Page 73 of Thanking Her Brother's Best Friends

"Are you still getting blackmailed?"

The question hung in the air, and for a long time, Selene did not say anything. When she did respond, it was with a slight jerk of her head.

"Selene, you need to get the authorities involved."

"They'll do nothing except find reasons to take Ollie from me," she replied, her voice jangled and nervous. "The world is hard enough for a single parent, especially one who lives in the constant light of media attention, Aiden. I can't risk it. Plus, my PI is literally more useful than a hundred working policemen, and even he... even he's not gotten too far ahead. He thinks that whoever is doing this is already close to the family or to someone near me.”

She shivered. "That's why he keeps getting access. That's why he keeps hunting me down. When I tell you how helpless it makes me fucking feel..." Her voice died down, and her eyes began burning.

"I've been thinking of sending Ollie to Ben's for a while. Maybe he will be safer there."

"Listen." Aiden moved his seat closer to Selene's. "Let's say you do that for a week. But unless you find the man who's doing this, you'll always be in danger, Selene. And by extension, so will Ollie."

Realization hit her face and made her features bigger. She looked like a frightened lamb, a disturbing contrast to the powerhouse woman we knew.

I hated that someone had the guts, the fucking nerve, to do this to her.

"Can you think of any legal way to help her?" Dom asked Aiden, his face also cast in a frown.

"Yeah." Aiden's expression changed, and he worked the insides of his mouth like a cow chewing on cud. It would make anyone else look comical, but he was a handsome devil, so any shit he did somehow managed to suit him.

"Listen, can you do something? Begin documenting every interaction and incident involving Dave. If he sends you any emails, messages, voicemails—anything at all—you need to make sure you take screenshots and keep copies of everything."

Selene nodded. "Okay. I can do that."

"And if you can, try to reach out to any common friends from your past—or even if you know people right now who witnessed the hell you and Ollie went through when Dave was in your life. I wish..." He sighed.

"I wish I'd have known you back then. I'd have told you to keep live footage of how he treated you at home."

"Wait." Selene closed her eyes, trying to remember something. "Our old home—where Dave and I had a showdown before he abandoned us—there were cameras in the living room. I don't know if I still have the footage, but I'll go over some of the boxes I brought back from there. It's been years, but I haven't been able to open many of them."

"If you need help, you know all you need to do is ask, or just look at us like you do because that's enough to make us want to move mountains for you." I stood up to fetch Selene's phone from her bag. It was ringing.

When I handed it to her, she had a very soft light in her eyes. She smiled at me. "Did you mean that?"

I responded with a nod. "Hey, I say it like it is."

Selene's nanny was calling.

"Hey, Franny, what is it?"

"Selene, I'm so sorry to spring this on you, but Ollie has been having nightmares once again, and he's crying for you."

24

DOM

My grandmother loved to throw random Irish quotes at me whenever I complained about life turning out less than ideal. Which was most of the time after I began school, to be honest.

But most of all, she clung to one saying when I began hiding the problems that I'd started facing. I was a misfit all through school life, and this meant that most of the time, I was either trying to stay hidden or to run from bullies because my hiding spot wasn't good enough.

This changed slowly once Niall and Aiden came into my life, but for a long while there, it was a rough road. And Grandma used to tell me thattwo shorten the longest of roads.

It felt inconsequential at the time. I was pretty convinced no one could help or understand me.

But there were days in the present moment when I traveled back to sitting in her kitchen and watching her slice soda bread into neat little squares as she tried to get me to open up. I missed the smells of laundry soap and love on her.

And tonight, when Selene told us her kid was having a nightmare and it was likely the result of trouble at his school, I wanted to show up for him.

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