Chapter 26 #3
I nod in defeat because he’s right. Whitmore U was full of rich assholes who got away with all kinds of illegal activities and bragged about it to boot, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
B’s shoulder nudges mine. “But I think it’s time for you to tell us about Dennis.
He’s still a huge problem, and if we’re going to hunt him down, we need to know the gory details.
All the details. Not to mention, you’ve definitely been avoiding Charlie and the guys since you left Vancouver, and now you need to loop them in, so all the secrets have to end. Now.”
I sigh. “Yeah, okay. But can we go inside so I don’t have to look at the dead guy?”
They nod, and we stand and walk inside.
“Should we talk about the fact that it wasn’t even Dennis, but his kid?” Seb asks. “Do you have feelings about that, Fi? He was your stepbrother.”
I shrug. “I honestly didn’t really know the guy—only met him a handful of times.
I definitely don’t know why he was stalking me, but Nedry is a former dirty FBI agent, so maybe Dennis sent him to spy on me?
I doubt Dennis actually wants me dead though.
He’s a creepy, horrible man, but he’s never been murdery, you know? ”
“I don’t think that’s a real word,” Seb murmurs.
I roll my eyes. “I just mean, whatever his reasoning, I don’t think Nedry was playing by Dennis’s rules. Dennis needs me alive. He wants me to sign the papers to contest the will, and his time is running out.”
He wants me alive for other reasons too. The thought churns my stomach.
We all agree that we need to clean up, and within the hour, I’m in cozy flannel PJs, sipping on tea laced with lemon, honey, and a tiny bit of THC. Brantley and Seb join me shortly after.
B changed into purple sweatpants and a gray T-shirt, and Seb is deliciously distracting in nothing but low-slung basketball shorts. I raise an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he asks innocently, tossing another log into the fireplace. “All our clean laundry is still in the truck.” Then, he sits down on my other side.
We relax on the floor in companionable silence until the fire is crackling merrily. The sound helps me collect my thoughts.
I take a faltering breath. “If I tell you guys this, you have to promise not to go all alpha male and go after Dennis. The prick may not want to kill me, but he will definitely hurt people I lo—care about.” I look away quickly at the verbal slip, my cheeks heating.
“No way,” Seb says, grinding his teeth. “I will not promise not to protect you. That’s not fair, and you know it.”
B nods in agreement, a fierce look in his eyes.
I sigh. “That’s not what I’m asking, and you know it. If we take Dennis down, we do it together. Charlie and her dumb, headstrong boyfriends have to do the same. No one goes rogue.”
“Fi—”
“Promise me, Seb, or I won’t tell you.”
Seb’s mouth flattens into a disapproving line, but he finally whispers, “Fine.”
I look pointedly at B. “Brantley?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles. “No more spontaneous murder. Got it.” He winces after he says it. I suspect the fact that he just killed a guy—even someone as shitty as Nedry—is a shock to his system.
Satisfied, I take a breath and stare at my hands.
I feel exposed. Seb and B are staring at me expectantly, but I don’t know if I can do it.
Micah knows what happened; he was an accidental witness.
But I’ve never spoken about it aloud to anyone else.
The atrocities have only lived in my head, tucked away behind high-functioning anxiety and depression.
I never even told my therapist, though I’ve come close.
I bury my face in my knees, rocking on my tailbone despite the dull ache, as hot pressure builds in my chest.
But a gentle hand on my forearm halts my anxiety free fall. I peek over my arms at Brantley. His hazel eyes are soft, kind. “It’s okay, Fi,” he whispers. “We’re here for you.”
I’ve always shoved aside my trauma and focused on the people I love, but maybe I can’t anymore.
I nod and lick my dry lips. “My mom started seeing Dennis when I was ten. I hated him from the get-go. Something about him was off, and when he was around, my mom would drink more. He was obsessed with her in the beginning. He called her Red, and they used to fuck loudly in the living room after I went to bed.” I wrinkle my nose at the memory.
“But some nights, she’d pass out, and he’d get frustrated.
” I pick at the skin around my nails. “It was my fifteenth birthday the first night he came into my room.”
My voice falters and I swallow down saliva and bitter bile. Seb stiffens at my side, and I hear B mutter, “Fuck.”
I can’t look at them.
What if what Dennis did to me disgusts them? What if I disgust them?
“Did he…” Seb’s voice is gravel.
“At first, he just touched me while he touched himself. I—” A sob escapes my lips.
Seb reaches for me, but I flinch away. I can’t let him touch me while I talk about it. His hand drops.
