Page 160 of Unwrapping Deviance

“But you were,” I mutter.

Lucy shrugs. “Doesn’t mean she needed to know it. I was protecting her. Mother has always been weak. Soft and a little useless. Father always had to have a strong hand with her, keep her steady. For her, I had no choice but to hide what happened.”

“You told your brothers they assaulted you. You lied—”

“I never lied!” she snaps.

I ignore her. “You almost got them killed. You got your brother killed.”

Her arm swings back. I brace for the blow, but nothing comes.

“I never told Jameson or Wyatt to do that.” Her arm drops into her lap with a smack. “Wyatt always had Father’s temper. He’d get mean, especially with me. Said I was weak like Mother. He thought it was his duty to keep me straight.” Her lips slash into a thin, red line. “He didn’t like when I went out with boys. He’d say it was my job to stay home for him. Keep myself ... holy. There wasn’t a damn thing holy about the way he’d come into my room at night and...”

She suddenly leaps from her chair and stomps to the mini kitchen in the corner. Bottles rattle violently with the yank of the fridge door.

She returns a moment later with two bottles of beer. One is shoved into my good palm. It’s not cold. I guess being this isolated meant no electricity.

“He got so mad when he learned what I was doing with Chris and Danny. I’d seen him plenty pissed in the past, especially the mornings after he’d fuck me. You’d think getting laid would put him in a better mood, but he’d go on for hours about the wrath of God and whores who spread their legs. But that night, it took Jameson and my dad to keep him from killing me. He broke all my fingers. Dislocated my jaw, shattered my arm.” She blew out a huff of air. “He did things to me right there in front of my whole family until I said what I had to, to make him stop because no one else did. Fucking two men? Blasphemous. Watching your son pin your daughter to the living room carpet and beat her and fuck her? Perfectly acceptable.” A brittle chuckle escapes her. “Father sure was something else. Probably thought Wyatt was fucking the devil out of me.”

I needed a drink. I needed a bucket to barf into. The story just kept getting worse and I needed it to stop.

Lucy, however, was reliving every minute of that night.

“I didn’t tell Wyatt to go after the boys. I didn’t tell him they raped me. I said what I had to, to survive.” The bottle cap snaps off with the twist of her wrist. It’s pitched into the corner somewhere over my left shoulder. “Part of me wonders if what happened to him was an accident.” She takes a hefty swig, emptying half the bottle. Her eyes remain slightly unfocused when she lowers the drink between her jean clad thighs. “Jameson and I have always been close. Even as children. When he returned without Wyatt that night, I had to wonder.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Honestly, there had to have been a better way to unfold all of that without kidnapping me.

Lucy blinks. She lets her gaze settle on me as if for the first time and, just like that, the nightmare she’d been reliving vanishes and she’s smiling again.

“Aren’t you thirsty?”

I glance down at the beer gripped tight between both hands.

“Not much of a drinker,” I mutter, feeling like I should say something. I hate her for what she did to Daniel and Christian, but she went through a mess, too. How can I just overlook and ignore that story? “Lucy, I’m—”

“You should drink,” she snips in with a razor blade edge. “It helps.”

My stomach roils. “Helps?”

She finishes her drink and sucks what little drag is left. “It’s easier if you don’t fight. It’s been a while since they had anyone so it’ll most likely be quick. Honestly, I’m glad it’s you. You’ve had two men at the same time. The others...” Her baby pink nails clink against the glass. “They don’t mean to be rough, but they get carried away sometimes.”

“Are you serious right now? After everything you just said?” I exclaim, fury and panic wedging in my chest.

Lucy frowns. “One has nothing to do with the other. You called me a liar. I had to explain myself. This is my payment to my brothers who helped me get you away from my boys.”

“They’re mine!” I snap without pause. “You will never have them.”

Lucy’s crimson lips purse in displeasure. “That’s a bit rude given I’ve been nothing but kind to you.”

The sheer wild delusion has me gaping at her, struggling to gauge her level of seriousness, but she meets my brewing anger with her own outrage.

Unbelievable.

“Are you insane? In what world do you think they will ever want you back after what you did? What makes you think they won’t kill you for hurting me?”

For the first time since meeting her, Lucy’s mask slips. Her eyes hood and her bottom lip curls like she’s eaten something rotten.

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