“I was sixteen, and I took a job tutoring a girl from my class. Her housekeeper drove us to her house after school, and my mom was supposed to pick me up afterwards on her way from work. My mom works shifts, and she was really late that night. I waited way past dinner. When she finally called me to tell she was leaving work, I told her I’d meet her on the way.
“It turned dark by then, but it was a quiet part of town and I wasn’t afraid being on my own.
“I walked along a side road running through a ravine—the same road my mom would be taking to pick me up—when a dark vehicle puled over next to me and the driver asked if I needed a ride.
“I recognized him as a boy from my school. He was the older brother of the girl I tutored. Still, I declined the ride, telling him my mom would pick me up soon. Then I saw him staring at me from the passenger’s seat.”
I stopped for a moment. It’d been years since I said his name out loud, since I’d even allowed myself to utter it in my mind.
“Hunter Reed,” I whispered. “The golden boy of Sunny Ridge. God, I had such a crush on him! Everyone did. How could you not? Golden brown hair. Moody, soulful eyes. A smile . . . Well, I didn’t actually see him smile that often, but when I happened to catch him grin once or twice, it was as if the day got brighter and the sun moved closer to earth, bathing the world in bliss.
“At eighteen, he was already taller and broader than many adult men. Any sports—you name it—he was the star of the team. I think hockey was what promised a really big future for him.
“Add to all of this a prominent family, basically the uncrowned royalty of the city, and no wonder every girl was swooning over him.
“I fell head over heels for him, in total secret of course. He was this semi-god in my eyes, unable to do anything wrong. Getting to ride in the same vehicle with him was as close as I could ever hope to get to the deity. Stupid,” I shook my head. “But then and there it felt exciting, and I got in the car.”
Monster sat so still, if it weren’t for the feeling of his hand in mine, I wouldn’t be able to tell he was here at all.
His eyes glistened in the dim light, his attention fully on me, prompting me to go on.
“There were more boys in the back seat. The strong smell of alcohol hit me as soon as the door closed behind me. Suddenly, everything felt wrong, but the boy behind the wheel took off, and when I begged them to let me out at the end of the ravine, they just laughed at me.”
The humiliation, the hopelessness, the terror of that night washed over me as if it all happened yesterday. It had never gone away, buried under layers upon layers of years and silence.
That night kept following me, hitting me full force over and over again when I least expected it.
I moved my gaze from Monster to the glass balcony doors behind him and rushed through the rest of my story, afraid I might run out of courage before I finished it.
“They turned into a narrow road along the river. Everyone got out of the car. The guys, they were drinking, laughing. They started to push me around . . . groping. Hunter told them to stop, and for a moment I thought he truly was my knight in shining armor. My rescuer,” I scoffed. “Then he tossed aside the bottle of whisky in his hand and grabbed me . . . I fought him, got away and ran.”
I inhaled, reliving everything, hurrying to get it all out before the memories suffocated me into silence once again.
“I tripped and fell, face down, and he crashed on top of me. With my face pressed into the ravine floor, I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. My mouth filled with dirt—” I shuddered, remembering the smell of dry grass and dust suffocating me, making me sick. “I thrashed, struggling for air . . . The moment I had a chance to lift my head and spit the dirt out, I screamed . . . And when his hold on me eased, I ran again.
“I ran through the ravine until a ray of flashlight danced in my face, blinding me. It was my mom. She hadn’t seen me on the road as we agreed and went searching for me. She brought me home.”
I realized I had been squeezing Monster’s fingers in a tight grip. It had to be painful for him.
“Sorry,” I loosened my hold.
“What?” He frowned, blinking.
“I’m hurting you. Am I not? ” I patted the furry back of his hand. “Anyway,” I continued with a sigh. “These are my nightmares—the pressure on my chest, suffocating me, pinning me down, making me unable to move . . . or scream. As if he were still here . . .” My voice trailed off, and for a few moments we sat in silence interrupted only by the faint crackling of wood in the fireplace.
