Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

But she shakes her head. “Don’t you get it? He was the master manipulator. No one ever saw him for what he was.”

“But I did.” I stop walking and look down at her. “We all saw what he did to Mom. I don’t know why I never thought he’d do it to you, too. I just—”

But Chloe’s shaking her head violently. “I know what you thought but you were wrong. It wasn’t Dad.”

My blood freezes in my veins at her words. “What… what do you mean?”

Her features are tight with pain and her face is pale. “It was Darren, not Dad. For years, it was Darren who would come into my room at night and… and hurt me.”

Oh Jesus no.

All my equilibrium from the car is gone in an instant.

I stagger back into a tree and Chloe moves with me. Our hands separated when I moved so suddenly but she takes mine again.

“But I followed him,” I whisper. “That day I came in. I went through your bathroom and found Dad—”

Her face is still pained as she explains, “You found Dad in his home office. Which he put in Darren’s old room after he moved out and Dad had the heart attack. Dad always worked in his pajamas with those damn earphones on when he worked from home—remember how Darren gave them to all of us that Christmas, the noise cancelling kind? It was so Dad would never hear—”

She breaks off but I still don’t understand.

She’s quick to clarify. “Darren ran through the bathroom and was out the other door into the hallway before you ever got there. Dad had no idea about what was going on until he saw Darren run through the room. Then then you came in moments later screaming at him and beating him up.”

I shake my head. “But— But then why didn’t he say? Or fucking do something about it?”

Tears fall down her cheeks. “I think he might have threatened to once he connected the dots and realized what Darren had been doing.”

I just stare at her, confused.

“And I think Darren killed him for it. Poisoned him and made it look like a heart attack.”

I blink, horrified. “Why didn’t you tell me?” To have carried all of this, by herself, after all the trauma she’d already been through at my brother’s hands. She’d only been seventeen for God’s sake.

“I was terrified he would kill you, too.” She swipes at a tear. “So I never said. And then you two started the business together and I was so afraid. I was afraid all the time. I was so afraid of him, and you two were so close, I was afraid to contact you in case he found out and—”

“Oh God.” I pull her into my arms and crush her tight to my chest. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Chloe. I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t realize.”

She nods against my chest, crying, and I hold her. Jesus, all these years I had it wrong. I had it all so wrong. Chloe didn’t blame me. She’d been afraid. And she was protecting me. How had all of this ended up so backwards?

Darren.

Darren was how all this had happened.

Miranda was right.

Maybe I wasn’t a monster, and my father might be dead, but there’s one devil still left breathing.

I pull back from my sister and run my thumbs underneath her eyes to wipe away her tears. “Shh, shh, it’s all okay now. You never have to be afraid again. I swear it.”

Twenty-Two

DYLAN

Darren pushes open the door to his seedy hotel in Thailand with a woman on his arm, a prostitute by the look of her. The astonishment is clear on his face when he sees me.

“Jesus, Dylan,” he says, grabbing his chest. “You scared the shit out of me!” He laughs and shoos the woman off. “I’ll see you another night, sweetheart.”

She giggles but wobbles off in her four-inch plastic heels.

Darren turns back to me, a wide grin on his face. “What the hell are you doing here?” He strides forward and leans down to give me a big hug.

I’m sitting on a stained couch in a hotel room that I’d say has seen better days except that nope, I’m pretty sure this place has always been the roach-infested quarter-star accommodations that I see before me.

I clap him on the back, too.

When Darren pulls away, though, his brows are scrunched together. “Are you all right? The lawyers called and said you were in jail for brawling? I told Jenkins to bail you out immediately and I was flying home later tonight to make sure you were okay.”

He looks so sincere. One hundred percent sincere. If I hadn’t heard it from Chloe’s own mouth, it might even be enough to make me question everything Miranda told me.

But I did hear it from Chloe and so I can only look on my brother and wonder how long I’ve lived with such a sociopath and not known it. Was he always this way or was he at one time genuinely the brother I loved?