the room didn’t cut through the feelings I was working through inside my mind and heart. It was like I was grieving for my childhood and the pressure that’d been building was suddenly free. Part of me was glad Elijah hadn’t been here for it because he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from protecting me, and he could’ve gotten hurt. The other part wished he had been here so that he could see for himself it was over.
Looking up at Jesse, who was glaring at something behind me, I rasped, “Elijah?”
“He’ll be back soon, honey, don’t worry. This guy hasn’t confessed to what he did to Shonelle fully, and with the stuff in the letter, they still have to follow protocol to eliminate him from the case. Remy’s just been saying that he called it in after he came back and saw the twins standing outside and Marcus signed out what was happening, so they’ll be here soon, and then they can question fuck face over there and clear Elijah’s name.”
Standing up shakily, I swiped my cheeks with my hands and walked over to where Orson was now sitting on a chair with his arms behind his back.
“Why? You took away so much from so many women, you ruined my childhood with nightmares and pure terror. Why?”
Marcus, Jackson, and Remy looked like they wanted to tear his head off after I asked the question, but Orson still didn’t have an ounce of remorse on his face.
“Because I love you.”
“That’s not love,” I spat, feeling the shaking and tears replaced by anger. “If you love someone, you don’t attack them and knock them out so you can rape them. You don’t terrorize them and make them afraid to sleep at night. You don’t kill a woman because of them. Elijah loves me, and thanks to him, I don’t have nightmares, I’m not afraid to shower in case someone walks up behind me, I don’t have panic attacks that I can’t manage anymore because he showed me how to get through them. He’s protected me and made me happier than I’ve been in years. That’s what you do when you love someone.”