Chapter 19 #3
“He did,” I reply curtly, knowing Troy can hear them. I put things together pretty quickly when Silas said he’d be listening. “He and your friend Levon used to play together.”
“Didn’t you hear the reports about him?” Caleb asks. “Well, you probably haven’t actually, but there was an entire scandal about it.”
“He was tied up and raped in his hotel room,” I say succinctly.
I’m not going to shy away from what happened to Troy.
I’ve only used the laptop Lyle gave me to search for information, and when I went down the rabbit hole of news stories about Troy, I found out some sources are blaming him as complicit in the sexual assault.
Those news articles are a couple of years old and don’t seem to post legitimate stories.
Still, the harm is done. “His wife divorced him because she didn’t believe him, end of story. ”
Hollis begins to spray my hair down while I begin to rub the hilt of the knife. It's white and really beautiful, and when I pick it up, I find it is balanced really nicely. Huh. Of course, given that it belongs to Hollis, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Keep it,” she says, shocking me enough to make me twist around to face her. “I mean it. That knife has gotten me out of plenty of tight spots. It’s yours.”
“Thank you,” I breathe, facing forward to glare at my brothers.
“I’m not going to feel badly about being worried about you,” Caleb sighs. “I’m aware you have round the clock care and I’m grateful for this, but I’m having a hard time being okay with you being mated to men older than I am.”
“They aren’t eighty,” I grumble, watching as Hollis stops for a second.
“I think I have some hair clips in the car,” she murmurs. “It says I should section it out.”
“Silas does that when he blows out my hair. I’m sure I can ask them to—”
“I’ll go get them,” Silas calls out. I can’t help but chuckle under my breath. While the screen door is closed, the back door to the house is not, allowing his voice to travel well. It gives the illusion that they can hear us this way.
Lars facepalms himself and I shrug as Silas comes back with a tin bucket full of clips.
“Do you do my sister’s hair often?” Lars asks, his voice muffled by his giant hand. I can see why some people are scared of him and why he used to make such a good enforcer.
“She deserves to feel pretty and I don’t like her to go to bed with wet hair,” Silas says with a shrug. “I bought her the dress she’s wearing too. Why are you being weird about this?”
I cover my smile as he walks back inside, and if a man could flip his hair, that’s exactly how I would describe what he just did.
Lars thunks his head on the table several times while Caleb groans dramatically.
“They’re all sassy and well adjusted, aren’t they?” he asks.
“Pretty much,” I say, dropping my hand back into my lap. “Drop the age thing. Honestly, it’s not important to me. I can’t get into a relationship with anyone who isn’t more emotionally stable than I am. I feel like a basketcase most of the time.”
Hollis sections out my hair while I complain to my brothers and then begins to cut. I appreciate she doesn’t ask me if I’m sure about my length choice, she simply jumps in. I don’t want to have to justify how long or short I want my hair on top of everything else.
I suffer from decision paralysis as it is.
“That’s fair,” Lars grumbles. “They seem very comfortable with you for not knowing you long. Caleb and I fucked up a lot with Nova. You don’t need that kind of bullshit.”
Breathing in a sigh of relief, I smile gratefully at him. I didn’t correct Caleb when he mentioned being mated to the guys because I know it’ll happen eventually. I’m not in a hurry and neither are they.
I love that Troy fits so well with us, and it feels as if they have all been together for far longer. Friendship turning into pack is something I can get behind.
“Dad doesn’t know you found me, right?” I ask, the thought randomly coming to me. The clumps of hair dropping to the ground are huge and I need to distract myself. Shit, even my head feels lighter as Hollis cuts. I have a lot of hair. “I have dreams sometimes about the night I was kidnapped.”
“I’ve gone over and over it in my mind,” Lars says.
“I wasn’t home that night. I went out on a job for Dad at midnight, thinking you’d be fine.
The alarm was set, and there were men patrolling.
You never saw them because Caleb and I insisted they weren’t there while you were playing. We haven’t told him yet.”
“When you were taken, there were a few kidnappings that had happened and no one ever knew the reason for it,” Hollis explains.
“There was Nova’s disappearance as a baby, Quinn was taken when she was fifteen as well, and a few others.
The mafia families circled around themselves to protect their kids. ”
“My relationship with Dad has always been rocky,” Lars grumbles. “It got worse when you were taken. He’s the one who suggested maybe there was a boy involved.”
“I wasn’t even interested in guys at fourteen!
” I burst out. “My only friends were you and Hollis. I occasionally went to parties, but never knew how to talk to people. I did hear about the Kelly brothers though. I didn’t know that was about Quinn though.
The degree of separation between mafia kids is very small. ”
“You got that right,” Hollis sighs. “I straddle the line between the civilian and mafia worlds to stay in the know about things.”
“Information is power,” I mumble.
“Yes,” Caleb grunts. “That’s the same reason I pay attention. Dad gets very defensive when your name is brought up or any of the kids who have gone missing. I don’t think he should know you’re alive, Alisa.”
“I always thought he’d arrange a marriage for me and that would be that,” I say, sighing. “It’s something he’d talk about from time to time when he was actually home for dinner.”
Our mother died when I was young and I don’t remember her. It’s always been Hollis and my brothers against the world for as long as I can remember.
Hollis gags, shuddering, showing her thoughts on this. “I believe all omegas should be able to hold out for their scent matches, or at the very least, be able to choose who they want to be with. Arranged marriages are bullshit.”
“Dad never mentioned any of this to us,” Lars growls. “Sorry, I fucking hate him. The alarm didn’t go off in the house the night you were taken and there were no signs of forced entry. None of the guards saw shit either. It makes no damn sense unless it was an inside job.”
“Can the guys look into this?” I ask. “They have some resources that may be helpful…”
“I think they should. Lars and Caleb never told me they thought your dad was involved in this until now,” Hollis says.
“You’d have broken into the house and slit his throat and never broken a sweat over it,” Caleb says, shrugging. “If he was involved, I want to be involved in his murder.”
“I do too,” I say before I can hold the words back. “No, I don’t care what you think, guys. You don’t understand what it’s been like, or the scars he’s responsible for if he gave me to those monsters.”
“We don’t, and I have a feeling you don’t want us to know,” Lars says.
“I don’t. I wish I didn’t have to live through it. No one should have to know what happened to me,” I whisper.
“You’re entitled to your privacy,” Hollis murmurs.
“Thank you.”
“Silas said you like to walk through the garden,” Caleb murmurs, looking over at it. “It’s gorgeous. The trees almost look regal.”