Chapter 31 #2
Her hand rose to her mouth. “Oh my God, why didn’t I consider that there could be other women? Is she all right?”
“Physically, yes, Michaela said she’s okay, maybe a bit underweight. She took blood to run some tests.”
“Where is she now?” she asked. “You didn’t leave her there, right?”
“No, she’s at Ronan’s.”
“Wait, didn’t you say that Doctor Wallace went home to pack his clothes? Was he leaving? Do you think he told anyone that she was there?”
“We didn’t even think of that. He wouldn’t have just left her there, surely.”
But the look on his face told her that he wasn’t so certain that the doctor wouldn’t have just left her to rot there.
Lily put her hand over her stomach, rubbing it. “So, he was taking videos of her too? I still don’t get it. How did that benefit him? He was just watching videos of himself moving us around?”
Harvey moved away from her, and she knew there was something big he was keeping back. “Just tell me. I need to know it all.”
“I don’t want to tell you,” he said. “I don’t want you to have this knowledge. I’m scared.”
“Scared?” she whispered.
“For you. I’m scared for you.”
“Because you don’t think I can handle this? That I’m not brave enough to deal with it?”
“You’re brave enough to deal with anything,” he said fiercely, taking hold of her hand in his. “You’re the bravest, most courageous person I know, but everyone has their breaking point, and I am worried this might be yours.”
“Just tell me, please. I have to know. Not knowing is actually becoming worse for me.”
He nodded. “Just know that however you feel, whatever happens, we’re going to get through this together, all right?
I’ll get whatever you need. Just don’t turn away from me.
Don’t try to leave me. That is something I just can’t let you do.
I know I should be supportive of whatever you want or need, but not that. ”
“What is it?” she asked.
“In the video we saw, you were naked. You were naked and he was touching your bare skin. And he was doing things, touching your nipple, running his fingers between your breasts.”
She sat there frozen for a long moment. She’d known it must be bad, but she hadn’t imagined anything like that.
“Do you think he raped me?” She couldn’t recall ever waking up and feeling sore, but she’d had some unexplained bruises and a creepy feeling whenever she saw the doctor. “I feel sick.”
“Take a deep calming breath. I didn’t see him touch you below your waist.”
“But he touched me while I was naked. Oh my God. Oh my God. Am I ever going to feel clean again? How could that have happened? How could he have done that to me? Do you think my mother knew he was doing that?”
“I think so. Or she knew some of it. And you are clean. You have always been clean. I don’t want to hear you say anything else. We need to find out what he was doing with those videos, and if anyone else saw them. So I can kill them.”
Normally, him saying something like that, she might pass off as a joke or tell him that he couldn’t do that. But in this instance, she completely agreed. If anyone had seen those videos, if anyone had participated in that, then they deserved to die as well.
To her amazement, she managed to push through the nausea and swallow it down. She was calm, eerily calm.
“What happens next?” she asked.
He studied her closely, as though wondering if she was all right. She wasn’t. On the inside, she was screaming, but on the outside, she kept herself calm.
Because if she let herself fall apart, she was scared she was going to fracture, and there wouldn’t be enough pieces to put back together.
“Paddy’s going to go through everything, and then we can find out what else is going on, hopefully.”
His phone rang, and grabbed it out of his pocket.
With a frown, he answered the call. “Yeah, Ronan, this isn’t a good time.”
She couldn’t hear what his brother was saying, but the way he grew tense told her that it was something that Harvey didn’t want to hear.
“I’m not bringing her there. No, that bitch can suffer for all I care. Fuck. Fuck. All right, let me talk to her. But if she doesn’t want to go, I’m not making her.”
He ended the call and looked down at her.
“What is it?” she asked. “What does Ronan want me to do?”
He sighed. “Michaela gave your mother a sedative, and it’s just started to wear off. She’s woken up and is asking for you. She told Ronan that she’s only going to talk to you.”
“Then I should go there. I should talk to her.”
He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“I need these answers, Harvey. I need to know. You don’t understand.
I’ve had these patches in my memory for so long.
I think that’s also the reason I gave up on life.
It wasn’t just the drugs, it was the not knowing.
It was the feeling of having lost control of my life and never being able to gain any of that control back.
I was a puppet in someone else’s story. I want my own story now.
I want my own life. I want to be able to live it, and not be held prisoner by what’s happened to me in the past.”
Harvey stared at her for a long moment, and she expected him to still protest, because that’s who he was. He was overprotective, and he just wanted what was best for her. But what he had to realize was that sometimes she was the one who knew what was best for her.
To her surprise, though, he just nodded.
“I understand that. But this might just be a trick to get close to you. She may tell you nothing, or she might just lie. We don’t know what she’s going to do.
She’s unpredictable. She’s lost everything, and I’d like to think that means she’d come clean, but it doesn’t.
She’s a person who only thinks of herself and not of others, so don’t expect her to do something out of the goodness of her heart. ”
“Harvey, if anyone knows what my mother is like, trust me, it’s me.”
He nodded and sent a message off on his phone. “All right, we’ll head over there now.”
“To Ronan’s place?” she asked. “I’m finally going to meet one of your brothers, huh?”
“Yeah, about that,” he said as he stood and helped her down off the stool. “Don’t be scared of him.”
“Scared of him?” she asked. “Why would I be scared of him?”
“Well, most people are when they meet him. But remember that he’s got a huge protective streak when it comes to women.
So, you’re the very last person that should be scared of him. You’re female, you’ve been abused, and you’re one of us. However, he hasn’t exactly got a warm and friendly demeanor. In fact, some of his girlfriends have likened him to a breathing, moving iceberg.”
Ouch. That wasn’t very kind.
She nodded. “I’m sure I’ll be okay.”