He stared somewhere behind me.
“You never reported him.” It wasn’t a question.
“Nothing happened . . .” I repeated my mantra robotically.
“You were attacked!” The sudden anger in his voice, booming through the dark room, startled me.
“I wasn’t raped,” I argued. “There were no big injuries. No one calls the police over some ruined clothes—”
“It was assault,” he retorted gravely. “A crime—”
“I didn’t want to talk about it!” I yelled. An uncomfortable feeling put me on the defensive, reminding me why exactly I never told anyone what happened. “I told my mom I took a shortcut through the ravine and got lost. I never told her the truth. All I wanted was to forget, pretend it never happened, and move on.”
“Have you moved on?”
The silence dragged out, as I made no answer.
“It’s not just nightmares, Sophie, is it?” he continued. “You’re so smart, and you did great in school until this, didn’t you? And I know I did it all wrong every time I touched you—you had every reason to run away from me—but has there ever been anyone, a man, in your life whose touch you enjoyed?”
I closed my eyes, unable to tolerate the burning intensity in his gaze.
“No,” I breathed out my confession. “Never.”
“Oh, Sophie,” he whispered with so much sorrow, my heart couldn’t take it and tears burned my eyes.
“It’s all my fault, Monster.” I swallowed the painful tightness in my throat and opened my eyes again. “All of it is my fault. If I didn’t get in that car, if I just waited at the house for my mom, none of it would have—”
The wild look on his face made me stop mid-sentence.
“None of it is your fault.” He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a slight shake. “Do you hear me, Sophie?” he repeated slowly, his voice deep and powerful. “Nothing that happened to you that night was your fault. Please, believe me.”
I stared at him, shocked by his severe expression.
“The asshole, who attacked you is the only one to blame,” he gritted through his teeth. “That pathetic excuse of a human being is the one responsible. You should have reported him. He deserved to be punished. Maybe then you would’ve had justice and moved on.”
I dropped my gaze to my lap.
“I’m not sure there would’ve been any justice, Monster. The Reeds, they were a very powerful family. They would’ve made sure that Hunter walked away without any punishment whatsoever. I would’ve only been forced to talk about that night over and over again for no reason, to complete strangers . . . I didn’t want to go through that.” I shivered, suddenly feeling the chilly air through my nightgown. The flames in the fireplace had been dying out, plunging the room into darkness.
“You’re talking to me now,” he pointed out softly.
“You’re not a stranger,” I protested. Though I might not have known him for long, but it felt like I knew enough to consider him a friend. “And you’re not from that world. You wouldn’t force me to do something about this, like I’m afraid my mom would have, had she known.” I moved closer to him, seeking the warmth of his large, furry body, but he wrapped the blanket over me, instead, keeping his distance.
“I am practically a stranger, Sophie. God knows, I would do anything to help you, but I can’t. I don’t know what to say and have no clue what to do. So far, I’ve fucked up everything I’ve touched. But yo
u do need to talk to someone who can help.”
Gently, he took me by the shoulders and lowered me back to bed, tucking the comforter around me.
“Please.” He patted my arm through the cover. “You have been dealing with this shit on your own all this time. You’re strong, but it’s been sitting inside of you for so long, it can’t be good. You’ve told me now. Could you talk to just one more person? Someone who’d know exactly how to help you to move on?”
His voice was calm now, soothing, as he kept stroking the covers over my arm.
“Because you need to move on from the past, Sophie. You deserve to have a beautiful life, full of true happiness. You deserve to find joy in the world.”
The warm comforter kept the chill of the room away, and the deep rumbling of Monster’s voice held the promise of keeping me safe.
“Monster.” I hid a yawn behind my hand, unable to keep my heavy eyelids open. “Would you stay here? Please?”
I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if he left—I never slept after the nightmare if I was alone.
