Page 4 of If Our Hearts Collide

When I rein in my senses, I forfeit my will to the two men in my life who are always there for me when I am about to crash and burn.

I call my brothers.

“I’m sorry,” I cry, as Nic and Graham envelop me in their arms. They got here in record time—probably breaking speed limit laws at every bend. “I know I’m stupid. I know I shouldn’t have come. I know, please, I know. I just thought…”

What did I think?

Apparently I thought that the man who almost destroyed my entire family would somehow see me and then magically find remorse?

I obviously came here looking for something…

But what?

A man as vile as Mark Tanner doesn’t have an apologetic bone in his entire body—probably because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. To him, everything revolved around a hierarchy of power and money. I was simply a way to help him make more. Except his plan never went to fruition, but I still suffered a mental breakdown as a result.

The day that I met Mark Tanner, when I thought he could help me further my modeling aspirations, was the day that the fuse was lit. It was only a matter of time before he hurt me. He just never counted on my overprotective brothers retaliating and getting him locked up for life.

“Don’t cry. Everything will be alright,” Graham soothes.

Nic squeezes me tighter. “Yeah, don’t cry, Pen.”

“I hate him.”

Graham rubs circles on my back. “We know. We hate him too.”

My sniffles get less and less frequent, and then I’m no longer a sobbing mess.

When my brothers release me from their embrace, a silent message is passed between them with just a look.

But that’s what my older brothers do—they fix things. And based on the way they are looking at me now, I know they are trying to think of how to make my life easier.

I’m not looking for easier, though. I just want to find my purpose.

“Mark is going to get out and get me,” I whimper. My eyes dart back to the entrance to the prison. “I can feel his invisible pull from here.”

“No. No, he’s not, Penny,” Nic promises. He takes my hand and starts to pull me toward the parking lot, but my feet feel like they are trudging through wet cement.

“He said he has puppets out here in the wild who won’t hesitate to follow his orders.”

Graham glances at Nic and then back at me. “We won’t let him hurt our family again, Penny.”

My head shakes back and forth, as I think about every worst-case scenario. “I don’t want to go to trial. I don’t want to face Mark in court. I won’t survive all the questions and the interrogation and the drive from his legal team to discredit me. It’ll be humiliating and revictimizing to me all over again. Probably Angie too. She’ll probably have to testify. You know? She was hurt by him—by all of them. Not to mention that the whole time, Mark will be staring at us and silently taunting us from his side of the courtroom.”

Graham places an arm back around me, pulling me into his unyielding body. “You and Angie won’t be testifying.”

His words are final, and if he really could control everything in this world, I would believe him. But not everything is in his control.

I look up at my big brother. “Why are you so confident we won’t need to? How will the prosecution get a solid conviction without our testimonies?”

“Trust us, Penny.” Pivoting, he looks me directly in the eyes. “That monster is staying exactly where he belongs and won’t step foot on free land again. Let Nic and I take care of this, and don’t worry yourself sick over it.”

“But he might still have influence over people out here”—my hand sweeps out—“roaming around. What if?—”

“Trust us, Penny,” Nic echoes Graham’s previously spoken words. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”

With a slight nod, I continue walking. Their vagueness is making me cranky. They are always trying to shield me from any pain, and today I gave them all the reason to continue on that pattern.

“How did you get here so fast?” My question comes out as a whisper, but I really don’t need an answer. My brothers have their ways of keeping tabs on everyone they care about. So nothing should shock me. “You were on your way already before I called, weren’t you?”

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