Chapter 23
Newton
It has been days since Beth refused to speak with Brielle, but I can tell it”s still bothering her. She”s here, but there”s this distance in her eyes that just won”t go away.
She hasn”t been back in the closet, but I”ve seen her eye it more than once, and each time I catch her looking in that direction I feel like a failure. My experiences aren”t her experiences, but I thought that maybe being bonded in traumatic childhoods, we formed some sort of connection. Right now I can”t help but feel like she”s biding her time until she can get away from here.
The other day she mentioned feeling like she was a prisoner, even after explaining that Cerberus can take her elsewhere. It just can”t be to the shelter, and any other place in Farmington isn”t advisable.
It”s late evening, and although she”s been by my side every night since the first time she climbed into this bed trying to repay me for something she felt was a debt that was owed, I know her mind isn”t here with us. It could easily be one of a million places, and I hate the idea of her getting trapped in the past or struggling through memories of pain.
”What are you thinking about?” I urge, pulling her closer to my side.
Her hand is on my bare chest, but she stopped tracing her fingers over my skin over an hour ago.
At first, I liked the way we were able to sit in silence and just be around each other without that internal insistence that we have to fill the quiet with chatter. Now, it feels like a punishment, but deep down I don”t think that she”s doing it on purpose.
I think she”s going to open up to me when she pulls in a deep breath, but it”s followed by a heavier silence. Noise from the living room filters in, the periodic raised voice or laughter seeping in on occasion, but it isn”t so disruptive that it makes me want to climb out of bed and ask them to be quiet. If anything it”s a reminder that we aren”t alone. It gives me confidence that there are people out there that would provide another level of protection for us.
I rarely lie in bed without a full set of clothes on. It”s something I”ve never been able to change since I was young. Brielle is the same way. She”s fully dressed now while I”m only in a pair of sweats.
When I got back in the room after a quick workout, I grabbed a shower, and she pulled me to the bed before I could get fully dressed. Things didn”t turn sexual, and I knew she just needed comfort, something I”d readily provide her anytime she needed it.
Just when I think her silence is her refusal to speak, her whispers begin, and they leave me wishing that maybe I hadn”t asked.
”Nathan and Xan hurt me a lot. It started not long after he finalized my adoption.”
I tighten my arm around her, knowing full well just how hard it is to say certain things out loud.
”I suspected for a long time that he played a part in my mother”s death, an overdose of pain pills, but after years of being on the receiving end of his abuse, it”s very possible she killed herself just to escape him.”
I know from the dossier that her mother”s death was ruled a suicide, but that doesn”t mean Nathan Adair wasn”t involved. Hell, I”d argue that someone killing themselves to get away from an evil person who hurts them was actually murdered if they saw no other way out.
”Xan hurt me at first because he was forced to,” she whispers, and I knew this much from the last time she whispered secrets to me in the darkness. ”I was forced to hurt people too.”
My heart pounds in my chest. I can”t even begin to imagine the position she was in. If she saw Xan getting beaten when he refused to hurt her, I can see how she would hurt someone at Nathan”s insistence already knowing what the consequences of refusal would be.
Guilt rolls off her, but I keep my mouth closed. She doesn”t need me to explain to her once again that she did all of this under duress.
”Nathan terrifies me. I know what he was capable of doing to his own son, what he was capable of doing to me. Both he and Xan whispered about the women they hurt. I feel helpless not knowing anything. For years, I let myself believe that they were lying, that they just spoke of these things to scare me or to warn me about what happens when I don”t obey or comply with their demands.”
I want to ask her who they made her hurt and what happened to them, but that feels like a betrayal. It”s the information that Kincaid wants me to get, and I squeeze my eyes shut praying she doesn”t tell me a single thing that I”ve promised I”d relay back to my boss.
I shouldn”t be torn between possibly finding multiple locations that are rumored to be kept by Nathan Adair for sex-trafficked women and children and keeping her secrets. My job is to protect the innocent, but does the many outweigh the few, or the one in her case?
