Nausea swept up my throat. God. I’d escaped it. I hadn’t forced myself on anyone else, either, despite the masses chanting around me. Oh, I’d given him a good beating for show, but that was where it had ended.
“I need to talk to your assistant,” I said to Lacey.
“Yeah, I want to talk to her too.”
“You think we could go see her at her place?”
“It’s Sunday, and tomorrow’s a holiday.”
“So? This is important, baby.”
She nodded. “I know. Let me give her a quick call.”
I waited while Lacey poked numbers into her phone.
“She’s not answering,” Lacey said. Then she left a short voicemail asking her to return the call. “Now what?”
“We go to bed?” I lifted my brow.
“That doesn’t solve anything.”
“It does from where I’m standing.” I tried to laugh it off. Then, “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m just not really in the mood.”
“I understand.” I’d been trying to put off the inevitable. If Lacey and I were going to be together, I owed her the truth. Especially since some elusive person was trying to bring her into this. It had been a long day, and it was about to get longer.
“Baby, I need to tell you some stuff.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat.
“All right.” She sat down on the couch this time and patted the spot next to her. “Sit down?”
“I think I need a drink first.”
“I don’t have much. Some vodka and wine, I think.”
A bourbon would have been nice. “Maybe it’s better if I just get it out.” I sat down next to her. “This is hard.”
“You can tell me anything, Rock.”
“I’d like to make you promise you won’t leave me if I tell you everything, but I can’t do that.”
“Okay. Now you’re scaring me a little.”
I put my hand over hers. “I’m sorry. But I can’t lie to you. It’s some pretty scary stuff.”
“Are you in any trouble?”
“No. I don’t think so, anyway.”
“Have you done anything wrong?”
“Not regarding my father’s murder.”
“Okay.” She bit her lower lip.
“I’m just going to get out with it. All of it.”
She drew her hand away from mine. “I think that would be best.”
I cleared my throat. “I was sent to military school when I was fourteen.”
“I know that. Your brother Reid explained all of that to me.”
“You mean my father didn’t?”
“No. He just said you’d left the family when you came of age. I asked him for more details but he wasn’t forthcoming. All he’d tell me is that he wanted you at the head of Wolfe Enterprises, and if you didn’t do it, the company and all of your other assets would be sold and his children would get nothing.”
“Nice guy.” I rolled my eyes.
“We all know who he was, Rock.”
I sighed once more. Lacey only thought she knew who he was. She knew a ruthless businessman who made enemies through deals. She didn’t know he abused his children, sexually abused his daughter. Sent his sons off to school to be violated. “Lacey, my father used to beat the shit out of me.”
She gasped. Was she truly surprised by this revelation?
“I’m so sorry.” She put her hand back on mine.
“I’m long over it. I never forgave him, but I got far away as soon as I could, and I never looked back. But that’s not what I need to tell you.”
“All right…”
“My parents sent me away when I was fourteen because…” Damn. This was hard.
“Because why, Rock?” She squeezed my hand.
Blurred images catapulted through my mind.
My lack of thought, only instinctual actions—had to protect my sister—as I grabbed a chef’s knife from the kitchen.
The resistance, like the thick skin of a grapefruit, as the knife sank into my father’s flesh.
The panicked treble voice of my sister.
“Don’t hurt Daddy, Rock!”
Then my father’s strong body overpowering my adolescent one.
Thud to my jaw. Thud to my brow. Thud to my groin.
Lying in a fetal position in Riley’s room.
No tears.
No fucking tears.
Bastard would not make me cry.
Days passed in a blur, locked in my room. No brothers. No sister.
Then…
Military school.
The hazing, the beatings, the sodomy I luckily escaped but witnessed perpetrated on weaker students.
The emotional abuse.
Then senior year.
I became the monster.
All because I’d failed in killing an evil bastard.
“Because I tried to kill my father.”52LaceyI went numb.
Icy numb.
I wanted to pull my hand away from his, but something stopped me.
The numbness. I couldn’t move.
Time seemed to be suspended. Had he said those words a second ago or an hour ago? He was rigid next to me on the sofa.
“Are you going to say something?”
The words sounded off, as if he were speaking underwater.
“Baby?”
Baaaaabbbbbeeeee?
Then he stood, jolting me out of my dreamscape. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have told you. I’m out of here.”
I gasped, my head finally above the imaginary water. “Wait! Don’t leave!”
“Why the fuck not? You’re going to dump me now, and I don’t blame you.”