Page 146 of They Break Beauty

“Reviving Hex in the way I did, was me trying to build contacts and assets to be able to counter my father’s threat, to find something on him.”

“To regain your freedom.”

“Yeah.”

“And Levi? What were the consequences for him?”

“Roman loves his son deeply. There weren’t any brutal threats or force from him, but it did begin Roman’s very close watch over Lev. But Levi learned to become extremely resourceful and he’s able to evade that and throw up smokescreens, like that internship. And Colt, well he didn’t murder anyone. His parents encouraged him to pursue music and stick with it, they opened a lot of doors for him. They are the most laidback people you’ll ever meet. It’s likely why he’s able to be so incredibly free and light.”

“He’s a perfect counter to you.”

He smiled. “Yes, he is.”

I closed the distance between us and stroked his arms. “I’m really sorry you’ve had to suffer for that.”

“Thank you. So, that’s where I’m coming from when I clash with Lev. He’s my brother and I love him, but there’s also that.”

“It’s complicated, more than I even imagined.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, easing from my hold. “It is.”

He looked a world away from his usual in-charge, steadfast self now. The pain of recalling such an awful time and how it had continued to impact him to this day had taken that spark out of him.

It cut at me, because I knew that sort of pain all too well.

I didn’t want him to be alone in it.

“My mom was there,” I ended up revealing in a burst.

He cocked his head to the side. “What?”

I fingered my all-seeing eye pendant. “This was hers. She gave it to me shortly before it happened for a graduation gift. She said it had served her well over the years, a symbol of security and protection, and of her watching over me wherever I went in life.” I sucked in a breath. “She was there during that hell. During the kidnapping, Levi and I weren’t always the only ones there.”

I sucked in a breath and then the words came tumbling out, the recollection spilling forth.

I could hear Levi screaming as I was dragged from the chair by a big guy I’d learned was named Kyle.

I was exhausted, barely lucid. I was beyond sore between my legs, raw, really. And I was bleeding from the brutal abuse. It trickled down my legs as they dragged me barefoot and in what was left of my now shredded and dirtied white dress.

A pained cry from Levi had me only just trying to turn my head.

And that was when I saw the other guy, Royce, kicking and beating him on the ground, then shoving the toe of his boot into his mouth until he gagged and retched.

“Stop!” I cried. “Leave him! He’s a kid! Stop!”

“Boss will only leave him when he shuts the fuck up and stops trying to save you. He wants him to learn not to keep fighting,” Kyle told me quietly, like he was trying to help. But how could that be? He was dragging me back to that madman, Malcolm Lynch. “He needs to break. Or pretend to. When you get back, tell him that. He won’t make it out alive otherwise.”

Before I could get a word out, I was dragged toward that awful interrogation room again where bad things had been done to me. Where Malcolm had first made me bleed for him, taking from me what should have never been for him. It was supposed to have been a special time, but it had all been torn away.

The place we were in seemed like an abandoned police station, or something. There was that two-way glass stuff in the interrogation room where Malcolm had whispered to me that we were being watched as he’d… defiled me over and over again.

This time, I was dragged into the viewing room, not the interrogation room.

I shuddered as Malcolm stood there in just a pair of dress pants, his dick already hard and prepared for another awful session.

He yanked me from Kyle and ordered, “Leave us.”

“Boss, listen, I think this is enough. They’re already really fucking traumatized. Mission accomplished, yeah?”

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