Misery settles inside of me as she continues to talk because as a well-trained person in deception, I know she”s only giving me half-truths. You don”t spend years with a man who”s trying to train you to be as evil as he is and not be privileged to some of the secrets that could bring him down. It just doesn”t happen.
”They”d come home coated in blood, smiles on their faces, and the first time I asked if they slaughtered one of the pigs we had on the ranch property we were staying on at the time. I remember the goosebumps on my arms when they both laughed. It was the most sinister thing I”d ever heard. They said it was a pig, but I could tell by their tones that it wasn”t.”
”A cop?” I ask, and she freezes as if she somehow managed to forget that I was even here with her.
”Maybe,” she whispers. ”They hurt so many others in front of me but they always stopped before a final breath was taken. I know there had to be some that would”ve died from their injuries because some were so severe, but I never saw them actually murder someone. Nathan didn”t trust me enough for that.”
I feel the warmth of her tears as they leak from her eyes. I know how cathartic it can be to talk about your past, but I also know how traumatic reliving those tragedies can be as well.
I had a horrible early childhood, and, although I knew it was not even close to how awful some people have it, I think it”s very possible that Brielle”s history could possibly be the worst story I”ve ever heard.
A lot of people suffer from neglect, and for the most part that was my story, but she had men in her life who actively sought her out to use, abuse, and hurt her. They were genuinely evil men, and it makes me realize that Xan got off with a single bullet to the head a lot easier than he ever should”ve been.
Silence fills the room, and it”s like the folks in the living room can feel the heaviness from inside this one because there isn”t so much as a whisper of sound infiltrating it now.
If I could take all of her pain from her, I think I would offer, but although the concept of it might be a decent thing to offer, knowing it”s impossible makes me keep my mouth closed.
Instead, I pull her tight against my chest and press my lips to the top of her head.
I can”t even assure her that she”ll always be safe if she”s with me, and I think making empty promises is an utter waste of time.
We could easily get lost in each other”s bodies and pretend that there”s nothing in the outside world that will hurt us, but trying to get lost in the fantasy of a perfect world would be detrimental to both of us.
Disappointment and the acceptance of it are vivid parts of reality. It doesn”t make us pessimists, and anyone who has ever hurt until their bones ached from abuse and neglect would quickly agree.
”He vowed when I ran away the first time that he”d hurt me once he tracked me down. He followed through with that promise even though I only snuck out of the house to go to the movies. The second time he vowed that if I ever left the house again, he”d kill me, and I know he”d keep his promise. He said he knew he couldn”t live without me, so his death would be on my hands. I think he wanted me to think about those consequences as if I wanted him to stay alive. He really is crazy. I honestly believe that he believes that what he’s done to me in the past is necessary for me to be successful in the life he created for me.”
He wouldn”t be the first crazy person I”ve run across in my lifetime.
”I imagined forcing him to kill me or killing myself a million times just so he”d die too,” she says, her words coming out on a sob, and it makes me think that she believes it”s the only way to put an end to him and the harm he”s causing others.
”Men like Nathan Adair are too narcissistic to end their own lives,” I explain. ”They can”t imagine a world where they don”t exist.”
I say this because it”s true but also because I don”t want her trying to martyr herself for the sake of others. If anything Nathan Adair would seek vengeance against anyone who was connected to her. That fucked-up pain he”d feel at losing her would be focused on others.
”All he”ll do is seek vengeance for your death,” I say because she needs to know.
The fear of losing her sinks inside of me, turning my stomach.
”Let us worry about Nathan. Men like that don”t get to live very long once we”re involved.”
She pulls in another deep breath, and I get the feeling that she wants to argue with me, but she doesn”t make a sound. Fifteen minutes later, her body relaxes and I can tell she”s fallen asleep.
Maybe tonight she won”t wake up screaming.