Page 44 of No Longer Safe

“Maybe we should go upstairs and freshen up?” I suggested considering I was still wearing a bikini with a crotched cover-up and a pair of cheap flip-flops. I didn’t want to look like this at dinner with the rest of the brothers or even Sinclair. I was surehe wouldn’t approve. Plus the grandmothers were supposed to dine with us, if I was remembering correctly.

I wrapped my arm around Brian’s waist and helped him up the stairs. He gripped my cheek when we stopped at his room and blinked at me a few times. “I won’t be at dinner. I need some sleep.” The slurring was now gone. Was he as drunk as I thought?

I frowned. “Do you want me to send up dinner?”

“No.” He closed the door in my face.

Stunned, I changed quickly and sat through a dinner I didn’t even care about. The grandmothers were thankfully absent. There was too much that happened in such a short period of time. My chat with my parents, my realization, and then Brian’s reaction. What happened on their little trip out to the gun range?

Later that night,I knocked on Brian’s door. He didn’t answer and I was worried about him. I didn’t think he was that drunk but he also never drank. He was a lightweight, for sure. I knocked again and when he didn’t answer, I pushed the door open anyway. We were engaged, though I wasn’t sure for how much longer. Maybe we needed to wait till the weekend was up before I broke the news. We didn’t need unhappiness between us spoiling the fun for the rest of the party.

“Brian?” I whispered into the dark room from the doorway.

“What do you want, Audrey?” He didn’t sound so drunk anymore.

“I just wanted to check on you.” I went to close the door and before I knew it, he was up and preventing me from shutting it. He grabbed the door and stared down at me with so much hatred it took me a minute to realize it was actually him.

With all the anger on his face, he was unrecognizable. He leaned forward and gripped the side of my face before he did theunthinkable. His hand pulled back and with a quickness he let it fly. The loud slap against my face echoed around the hallway.

I held my hand up to the stinging pain on my cheek, completely stunned. He’d never raised his voice at me and he’d just hit me. He took a step forward and got in my face. “Do you think I don’t know?”

Rapidly, I blinked back the tears gathering in my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Your little affair. Ever since you came out here and spent all this time withallthese men, you’ve been different, and then they’re all talking about how they wonder what you’re like in bed, how I’m a lucky man.” He grabbed my face, pinching my cheeks between his fingers so hard that it hurt. I tried to pull my face away from him, but it was no use, his grip was too tight. Between his grip and the slap, my face was burning. My eyes stung. This was not okay. “Do you think I’m some kind of joke?”

I shook my head against the blooming pain in my cheeks. “N-no. There’s no affair happening.”

He only pinched harder, his eyes completely black. I’d never seen Brian so angry. This wasn’t like him. He didn’t smell like alcohol. He leaned forward, his lips twitching, until we were almost nose to nose. “My father beat the insolence out of my mother. I didn’t think I would have to do it to you. I didn’t want to do it to you, but a woman’s role is to listen to her husband.”

We weren’t even married. Fear slithered into my gut and coated the inside of my mouth. He couldn’t be serious. I tried to pull my face out of his graspagain. I didn’t think it was possible, but he squeezed harder and yanked me more into his room. “My mother made suggestions for a reason. I thought you would listen to them and adjust to what I asked of you.”

His father beat his mother? His father had died when he was a teenager, the cause unknown. Or at least that was the gossip around our small town. Brian was on the debate teamin high school, we didn’t cross paths until close to high school graduation. I liked to party and planned to get out of the little town I called home. He drilled safe into my head over and over again. What was safe about this? Alarm bells went off inside of my head as I looked around the darkened hallway. Were there cameras up here?

Frantically, my gaze swept across the top of the walls. Nothing. Was I going to make it through this? How did I get away from him? Brian was not in the best shape but he was much larger than me. How had it gotten to this point?

Distant laughter caused Brian to remove his hand from my face. He didn’t say anything as he shut the door and I was left alone with my raging thoughts.

My hands shook as I hastily swiped at the tears that collected on my cheeks. My brain seemed frazzled. What just happened? Ace was the first one in the hall. His eyes searched my face before they jumped between Brian’s closed door and my shocked-still body. It wasn’t until I heard Alexei’s voice that I tucked tail and ran across the hall to my room.

“Was that Audrey?” I heard him as the door clicked closed. I shut my eyes and hoped he didn’t come knocking. It would just make everything worse.

With numb hands, I stripped out of my clothes and climbed into bed. Carina knocked on the door a few times but I ignored it. I was sure my eyes were swollen from crying and I couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse as to why I was. I pulled the blanket over my head and tried my best to sleep.

Chapter Thirty-One

Alexei

The breakfast table was empty.I hadn’t thought we stayed upthatlate. The only ones that hadn’t stayed up late with us were Ace, Carina, Audrey, and her stupid fucking boyfriend.

Even my mother was missing which was highly unusual and suspicious. I grabbed a piece of toast from the cart beside the table and backtracked up the stairs. Brian’s door was slightly ajar. I kicked it open with the toe of my shoe and found it completely empty. I frowned. He thought he was above the rules and could stay with Audrey? Nope.

I banged on Audrey’s door with my closed fist and a shit-eating grin plastered on my face. Not a sound. I took a step back. I wouldn’t barge into the room and interrupt their peace, but I would bang on the door again. Which I did, over and over until the door swung open and I was met face-to-face with Audrey. Except, she wasn’t really Audrey. It was like a ghost had taken her place. I’d expected her to open the door ready to swing at my face. I wanted nothing more than to fight with her this morning. But one look at her told me that I would not get that.

The dried tear track marks on her swollen cheeks were enough to put me in my place. She backed into the shadows ofher room as I tried to get a closer look at her face. Was that a bruise on her cheek?

“Is Brian hiding in there with you?” I knew better than to ask. I knew he wasn’t but I couldn’t help myself. There was this annoying driving voice in the back of my head.

“No,” Her voice sounded even more broken than her face looked.

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