Page 113 of The Devil's Torment

I lower my eyes, trying to read ahead to anticipate what’s to come. “’I’m going to insist he lives somewhere outside of the main house. There’s plenty of unoccupied properties on the estate. I won’t have him living here with me. I just have to find a way to say it without making Charles suspicious. He’s so happy that he’ll have his brother back home. I can’t let him find out. Not after all these years. It’ll kill him’.” I lift my head once more. “Find out what?”

“Jesus Christ.” Christian tries to grab the book, but I snap it out of his reach. “If you keep stopping after every sentence, we’ll never know. It’s not story time, for God’s sake.”

I flick to the next page, but Uncle George isn’t mentioned. For the next few pages, it’s back to normal programming, with Mum writing about a visit to the hairdressers, or a chat with the chef about a new meat supplier. Day-to-day stuff. It’s hard to keep track of time because she hasn’t dated it.

I’m about halfway through the journal before there’s another mention of Uncle George.

“’George is back. He cornered me on my own this afternoon, pretending like nothing is wrong, and it took everything in me not to scream. He makes my skin crawl. It doesn’t matter that almost seventeen years have passed since that night. To me, it feels like it happened yesterday and—'” My eyes automatically travel ahead. Horror bleeds into my chest.

No.

No, no, no. Fuck.Fuck.Anger sears my veins, my throat filling with soot and ash. I can’t breathe, can’t believe what my eyes are telling me is the truth. What myheartis telling me is the truth.

“What is it?” Victoria touches my knee, but I’m frozen, the words on the page swimming before me, bleeding into one another.

“I-I can’t.” I thrust the book at her, nausea swirling in my stomach. I think I’m going to throw up. “Read it, please.”

“What does it say?” Xan demands, hand outstretched. “Give it to me.”

“No.” I put out my hand to stop him. “Let her do it. Please. I’m begging you.”

Imogen tugs at Xan’s arm until he shuffles back in his seat. Victoria glances at her sister-in-law, then traces the handwriting with her finger, presumably trying to locate the part where I broke off. The moment she reaches that part, her head snaps to mine, her lips parted, shock swimming in her eyes.

“Nicholas.”

“Read it. I can’t. Please, just… do it.”

Her vocal cords sound shredded as she picks up where I left off. “To me, it feels like it happened yesterday, and I’m being raped all over again.”

Every single one of my siblings gasps in unison. Xan snatches the book right out of Victoria’s hands.

“I don’t believe it.” He scans the page, color leeching from his face. Anguished, he seeks out each one of us in turn. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

He’s on his feet a second later, hands fisted by his sides.

“Wait!” I call out. “We should finish the journal. There might be more.”

“You want to know if there’s more?” Incredulity fills his tone. “More than Dad’s brother raping his wife?”

“It’s better to get the full picture if there is one,” Victoria interjects. “I can read it if you like. Summarize for you guys.”

“Do it,” Saskia says.

Imogen reaches up and tugs at Xan’s jacket. He sits beside her, his leg bouncing up and down. The entire time Victoria reads through Mum’s journal,Mum was rapedricochets through my mind like a fucking pinball machine. Over and over and over until I can’t stand the thought of it any longer, yet I don’t know how to stop it. I’ll never be able to unsee those words.

Questions bombard me, coming at me faster than a speeding bullet. What if…? What if Mum didn’t kill herself? What if George drowned her in the bath? What if she threatened to tell Dad what he’d done, even though she’d never have gone through with it if what she wrote in her journal was how she truly felt?

No. It’s a stretch too far. I’m overreaching. But… if there’s even the slightest possibility that could have happened, it changes everything. The truth I’d convinced myself of, that Mum left me—us—could be a lie. The only person who can tell us what happened is George. And dammit, he will, even if we all take turns torturing him until he spills the entire sordid tale.

If I thought Xan had paled earlier, it’s nothing compared to Victoria’s complexion when she finally snaps the journal closed. I don’t want to hear what she’s found, but at the same time, I can’tnotask.

“Well?”

Her bleak eyes land on mine, then Imogen, then swivel back to me. “Nicholas, I-I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“What isn’t?” Xan butts in before I can ask my wife what she means.

I glare at him. “Give her a fucking minute.”

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