Chapter 34 #2
Grady puts the pen back to paper. “What happened next?”
I exhale a long-held breath. “I split his lip, which is what the one witness reported.”
“No one saw the bruises on my wrists.” I flex my fingers. “Or him blocking the door.”
Jared asks, the question brittle, “And after that?”
“The investigation.” I let out a breath that’s been trapped in my lungs for years. “I filed a report with the school board. Submitted emails. Documentation. Statements from two teachers who’d witnessed his behavior in the past.”
Grady leans forward, his focus on the notepad. “And?”
“The files were removed from the record. The witnesses recanted.” I stare at the wood grain, re-experiencing my disbelief when I found out. “The principal suggested the altercation might be a misunderstanding between lovers.”
Emily’s hands curl into fists.
“He suggested I accept Carson’s Mark to restore professional harmony.”
A rumble of thunder rolls across overhead.
My eyes lift to meet Emily’s. “That was the moment I understood there was no version of my story where I was safe at Westbrook.”
The cottage creaks around us.
“So I filed one final report with the Registry documenting harassment.” I pick up the whiskey glass, taking a small sip and wincing at the burn. “Then I resigned my position.”
Grady’s pen stops mid-word. “And you left town.”
“Yes.” My whisper trails off as the rain pounds the roof in a steady rhythm. “I canceled my lease, packed what I could fit in my car, and drove until the city lights disappeared in the rearview mirror.”
My throat tightens as the last truth surfaces. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
I glance around the table. “At the time, I thought disappearing was the only way to survive Carson Whitaker.”
Silence settles as the storm begins to ease.
“And for two blissful months,” I finish quietly, “it worked.”
“Which is why you were so shocked when he appeared at the Phase One Completion party,” Grady murmurs. “You thought you’d escaped him.”
“I should have known better.” Bitterness fills me. “I knew he was in town for the teaching summit being held in Pinecrest, but I never expected him to stay here. I thought if I stayed out of the public for the weeks leading up to it, there was no way our paths would cross.”
Sad understanding fills Emily’s features. “Which is why you stopped coming to Saturday Market.”
“Yeah.” I take another sip of whiskey and hiss at the burn as the alcohol hits the cut on my lip.
“Fat lot of good it did me. Once Quinn started at Pinecrest Academy, Carson picked up right where he’d left off, only this time, it was harder to pack up and leave again.
I had a job I loved, a child I didn’t want to disappoint, and people I didn’t want to—”
I cut off as shame floods back in, because as much as I didn’t want to abandon them, my staying had still brought them pain. I really did mess everything up.
Emily’s hands unfold on the dining table, palms flattening on the polished wood. Her focus never leaves me from across the table, tracking each wince, each pause, each moment when pain interrupts my speech.
“I told myself if I kept him at arm’s length, if I played by his rules but never gave in, things would be different this time.
” I give a bitter smile, and the cut on my lip splits back open.
A bead of blood wells up, which I wipe away with the back of my hand.
“But men like Carson don’t lose interest. They escalate until they get what they want. ”
Jared rises and crosses into the kitchen, where he pours water into a tall glass before returning to set it beside my whiskey, and the simple kindness of his gesture undoes me.
“His methods grew more sophisticated at Pinecrest.” I lift the water to my lips, welcoming the cool relief on my cut lip. “He weaponized Quinn’s accommodations, and every time I resisted him, he reminded me of my responsibility to her.”
Emily sucks in a sharp breath. “Why didn’t you tell Blake what was happening?”
“I didn’t disclose why I left Westbrook, and I didn’t want to jeopardize her socialization.
She’s at a fragile point in her development.
I thought I could handle it. I took on the additional jobs at the school that Carson demanded, took up the committees, the substitute teaching…
I let him overload me until all of my free time was wrapped up in Pinecrest Academy. ”
Emily’s crushed clover and flannel pheromones wrap around me, offering comfort I don’t deserve, while beside me, Jared’s salty reassurance and Grady’s even calm fill the room.
“Every choice I made,” I say, meeting each of their eyes in apology, “was shaped by the fear that any protest might trigger retaliation against Quinn or anyone who dared stand near me.”
My confession hangs between us after months of hiding.
“Carson understands coercion better than anyone. He prefers psychological warfare. Rewriting reality until you doubt your own senses.” I blot at my lip again. “This was the first time he straight-up hit me.”
Growls come from the two Alphas, and Emily’s focus shifts to the crowbar still by the door, though she remains seated.
“I believed that keeping distance between my private life and Carson would stop him from discovering how much you mattered to me,” I admit, and her attention leaps back to me.
