Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Sabrina growled, “You’re the one who called me to come here.”
“Because your brother won’t tell them about whatever sick secrets you’ve made him keep. He came clean that she’s his sister, but that’s it. You have to come clean about everything else. Tell them the truth. Enough with these fucking manipulations.”
Her eyes grew uncentered, a wild gleam taking root in them. She tipped her head back, another chortling laugh rippling up and out of her throat. “Oh? It’s like that. Is it? I come on command and what? Confess? Is that supposed to save my soul, Axel? My brother’s soul?”
Axel switched, going from heated to a cold smirk in point zero seconds. But the transition made her uneasy. That only reinforced his smirk. “I don’t give a fuck about your soul. I’ve listened to you rant enough to know you are gone. You’ve been brainwashed. There’s no coming back for you.”
Her face grew heated, reddening. She flung her hand out, pointing at Sam and me. “These people—you don’t even know what they did.”
“I don’t care.” He got right back in her face. “You want to know what these people did for me? For Beltraine? For your own brother? You wanna listen to that because I can tell you. It happened in real time. In front of me. It’s not a story I’ve heard from someone else, who is so fucking obvious about his agenda, that you’re batshit stupid to believe one fucking word of it.”
“He’s been there for me—”
“I’ve been there for you!” Steele roared, stalking around his friends and getting in his sister’s face.
She blinked, and blinked again. He kept going at her, and she backtracked. They didn’t stop until she hit against the wall and even then, Steele got all up in her space. He was taller than her so he leaned down, his voice chilling. “Do you know what Bell’s dad was doing to us?”
Some of the fight faded. “Wha—what are you talking about?”
“Phillip Moreaux. We didn’t know anyone here. You’re the one who approached Moreaux. You’re the one who put me in Bell’s house, but I’m the one who got Bell to agree to lie for me. He just didn’t know the truth. How’d you know to contact Phillip Moreaux?”
“What… What was he doing to you? What did he do to you?” Her voice rose, becoming sharp again. The beginning of some panic was setting in.
Steele ignored her, speaking low, almost depressed. Some of his shoulders loosened again, becoming defeated. His voice become replete, empty. “It wasn’t just once. We’ve been playing football for almost two months now. We started the end of August. Do you know… You have no idea, but they did. They stopped it.”
“What did he do to you?”
Fuck. That voice. The unhinged tone was gone, and in that voice, she was stripped down to a sister. She fucking sounded like Samantha. The same voice. I did not want to hear that familiarity from her. Fuck no. I didn’t want a reminder whose blood she shared, because in that voice, as Sam heard it too, I saw hope rekindle in my wife’s heart.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The hope gave way to new determination. I knew, right then and there, that Sam was going to do what she needed to save this sister of hers.
Goddamn. No. No!
Steele didn’t tell her. Axel didn’t either. Beltraine did. And as he did, as we all heard what else his father had done to them and how many more times he’d had them go into that shed, more than I wanted to think about because he hadn’t used the excuse of a lost football game to justify his need to abuse them, Sabrina was shaking by the end of it.
“I didn’t know. I swear.” All the blood was gone from her face. Her lips were trembling. “Steele, I swear. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah,” he bit out. Rough. “But someone did. Who told you to contact him?”
“I didn’t contact him. That’s not how this happened. I was… We were introduced and we went from there.”
“Who did the introductions?”
The answer was there, right on the tip of her tongue, but as she thought about answering, she looked at my wife. Just that, one look, and I could see all the brainwashing return back to her forefront. The raw vulnerability she had when hearing her little brother had been hurt was covered up by the cruel gleefulness of whatever this creature was in front of me.
Park Sebastian did this. He did a masterful job of it. I had to give him that.
He took away someone Sam loved.
“Who do you think? Come on.” She laughed again; the chortling was back. “You want to know everything? I mean, that is why I came here. I knew when Mom and Dad figured it out, then the gig was up. Or most of it is up, but don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything. I want to tell you everything. Are you ready?”