Page 74 of Truths

“What do I do?”

“Use all this pent-up energy to decide what you want to do with those fucking Kingsmen. How you want to take them down and make them regret what they did, including breaking into a few houses here.”

He sits back down. “I still don't know why they wanted her. And why they didn't tell us they had her... were they going to keep her forever?”

“I have no idea. It honestly reminds me of the Havoc Outlaws.”

“The who?”

“Psycho's club. His father was the President. They did shit just because it was sick and twisted. There was no reason behind it, and they didn't really care to get credit. Including raping and killing a daughter of the club. Let us believe it was the Devil’s Advocates for a decade.”

What if it is these guys? “What happened to them?”

“My wife purposely got kidnapped with a plan she concocted with another one of our strays, and snipers took out most of them. Psycho killed his father and his brother. Slit one's throat and gutted the other like a fish. His nickname's very fitting.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah,” he says and laughs. “I think it goes without saying that Venom's just the new Psycho. Shep was the other one, and now we have Bodie and Venom. She's like a fucking lightning rod for men who don't have anyone else.”

Letting out a deep breath, he rolls his shoulders. “Okay, I do feel a little better about all of this. I still don't fucking like it, but I'm trusting the process.”

“That's progress.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Summerville

Dani

Sitting at the house, eating and drinking with Lex feels... normal. It's been so long since Dani has felt anything other than fear. She smiled, laughed, and even cried tonight, all of which feels like the biggest milestones as of late. For the first time, she doesn't feel like a giant disappointment.

It helps that Lex didn't really know her before everything happened. They'd met a few times, but they wouldn't have been considered friends. It means Dani can just exist. There's no comparison about how different she is compared to who she was three years ago. How her laugh isn't as loud as it used to be. Her smile isn't as bright. The sense of humor she thought she lost isn't quite what they remember. And there's no guiltwith Lex because she doesn't live up to the person everyone else remembers.

Something Lex said earlier hasn't fully left Dani's mind, and she can't stop thinking about it whenever she has a moment or two alone. Right now, she stands in the bathroom staring at her reflection. The longer she holds onto what the Kingsmen did to her, the longer she stays in their prison. And she deserves more than that. She doesn't want to stay locked up in the mental basement anymore, but she's not sure if she can ever verbally share what they did to her. How they hurt her. In a perfect world, there'd be a pill that she could take to make her forget it all and return to the person she used to be.

“She's going to think I'm sick if I stay much longer,” she says to her reflection. “Maybe I can share a few non-big things that happened. Test out the waters. I don't think she'll judge me. No, she won't judge, but I can't take the look of pity. That's what everyone looks at me like. I can't handle it anymore.”

Splashing water on her face, she takes a few deep breaths. She'll give a few tidbits to Lex to see how she reacts. If the look of pity fills her eyes, Dani will stop. She won't go any further because the look is almost worse than the pain of not living up to the old version of herself.

The vault everything's locked up in seemed safe, but it's starting to get heavy. Really heavy, and she needs to try and lighten the load a bit.

She walks back to the table, and Lex sits with her hands under it. Something about the way she looks at Dani makes her nervous.

“Is everything okay?”

“I don't want you to panic,” Lex says.

Dani sits, her body frozen in fear. “That's not a good way to make me not panic. That has the opposite effect, actually. It has me in a panic.”

Smiling, she says, “It's going to be fine. Trust me?”

“Yes, I trust you, but what's going on, Lex?”

“I saw a couple Kingsmen outside when you went to the bathroom.”

Her eyes widen with more fear. They’re coming to get her again. They’re going to take her back, and they’re going to hurt Lex to do it. “Do we call Dax or Colt?”

“We give it a minute to see if whether they're just driving by, or-”

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