Chapter 8
Eight
HOPE
Jo keeps glancing at the laptop on my lap, then to me. It’s like she’s trying to figure out what I have planned before I’m ready to tell her. She smiles gently. “Well, I see you brought Jaxon today.”
“That’s not what I want to talk about,” I say confidently.
She arches an eyebrow. “He’s considered a security risk. I’m not sure how I feel having him in the office.”
“Well, honestly, I don’t care how you feel. I didn’t think you would be this unprofessional,” I counter.
Her eyes widen slightly. “Excuse me?”
“Do you think that he’d steal my file and not show me what’s in it? Including your notes. About me being delusional? About knowing my dad? About bringing personal biases into our sessions and using that to make judgements?”
Her mouth opens and closes, then she takes a breath.
“Hope, plenty of people have terrible things happen to them and end up filling in the blanks. I’m not questioning that you’ve been raped.
I’m not questioning that you have PTSD. All of that is very obvious and I know that someone was routinely and regularly abusing you in your home.
Considering the troubled boys that your father took in, three of them still existing around you, it would be very easy for them to—”
“Save me from my father. I agree,” I say, then open the laptop and with one press turn on the video. I hear myself sobbing, begging for my dad to stop while he gives me orders.
I flinch slightly but try to stay focused on Jo’s face. Her expression goes white, her eyes bulge, then she drops her pen. “Turn that off.”
“Why? I lived it. You said you didn’t have proof. Here’s my father raping me on the table in the cabin. He kidnapped me. All those bruises on me, the scratches on him, that’s from me fighting him off the first time,” I say, my voice apathetic. “I told you he recorded it.”
“Hope. Turn. It. Off.”
“Watch. I went somewhere else in my head. That’s why I get quiet. But being between my legs, raping me, hurting me, that was his good place. He didn’t care what it did to me. Do you believe me?” I ask. “Is this enough, or should I try to find the website where he posted this to make money?”
She gets up and forcefully shuts the laptop.
I push it to the side and get up. The words just spew out of me.
I’m screaming, nearly blowing out my own eardrums. “Isn’t that enough?
! Now do you believe me! Is this enough to prove he was a fucking bastard that raped his own daughter?
! Do you want to interview Jaxon?! He bragged to his team about what a slut I was!
How many times have you heard abusers say that? !”
“You’re being unreasonable, Hope. I can’t help you if you’re fixated on whether you can trust me or not. That’s not productive,” she says in a rushed voice.
“I’M NOT PRODUCTIVE?!”
She winces at my volume and motions for me to lower my voice. I don’t. “You’re the reason I don’t trust you! You have a personal bias and didn’t say anything! You want to cover up what he did to me! You’re just as bad as he is and that’s not paranoia! I have proof. Your own fucking words!”
“Hope—”
“You won’t even admit it! You just want me to be crazy because it’s easier. Did that video look easy? Did it look like I was asking for it while he slammed my face into a plate and broke it against my cheek? Did me being chained and still trying to fight look like I wanted it?!” I scream.
“I’m not arguing with you about that. He raped you, he—”
“And there’s no reason for rape! People can kill one another for self-defense. They can hurt one another accidentally. But rape is on purpose. Rape doesn’t benefit anyone but the rapist!” I scream.
I’m barely keeping track of what I’m saying. I know I call her a useless bitch. A traitor. I demand to know how many other people reported him that she ignored. I can’t stop screaming and anytime she tries to approach me, I end up throwing something.
Her hands are just as poisonous as my father’s. She wants to control me. She wants to ruin my mind. She wants me to think like she does because it’ll be easier for her. It will validate her.
She’s no better than anyone else who refused to listen. She’s no better than anyone else who wanted to call me crazy just so I’d stop talking. She’s on my father’s side and not even evidence will change her mind.
Jo won’t apologize. She’s not sorry.
My eyes blur. I can’t tell if I’m actually throwing things at her. I can barely recognize her. She looks like my father. She looks like Jax. She looks like a nightmare.
JAXON
“If you’re having a fight with your partner, would you rather get flowers, a real apology, an amazing date, or a stuffed animal?” I ask aloud as I follow the quiz in the magazine.
I scoff. “A real apology, obviously.”
But my finger circles ‘flowers.’ I don’t think I’ve been given flowers before. No… she gave me a flower once. She insisted it would make me happy. I held it too hard. I crushed all the petals and hid it so she wouldn’t see.
Something loud thuds against the wall and the secretary jumps up. I hear Hope, her voice muffled, but she’s yelling. The secretary looks at her desk, then back down the hallway. I put the magazine to the side, wondering if I should go and check it out, but Hope was clear.
“She probably needs to yell it out. Rage is good, right? Helps bring the person to life,” I say.
