“Hey, Sis,” Roy said.
“Hey.” I glanced to Charlie. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too.” She smiled.
Charlie was quite pretty. Her brown hair and round face were understated, but her eyes were spectacular indeed. A stark light blue-gray that really mesmerized me.
I looked away when I caught myself staring.
“They’re amazing, aren’t they?” Roy said.
“What’s amazing?”
“Her eyes.”
Charlie blushed. “Roy…”
“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s right. I’m sorry for staring.”
“I’ve tried to capture them on canvas,” Roy said. “It’s not possible.”
“Can we talk about something other than my eyes?” Charlie asked. “You’re making me self-conscious. I’m sitting here with the most beautiful supermodel in the world.”
My cheeks warmed. I was used to compliments. I’d gotten them all my life on my beauty. But for some reason, Charlie’s words embarrassed me. As if she were nothing compared to me.
Which wasn’t true. She was lovely. All her average features combined together to make something very striking.
“My sister is beautiful, for sure,” Roy said.
“Of course you think so,” Charlie laughed. “She looks exactly like you.”
This time Roy blushed. The two of them were just so sweet together. It was kind of sickening.
“Do you two want to get a room?” I asked.
“That sounds pretty good to me,” my brother replied.
“For God’s sake, Roy,” Charlie said.
Man, I was really missing Matt.
Compartmentalize.
“Where were you the past several days?” Roy asked me.
Finally, a change of subject, even though it wasn’t one I wanted to talk about. Better than listening to the two of them fawn all over each other, though.
“Nowhere, really.”
“Riley…”
“I ran away. I’m sorry. It… It won’t happen again.”
“Sis, it happens all the time.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’m sure I don’t. Enlighten me.”
I chewed on my lower lip. “The other times… They weren’t my fault.”
“Oh?”
“Dad… He’d take me…” I gulped, nausea clawing up my throat.
“Roy, please,” Charlie said.
“No, it’s okay.” I swallowed down the acid. “I do owe you an explanation. My life hasn’t been pretty, but that doesn’t excuse me leaving the rest of you in a lurch.”
“Riley,” Roy said, “I’m not accusing you of anything. None of us are. We wish we’d known. We’d have stopped him. Please believe we would have.”
“I’m not sure you could have.”
My quietest brother grew red in the face. “Oh, we would have. Trust me.”
“Rock tried, and look where it got him.”
“He was a kid. This last decade, we were all adults. If we’d known, we’d have stopped him. I swear to you.”
My soft-spoken brother was angry. Rage emanated from his pores. I believed him. They would have rescued me. More likely, they would have tried but failed, making their own lives miserable in the process.
It wasn’t their fault they hadn’t known.
It was mine.
Derek Wolfe had me trained well. He’d stripped me of my sense of self to the point that I did whatever he told me.
That wasn’t my brothers’ fault. Was it even my father’s, once I reached the age of majority?
No.
It was mine.
My own fault. I could have broken away and begun healing long ago, but I hadn’t. Why?
Did I have some sick case of Stockholm syndrome?
I shuddered at the thought.
“I know, Roy,” I replied softly.
Rock, Lacey, and Reid entered the banquet room then, bringing this conversation to a halt, thank God.
Or so I thought.
Rock, never one to mince words—at least as much as I remembered—dived right in.
“You all right, Riley?”
I nodded.
“You sure? People who are all right don’t disappear without a trace.”
“Rock…” Roy began.
“It’s okay,” I said to Roy. “This time was all on me, but the others…”
“That bastard,” Rock said through gritted teeth.
My cheeks burned. All gazes focused on me. All five of them.
“Hey,” Reid said. “We didn’t know.”
“I know that.”
“We would have stopped it. We would have found a way.”
“I already told her that,” Roy said.
“It merits repeating,” Reid said. “He was a motherfucker.”
“You mean daughterfucker.” Then I clamped my hand over my mouth.
How had I said that? How had those horrific words spewed out of my mouth?
“Hey,” Roy said. “Easy.”
“I don’t know why I said that. I mean, it’s true, but…”
“It happens,” Rock said. “Sometimes things are so awful that you can’t help but put them in the crudest terms possible. Trust me. I’ve been there.” He shook his head. “No, I take that back. I never went through anything like you went through, but there are things you don’t know about my life.”
Reid nodded. “Buffington. Yeah, we’ve heard stories.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard”—Rock took a sip of his water—“but I’d imagine it’s all true.”
I fidgeted with my napkin for a few seconds, and then I met my oldest brother’s gaze. My brother, who’d been sent away because he’d been protecting me. Trying to keep my father from hurting me. Trying to save me from the life I was ultimately condemned to.
His eyes were clear and green. Gorgeous eyes, actually, but filled with not only rage but also sadness and regret.