I take a deep breath and let out a shaky exhale.
“The night I turned eighteen, he started fucking me. He called me Red like he did her, and he made me make the noises he liked. He said he’d hurt my mom if I ever told anyone.
I went to summer camps when I could, and I moved away as soon as I was accepted to Whitmore U just to get away, but a couple times when I went home it happened again—only I fought him.
But it didn’t matter. He was too strong, and I wasn’t strong enough. ”
Shame heats my cheeks and travels down my neck, and I can’t stop crying.
“I’m sorry you guys got caught up in all this.
” I sniffle wetly. “But I couldn’t let him hurt me again.
Or hurt someone I love like he hurt me. When I thought he had Charlie…
” My words dissolve into gibberish, and I wrap my arms tightly around my body.
This time when Seb reaches for me, I don’t resist. He pulls me into his lap, and I bury my face in his chest, my tears and snot making a mess on his bare skin.
A gentle hand runs across my back, combing through my damp hair.
“Don’t apologize.” I realize that B now sits behind me, pressed close. “None of this was your fault, Fi.”
I don’t know how long I stay curled in Seb’s embrace, listening to the beat of his heart.
The sound challenges the demons running rampant in my mind, clawing their way back into my consciousness.
If I think too hard, I can smell Dennis’s cologne, feel his breath on my neck and the rough scratch of his mustache against my skin.
I start to shake and dig my fingers into Seb’s biceps.
“So how’re we going to take him out?” B asks.
“Actually, I have a kind of a plan for that.” I twist my mother’s bracelet around my wrist absently. “But it does still involve the authorities.”
Seb and B exchange doubtful looks.
“Go on,” Seb says when I don’t immediately talk.
“Sometimes Micah would sleep over. We thought Dennis wouldn’t come into my room if Micah was there.
It seemed to work for a while until one night when we were sixteen.
Micah normally slept in bed with me, but he had a cold and thought it would be better if he slept on the floor.
Dennis didn’t see him on the other side of my bed when he came in.
Micah woke up when I started crying; he witnessed the whole thing from only a couple feet away, and Dennis never knew. ”
“Why didn’t he try to stop it?” B doesn’t sound angry, just sad.
“Dennis was a lot bigger than us. He was scared. And I’m glad he kept quiet; he just would have gotten hurt.”
“So how does this help us now?”
“I called Micah before you guys left. He’s going to confess everything to Detective Lin. If someone can actually catch Dennis, they would have him on assault and first-degree child molestation charges.”
“So we just have to draw him out,” Seb surmises.
I nod. “And I’m the bait.” My voice shakes, and fresh hot tears blur the room.
“Fiona, he won’t hurt you again,” Sebastian says, his voice steady.
I give a tearful laugh. “You can’t be so certain. Anything could go wrong.”
“No, Bastian’s right. We’ll figure it out. We’ll do this safely somehow.”
I sit back with a sniff and turn to look at B. His jaw is taut like he’s grinding his teeth, and his gaze is fiercely possessive. He’s sitting cross-legged behind me, and his hand is still on my back, his touch warm and firm. His other hand rests on Sebastian’s thigh.
I observe their proximity curiously. “You guys touching like that is new,” I say, wiping my wet cheeks.
“We came to a bit of an understanding while we were in town today,” Seb says softly.
I smile, a little flicker of joy reigniting in my chest. “Can we talk about that instead?”
B shakes his head with a smile. “Why don’t we talk about how we’re leaving in the morning? It’s not safe here anymore either. We need to be with our friends—our family.”
I look away. “I like being with just you guys. I wish we didn’t have to go back.” I wiggle my ass in Seb’s lap and smirk when he starts to harden beneath me. My eyes snap to his, and he raises an eyebrow.
“Do you think where we are changes anything, Fi?”
I shrug. “I dunno. Maybe. Being a throuple in the real world is hard. I’ve seen the shit that Charlie goes through firsthand. Maybe I don’t want that for you guys.”
“Aww, baby,” B purrs. “Are you worried about us? We already had this talk, and neither of us plan on leaving you anytime soon.”
“Sooo, you guys are just cool seeing each other’s dicks all the time then?” I giggle. “Sorry, that was crude of me.”
Brantley leans over and when he speaks, his lips brush the shell of my ear. “Not only are we okay with looking now, but we’re okay with touching—all the touching.”
The heat that already started pulsing between my legs intensifies, and I turn to look between him and Seb. “Prove it.”