The secretary laughs softly. “Yeah… I guess.”
“Scream therapy or something,” I say with a shrug. “Yelling is better than shutting down.”
The secretary sits back down but keeps glancing to the hallway.
I don’t blame her. I’m focusing on it intensely too.
I grip the armrests of the chair, eager to get up and help Hope.
If she’s giving the therapist hell, good for her, but if the therapist is trying to subdue her or tranq her or something, she’s going to have another fight on her hands.
I refuse to let anything else happen to Hope.
Something shatters as Hope screams something that sounds like “stay away,” and I’m on my feet.
She told me not to come in. She specifically said that the best thing I could do was stay in the lobby for her, but I don’t like the idea of her fighting a battle and needing backup. I don’t like the idea of anyone hurting her again.
“I can’t go in,” I mumble to myself. My fingers flex at my side as my hands itch.
Another scream resonates from the room and the secretary suddenly moves and makes a phone call.
I hear the word “security” and I head over.
I’m not waiting for Hope to get dragged out of the office by other men.
I’m not letting anyone else touch her and clearly that’s part of what’s going on in the room.
“I can’t go in,” I say to myself one more time, but I ignore it just the same.
Security comes from another way and kicks the door open. I step in with them and see Hope trashing the office. She’s already broken Jo Grant’s tablet and smashed her degrees.
“You’re a fucking fraud! You’re a fraud! Even worse, you’re a liar! You’re a biased, terrible, gaslighting sack of shit just like he was!”
God, seeing her so vicious, throwing vases, books, and anything else she can reach at the therapist who’s trying to calm her down makes something hot and eager take root inside of me. It spreads along my body until my dick twitches.
Seeing her so intense and determined, seeing her unrestrained and wild has me thinking of exactly how wild she’d be in bed with me. Was she that wild for Knox or was she subdued and restrained?
Not with me. I want her this determined. I want her this feral.
“Ma’am, we need to ask you to stop right now or calm down or we will have no choice but to remove you,” one of the security guards says.
“Fuck no,” I snarl. “You’re not touching her.”
They look at me like they forgot I was there. One starts to argue, but I shoulder check him. Being a football player has plenty of benefits. Having enough strength to stiff-arm flabby security guards is one of them.
I wrap one arm around Hope’s middle and lift her so her ass rubs right against my hardening dick. “Hope.”
“Fuck you! Fuck you! No one should trust you! You do more damage than you could ever fix! I’ll make sure to take it up with the medical board!” Hope screams, her voice cutting and ragged.
“I don’t… Hope, you have to listen to me and—”
“I don’t have to do a fucking thing! You’re a fake therapist covering your own lying ass and actual crimes!” Hope shrieks.
I grab Dimitri’s laptop since I know he’d never let me hear the end of it and carry Hope out. She continues cursing and spitting at the therapist as the woman follows us. I crush her tighter to me, almost moaning in her ear. She claws at my arm, not to escape, but to fight.
“Jo, you better go back to your office or I’ll just so happen to leak your notes,” I threaten darkly.
She looks between us, her face pale as she pants.
She looks ruffled in a way that makes it hard to believe she’s ever had a difficult patient.
I bounce Hope in my arm and carry her out, making sure security never touches her, even when her shirt bunches up just under her breasts and she keeps thrashing in my arms.
Once we get outside, I have to twist her in my arm, tossing her over my shoulder. I swat her ass. “Behave.”
“Let go! She still doesn’t believe. She has to understand!”
“She will. Stop thrashing or you’re going to kick a place you like,” I warn.
She pauses a second to try to figure that out, then the fight falls out of her. I slide her down the front of my body, pinning her between me and the car. I set the laptop on the roof of the car and stare into her eyes.
Hope slowly looks down at where my cock is grinding against the inside of her thigh while I get the passenger door open. “You… you’re…”
“I’m not putting you down, baby. I’m not letting you run off.”
She blushes deeply and licks her lips. She doesn’t argue. I wrap her legs around me, grip her ass while keeping her tight against my hard-on, then grab the laptop. I put it on the dash, then stare at her as I slowly put her in the passenger seat, holding her gaze the entire time.
Panting, she watches me but doesn’t immediately release her thighs from around me. When she does, she swallows and her eyes dip to my obvious erection. I reach forward and buckle her, brushing my knuckles against her breast.
“Nice to see being powerful and angry turns you on as much as it turns me on,” I say. “Watching you trash that office was so fucking hot.”
“Jax, it’s not… it wasn’t…”
She trails off, so I shut the door and round the car, getting in the driver side. I see security still watching us as I turn on the vehicle and back out of the parking spot. “Are we going to talk about what happened in there?”