Page 92 of Laila Manning
Had he been in the barracks, I would have eagerly joined him for some more of his naughty activities.
When I got to the side of the garage, I heard voices inside and paused before walking around the front. The big overhead door was open, and the security room was off the garage, so no way was I walking in if it was crawling with crew members.
But as I listened to the voices, I recognized them. And I wish I hadn’t, because what they were saying broke my heart.
“It’s not your place, Jed.” Ryker sighed, and I could almost imagine him rubbing his hand over his face.
“It is!” Jed barked back, “She’s my sister, Ry. Mine. My flesh and my blood. No one else. We had a vote, and it ended in a tie, but she deserves to be shielded from this. He was her abuser, for fuck's sake! It will traumatize her all over again! He’s a monster, why should she have to face that? Everything I’ve ever done has been to shield her from the monsters out there, and it was all for nothing! But not this.ThisI can protect her from!”
My heart sank into my gut as I covered my lips with my fingers to keep from crying out.
“She needs to know.” Zeke snapped. “That’s the end of it.”
“Then why haven’t you told her?” Jed bellowed. “Tell me why we had this discussion over a week ago, and she still doesn’t know that we’re killing the Senator for her?” Jed’s voice turned lethal, and my skin pebbled. “Let me guess, you’ve been too busy using her body for your own selfish pleasures instead of talking to her about what actually fucking matters!”
A sickening thud echoed, and then the scuff of feet as Ryker yelled for them to separate.
“Tell me.” I stepped around the corner and found Zeke on top of Jed, arm pulled back, ready to strike. But the three men went still when I appeared. Ellie stood along the wall, and her face fell when she saw me. “Tell me!”
“Dove.” Zeke uncurled his fist from the front of Jed’s shirt, and my brother shoved him off as they both got to their feet.
“Tell me.” I repeated with a lethal calmness I couldn’t remember ever feeling before. It was similar to how I felt when I turned my brain off during a job in the brothel. My brain and my body were two separate entities, and that was the only thing keeping me standing on my own two feet as Zeke stared at me, looking gutted.
“Laila,” Zeke started, but Jed cut him off, staring at me like an equal instead of a victim.
“Senator Lupold.” Jed said evenly. “We know he was one of the men who assaulted you.” He took a step forward as I stared at him, emotionless. “We don’t know the details, but we’ve agreed he’ll die for what he did to you. So will anyone else we can identify.”
I turned my gaze to Zeke, feeling the anger radiating off me. “Why didn’t you tell me? The other night in the car, when I realized you knew, why didn’t you tell me you knewthismuch!” My voice ended in a scream as I lost my grip on my emotions.
My skin crawled as the three men, the strongest men I’d ever known, stared at me like I was a filthy, broken little piece of trash. And then I heard the voices of my attackers in my head, sneering their vile words into my ears as they raped me.
You don’t matter to anyone.
No one ever loved you.
You’re a dirty, disgusting whore, nothing else.
You’re ugly and vile.
You’re good for nothing but this.
Zeke finally spoke, “I didn’t know if you should be involved or not.”
“Involved?” I gasped. “Yet you think you should be?” I accused, tasting bile in my throat. “Or were you just too worried that if I knew what you were planning to do, that I wouldn’t be such an easy fucking lay for you! That maybe my trauma would get in the way of you getting your dick inside of me!”
“Laila, take a deep breath.” Ellie walked forward and touched my arm, but I ripped away from her, dragging my nails down my arm to erase the feeling of her touch. Blood pooled in the gouges left, but I hardly felt them as it ran down my fingers and onto the floor. How many times did I bleed the touch of others from my skin before this? Too many.
“I’m sorry that this keeps happening.” I kept my face to the ground as I took another step backward. “I’m sorry that you all had to have secret meetings about my fucked-up life.” My breath caught as my throat felt like it was going to close up from the anxiety. “I’m sorry that my past keeps interrupting your perfectly poised and polished lives.”
“Stop it.” Zeke snapped as he came closer to me, but I flinched when he went to touch me, a haunted look crossing his face before heschooled it. “None of that is true. We were trying to come up with the best way to handle it.”
“To handle me!” I screamed, shaking like a leaf as I stared into his blue eyes. Eyes so clear and captivating that I had lost myself in them as he made love to me, just that morning before he left to talk about my trauma like I didn’t exist apart from it. “You should have left it alone! Instead, you all made up your minds, my feelings be damned!”
“We’re trying to protect you.” He clarified, as if it made a bit of difference.
“You can’t.” I shook my head, hollowed out by it all. “If you knew what he did,” My voice broke, “What he stole from me.” My chest heaved, and I pressed my hand to my heart, praying the organ wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest from the erratic beating. “I can’t—” I shook my head, backing away from him as I turned to Jed, holding my brother’s broken stare. “If you want to kill the man, go ahead. If you do, make it fucking hurt. But I don’t want to know anything more about it. Promise me that much.”
My big, strong, and immovable brother nodded his head, brows furrowed over his dark eyes, “I promise you.”
