Until We Fly (Beautifully Broken 4)

I’m fucking brave.

“Take off your bra for your uncle, Nora,” my father tells me, with eyes like a predator. “You know what he likes.”

The camera snaps. Again. Then again.

Just like last time, my father stands in the corner, behind the camera, stroking himself while his brother gets off. Like last time, he’ll be careful to stay out of the photos. He only takes them so that William can get off on them later.

William crawls onto the bed, on all fours, his white gut sagging to the sheets. I pull my legs up, away from his skin, not wanting to touch him.

I squeeze my eyes shut, preparing.

I can do this.

I’m fucking brave.

“Open your eyes, Nora,” William breathes into my ear, his rank breath hot on my face. “I want to see you as I fuck you.”

He moves over me, hovering, positioning, and I reach to the side, beneath the edge of the mattress. My fingers close around the cold steel.

That’s when I open my eyes.

And that’s when the breath freezes on my lips.

Bursting through the doorway, with all the fury of hell in his eyes, is my avenging angel.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Brand

Rage settles down on me, like a cloud, like a shield, as I bellow my way into the room.

With one fist, I punch Maxwell Greene in the face, slamming him into the wall. In one deft motion, I ram my boot into his dick, crushing it. I leave him whimpering in a heap on the floor.

With one bound, I grab William by the neck and drag him from the bed, ramming his face into the wall, again, then again, then again.

I don’t see, I don’t hear, I don’t feel.

I just am.

I just am enraged.

I’m a machine, intent on revenge, on protecting what is mine. I punch William until his face is a wet pulp. The anger pumps through my veins, pushing the rage through my heart, fueling me.

“Brand!”

Nora’s voice breaks through the cloud and I pause, mid-punch, my fist frozen in the air. I turn and she’s poised on the bed, a delicate waif, beautiful and haunting, and with a 9 mm pointed at William’s chest.

“Stand back,” she tells me calmly, her voice cold and soft.

I drop William and step back, my eyes frozen on her face.

William is unconscious on the floor, blood spurting from his mouth, and gurgling in his nose. Maxwell moans from behind him, his hands clasped to his broken cock.

“Nora,” I speak softly, my eyes trained only on her. I see in her eyes that she means it. She’s not aiming to maim.

She’s aiming to kill.

“Nora, I know you’re hurt. What they’ve done is unthinkable, but I don’t want their blood on your hands. You don’t know what that’s like. You don’t deserve to know what that’s like. They can’t hurt you now, Nora. We’ll call the police. It will be over.”