Page 96 of Where We Ended

“He knew he couldn’t get away with much because you would return home, but every time you left, he played with your wife. He toyed with her, broke her. Hurt her. Burned her.”

No.

My feet faltered as my gaze snapped to his. Why did the floor feel like it was falling out from under me?

“Natty would beg you, right? She’d beg you not to leave…anything else feel rushed or like she was panicked about it?”

I fell to the chair, and nearly missed as memory after memory flashed through my mind.

Our wedding, she’d been practically desperate to marry me, and it had to be that night…because I left the following day.

He had been hurting her.

Christmas…she had begged me and seemed frantic that I return.

“Did he…” My voice cracked as I looked down at my hands. “She came to you that December…”

Alec’s chin dipped. “I found out later…but yes. She’d gone back home, and Dirk was there. Your mom was gone, and you weren’t coming back…she was terrified, so she came to me.”

Fuck, my chest was cracking open; there was no other explanation for this pain.

Alec continued, his own voice going hoarse. “One of the Raiders would brag about what Dirk did to Natty, which meant he must have occasionally done things where people saw. I guess one time, he had her lower her bra cup so he could extinguish a cigarette against her tit.”

The burn looked as though it was a curling iron incident…she’d covered up what he’d done to her, so it looked like she had done it to herself.

She’d covered for Dirk for years. Fucking years she was abused by him…until?—

“Things escalated, obviously which is why she was traded. Sasha saw what Dirk did to Natty one night…it was enough to scare her into calling Simon Stone and beg him to get Natty away from the Raiders.”

Simon didn’t take her…he had rescued her.

My mind was in free fall. Failure and loss warring for first place in my head, my heart, my lungs, my fucking blood stream.

I’d let her down so profusely…how had she never told me any of this?

My voice was more of a rasp when I asked, “How did you find out?”

Alec’s glare could cut stone, but his next words essentially did, and I knew I’d never be the same after.

“Raiders talking shit mostly, but Natty confirmed the rest.”

I glared at him feeling more hatred for my brother than I ever thought possible. I never assumed my wife would really betray me with her relationship with him. I knew she loved me; I knew she wanted me.

But this…she had never once told me.

Even when I had suspicions and concerns…she had lied to me. Covered for him. Allowed me to leave and put her in danger.

My brother knew her deepest, darkest pain…and still, reunited, she didn’t want to share it with me? I’d always shared my pain with her.

Always…I had never held it back.

How could she keep this from me?

I needed to talk to my mother…she’d been the one here, and the one telling me to go. I needed to get her perspective on this.

I stood, ignored what Alec said at my back and navigated my way back to my bike.

My mother was asleep when I arrived on her doorstep and was understandably upset when I continued to rap my knuckles against her door.

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