“Every canceled dinner, every excuse, every time I slipped out before dawn, I told myself I was protecting you from becoming his next leverage point.”
Jared shifted in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “We could have faced him together.”
“I know that now.” The admission surprises me with its ease. “But after years of handling him alone, exposure felt more dangerous than isolation. And after Westbrook…” I shake my head. “I didn’t trust the system to protect me or anyone who stood with me.”
After so many months of carrying this alone, my shoulders loosen.
“The night I walked away from you both,” I continue, “Carson demanded I go to the holiday staff party with him as his registered Omega. We were right back to where things ended at Westbrook, and I knew what was going to happen when I refused.”
Emily’s nostrils flare. “You knew he’d hit you?”
“Well, not exactly, though I did move to a different motel as a precaution. I wasn’t going to let him corner me again.” I swallow. “At least, that was the plan. But he’s very good at tracking me down.”
My hands shake, and I tuck them into my lap. “I thought he would spread rumors. I accepted that I would probably get fired as Quinn’s nanny. The plan was to fight it, to prove I wasn’t a liability. I wanted to come back to you whole, or not at all.”
Emily’s fingertips drift forward, stopping shy of mine. “And now?”
“Now I understand isolation protects no one,” I reply, inching closer until our fingers brush. “Least of all me.”
“You can’t just give up on your job,” Jared says, vibrating with indignation on my behalf.
“But how can I continue doing my job with Carson still in a position of authority? Reporting him already proved useless.” I spread my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Here, he has even more power.”
Emily’s brow furrows. “The system failed you once. That doesn’t mean it will again.”
“Different district, same playbook,” I counter, wincing as my split lip protests the movement. “Carson has spent years cultivating his professional image. He’s on a first-name basis with every board member. The parent association considers him indispensable.”
Jared pushes back his chair and paces the dining-room floor in tight steps. “You have physical evidence this time. Bruises. A split lip.” His hand cuts through the air, emphasizing each point. “It’s different from a paper trail that can disappear.”
“He’ll explain it away as a personal altercation.
” Cynicism threads through the words. “He’ll point to my violent outburst documented at Westbrook as a pattern of behavior, and they’ll believe what’s easiest. Carson won’t even need to work hard to sell his narrative.
He’s already subtly suggested to the board and parents that I might be emotionally unstable. ”
Grady, who has remained silent during most of my disclosure, reaches for the messenger bag propped beside him, fingers working the buckle open. “What if the narrative wasn’t yours against his?”
My eyebrows draw together, the movement tugging at my bruised cheek. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Carson has a history.” Grady pulls a thick manila folder from his bag, placing it between us on the table. The tab bears Carson’s initials in neat block letters.
Emily and Jared lean forward at the same time, their attention fixed on Grady’s unexpected revelation.
Shock freezes me in place. “You’ve been investigating him?”
“For a while now,” Grady says, his hazel eyes serious. “It’s taken a while to gather all the evidence, but it’s a solid case.”
He opens the folder, revealing organized stacks of paper separated by colored tabs. “I called in a favor with a friend who had connections in Westbrook. From there, I pulled public records, news archives, faculty bulletins, and district newsletters.”
Pages slide across the table as Grady extracts documents from their sections. “You’re not his first victim, Leif. He’s done this at multiple school districts, and each time, he was moved along with glowing recommendations and a raise.”
My fingers hover over a yellowed newspaper clipping as my pulse quickens.
Emily asks as she lifts his notebook to flip through it. “This is what you’ve been working on?”
“Yes. Each school can bury a complaint,” Grady says, “but the same pattern keeps resurfacing across districts. The state board has authority to act when student safety is at risk, and a multi-district pattern is exactly that.”
Hope flickers, fragile but real. “They won’t care about me, but Quinn…”
“Quinn’s case changes everything. Carson threatened a student’s accommodations to manipulate you.
That breach in ethics is indefensible, even by his staunchest allies.
” Grady’s shoulders pull back, and suddenly I see him as the man who bargained million-dollar contracts for bestselling authors instead of my quiet friend.
“And if you can trust me, then I have a plan to ensure Carson never sets foot in a school again.”
For the first time since stepping into Emily’s cottage, I allow myself to hope. The bruises on my face still throb, but the pain will fade.
“What’s the plan?”
Grady offers a small, confident smile as he outlines a strategy. And with each detail he shares, the sense of doom that’s followed me since Westbrook slips away, replaced by the strength of allies at my side.
Carson believed my solitude was his greatest weapon. He never imagined it could be the spark that lit an alliance determined to bring him down.