“If you wish,” he whispered, laying down on top of the covers next to me. “Sleep, princess. I’ll be right here.”
Chapter 23
HUNTER. EIGHT YEARS ago . . .
“You’re a little piece of shit!” William Reed yelled, spit flying out of his mouth. A thick vein bulged across the angry burgundy of his forehead, and Hunter idly wondered how much longer before his father had a heart attack. “Where did you steal the money for this?” He shoved a piece of crumbled paper in Hunter’s face.
“I didn’t steal it,” Hunter muttered gruffly.
That was true. He’d sold the rifle he got for his birthday last year to get the few thousand dollars he needed for the donation. Not that his father would see it Hunter’s way, even if he told him.
Either way, it didn’t matter. Sooner or later his father would find out about the rifle. Hunter knew it was impossible to hide from William Reed.
A safe place simply didn’t exist.
“It was my money.”
His words seemed to have set another explosion inside William Reed.
“There is no such thing as your money, you shithead! Everything you think you own is mine! It’s all my money. All of it! Do you hear me?”
Hunter heard him. The whole house must have heard him. Except maybe for Hunter’s mother, who lay upstairs in her rooms, indisposed, which was code for ‘passed out drunk’ or ‘stoned out of her mind.’
“I really don’t enjoy having to part with my money just because you got a soft spot for some fucking dogs for some fucking reason!”
“They were going to kill them,” Hunter objected angrily, knowing as he spoke that the euthanasia of a dozen dogs meant absolutely nothing to his father.
They were mix breeds rescued from an abandoned farmhouse. Hunter visited the shelter with his mother to deliver a charity cheque during a Public Relations event organized by his father’s company.
Bored by the endless speeches and posing for pictures, he wandered off to the back rooms where the dogs were being received at that moment.
Dirty, rail-thin, with haunted eyes, the image of their terrified faces wouldn’t leave his mind long after he’d left.
He knew his father would never let him have a dog of his own, especially a mutt. But when he called the shelter, unable to stop wondering about the fate of the rescues, and was told that most of them needed serious medical attention before they could even be considered adoptable—meaning that they’d be most likely euthanized by the end of the month—he had to do something.
His donation was meant to pay for the dogs’ veterinarian costs and give them the chance of a home with people who’d care for them.
“The mutts are dead, by the way.” His father tossed the crumbled ‘Thank You For You Donation’ letter from the shelter into the wastebasket.
“What?” Hunter exhaled in shock. “How?”
The flash of satisfaction in his father’s expression made him immediately regret exposing his true emotions, even for this brief moment. He made an effort to school his features back to the look of cool indifference, even as his blood heated with anger and pain.
He’d known his father would find out about the donation sooner or later, and he’d expected to be punished. He didn’t expect, however, that all of it would turn out to be completely useless.
All he wanted was to give those animals a fair chance, but he accomplished nothing.
“I told the board your cheque was meant to cover our regular funding for the next three months—the secretary made a mistake and sent it in a lump sum early. Our regular donations are therefore being cancelled. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any left to cover vet fees. Those dogs are dead.” Each word his father spat his way was laced with deep resentment. “Let it be a lesson for you. If you have to spend a penny on a bunch of dirty mutts, make sure you get publicity and tax breaks. This money, my money!” His face slowly turned the darker shade of burgundy as his voice rose again. “It was outside of our charity budget for the year! You wasted my money, you piece of shit!”
Hunter guessed that wasn’t just the money spent that fueled his father’s rage—the amount of the donation was less than what William Reed spent on cigars in a month. More than the money, it was the fact that he did something independently, behind his father’s back. Hunter strayed from the path laid by his father for him, which was simply unacceptable.
“It’s not what you do!” his father raged on. “It’s what people think you do that matters!”
William Reed demanded absolute obedience, and Hunter learned early on that the only way to stop his father’s fists was to cower and beg. He knew from experience that the best way to deal with his father in this state would be to keep quiet. Let him rage until the fire had burned out.
Except that anger simmered hot inside him, clouding his better judgment, depriving him of commonsense and self-preservation.
“You should know.” A crooked smirk stretched across Hunter’s face. He couldn’t hold back, even as he knew this would cost him.
William Reed’s face tuned an even darker shade of red, and his eyes narrowed into two glowering slits burning with hate.
Adrenaline buzzed hot under Hunter’s skin, charging every nerve in his body, fueled by the rising anger coursing hot through his veins.
This time, he was ready for a fight.
Now well over six feet, Hunter was as tall as his father. He still lacked in body mass compared to the older man, but he felt that one on one in a fist fight he had a fair chance. A sense of wired excitement shot hot through him. The anticipation of being finally able to return a punch was intoxicating.
His father must have realized Hunter’s strength now equaled his own because he walked from around the heavy oak desk holding the baseball bat he kept in his office.
“I thought I’d taught you how to keep your mouth shut by now! I thought I’d taught you respect!”
Hunter wasn’t watching the bat—his glare was glued to his father’s eyes. Anger had drowned fear, and all he wished for was to throw one punch into the hateful face. Just once to feel his own fist connect with the flesh and bone of the man he had feared and despised all his life.
“You don’t teach respect, asshole. You earn it,” Hunter gritted through his teeth, his legs braced in a wide stance, hands fisted tight ready to swing.
His father swung first. The bat hissed in the air above Hunter’s head when he barely managed to duck in time.
Fuck you.
He straightened, leaning back to gain a momentum for his own blow, but his father proved to be more shrewd. He stepped to the side out of Hunter’s reach and used the advantage that the length of the bat provided to him to land a blow on his son.
The bat slammed into Hunter’s upper arm then slid along his shoulder and connected with the side of Hunter’s head, just below his temple.
He didn’t even feel the pain right away, just a deafening ringin
g inside his head, like a church bell, resonating through his entire being. Momentarily disoriented, he stumbled forward, struggling to regain his balance, when another blow of the bat threw him to the floor, blinding him for a moment.
“Don’t you ever take a swing at me again! You, little shit.” A kick in the ribs made Hunter curl up on the expensive Persian rug on the floor. The side of his head where the skin must have split open from the blow stung, rubbed against the prickly surface of the rug. “You’re nothing but what I’ve made you! I own you. You do what I tell you when I tell you! Do you hear me?”
The baseball bat, tossed by his father, landed on the rug next to Hunter and rolled to the wall. Then he heard the door slam shut loudly as his father left the office cursing under his breath.
The bitter failure of his rescue attempt, complete with the frustration of the unfulfilled revenge, crippled Hunter more effectively than the throbbing pain in his head and ribs.
He rolled onto his stomach then staggered to his feet, pressing his left arm against his bruised side. His eye caught the baseball bat by the wall, and anger boiled over, erupting into madness.
With a deep growl he grabbed the bat and swung it in the air, searching for a target.
Nothing felt worthy of his wrath, though. Not one thing in this hated place would give him the satisfaction he craved if destroyed.
His wild gaze fell on the framed portrait of the perfect family his father had displayed on his desk. The Reeds in formal attire—both men in suits with ties, his mother in an elegant cream dress. Carefully choreographed fake smiles plastered on all three faces, including his own.
Suddenly, he had a target. He swung the bat, putting the force of his whole body into the motion. The blow propelled the picture into the air and across the room, shards of shattered glass raining down on the rug.
“Fuck!” He bellowed—rage churning like a black hurricane inside his chest—and tossed the bat across his father’s desk. “Fuck!” His hands shook with uncontained fury.
He tore off the hinges the door of the liquor cabinet in the corner and grabbed an unopened bottle of Crown Royal. Twisting the cap off, he gulped the burning liquid straight from the bottle, trying to douse the flames of rage that consumed him.
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