Whispers of a Broken Halo

by Glines, Abbi

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Seven Years Ago

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Bryn

  Connect

  Copyright © 2022 by Abbi Glines

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at abbiglinesbooks.com

  Cover Designer

  Damonza.com

  Formatting

  www.theillustratedauthor.com

  Editor

  Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To Annabelle – thank you for demanding Rio’s story. Thank you for being my biggest fan (although you might love Colleen’s books the most. I’ll forgive you for that.) I am so proud of you for going after your dream and making it a reality. I love you.

  Acknowledgments

  Those who I couldn’t have done this without:

  Britt always is the first I mention because he makes it possible for me to close myself away and write for endless hours a day. Without him I wouldn’t get any sleep.

  Ava and Emerson for dealing with the fact I can’t always be there when they want something. They’re troopers.

  My older children who live in other states were great about me not being able to answer their calls most of the time and they had to wait until I could get back to them. They still love me and understand this part of mom’s world.

  My editor Jovana Shirley at Unforeseen Editing for not only doing this last minute because I suck at deadlines but also for helping me make this story the best it could be.

  My formatter Melissa Stevens at The Illustrated Author. Her work always blows me away. It’s hands down the best formatting I’ve ever had in my books.

  Damonza for my book cover. This cover could not be more perfect. They are always a pleasure to work with.

  Danielle Lagasse for pulling teasers and making graphics for me simply because she’s the best friend a girl could have.

  Abbi’s Army for being my support and cheering me on. I love y’all!

  My readers for allowing me to write books. Without you this wouldn’t be possible.

  Seven Years Ago

  “This ain’t no free ride, girl! Don’t you be forgetting that. I took your homeless ass in, and I didn’t have to. I did it though, now didn’t I? Dakota had no business at all, having kids. She ain’t got good sense, and neither do you or that sister of yours,” my aunt Mabel Lynn screeched her words loud enough that every neighbor in the trailer park could hear her.

  My stomach felt sick from embarrassment and shame. My sister, Tory, and I had been living with my mama’s older sister in Alabama for two years now. Ever since my mama had been put in prison for murder. Aunt Mabel Lynn had said they were never gonna let her out. That she would rot in there, and just like everything else, it was my fault.

  If I hadn’t told Mama about Bennie, her boyfriend, touching me in my private places, she wouldn’t have come home from work early. I just wanted her to send Bennie away. I would have never told her had I known she was gonna shoot him with the neighbor’s shotgun. Fact was, Bennie had been touching Tory longer than me, and she never said anything about it. She refused to talk about it when I tried to get her to. It was almost as if she didn’t know what I was talking about when I knew he had. I had heard her crying in the closet after he shoved her inside and then followed her. She was sixteen, almost seventeen now, and I was positive Bennie had started abusing her when she was eleven. I just hadn’t known what he was doing until he did it to me.

  “There you go, standing there, looking as dumb as she is! You hear me, girl? Don’t you leave this trailer until it is spotless. When I get back from my shift, this place had better smell like motherfucking pine! And if’n that no good sister of yors shows up, she ain’t welcome in this house. She can’t come and go like some whore. She can stay and earn her keep or just stay gone!”

  I nodded my head. “Y-y-yes, ma’am,” I stuttered. I used to only stutter when I was nervous, but after Bennie, it was something that happened all the time. I hated speaking. It was always a struggle.

  She shook her head at me and grabbed her faded blue-jean purse with patches of cities she’d never see all over it. “I don’t have to keep you, girl. Remember that!” she continued yelling, then opened the screen door and left. Finally.

  I stood at the sink, washing the dishes, until I heard her loud car start up, then pull out of the gravel parking spot beside the front stoop. When I was sure she was gone, I stopped washing and sighed in relief.

  During the school year, it was easier. She worked most evening shifts at a bar. By the time we walked home from school, she was getting ready to leave and wouldn’t get back until after three in the morning. We would be at school before she woke up.

  In the summer, things were different. She remembered how much she didn’t like having us around. I heard about it a lot, and so did our neighbors. Tory wasn’t here much anymore. Since summer break, she’d started going off more and more with boys. They had to be older because she stayed with them for weeks at a time. I wondered if she had air-conditioning where she was staying. She didn’t tell me much when I asked her, but then she rarely came back here.

  Aunt Mabel only ran the window-unit air conditioner when she was sleeping and getting ready for work. Then, she opened the windows and doors before she left. Everyone could hear her loud voice as she yelled at me before going to work every day.

  A knock on the metal part of the screen door startled me, and I jumped and spun around to see who was there.

  “Can I come in?” Rio March asked.

  Rio must be six foot tall already with wa
rm brown eyes and a dimple when he smiled. He was also the only good thing about this place. He had moved in six months ago, and things seemed easier with him around. He lived two trailers over with his mom. He was the only friend I had made while living here. Rio didn’t seem to mind that my clothes were too big, faded, and smelled of old cigarettes. He also didn’t mention my stutter. He acted as if I spoke normally. Being with him made me forget the way I looked and sounded. All I could see was him. He was beautiful, and part of me was a little in love with him.

  “Yes,” I said, drying my hands off on the hand towel beside the sink.

  He opened the door and walked inside. “She’s a bitch, Bryn. I swear I don’t know how you haven’t thrown something at her yet,” he said, then looked around. “What is it you gotta clean before we can go down to the swimming hole? It’s hotter ’n’ hell out there, and this damn trailer is like an oven.”

  “I g-g-got it,” I said, wincing at the stupid stammer.

  Aunt Mabel Lynn had said only stupid people stuttered. Maybe she was right. I didn’t feel real smart.

  Rio was smart though. He was two years older than me and always made straight As. I struggled to get by with Cs. One day, he’d said he was gonna go to a college far away from here, and I knew he would too. I tried not to think about how sad I would be when he left.

  “Either you tell me what to clean or I will just start cleaning it all,” he told me.

  I felt bad when Rio came over and helped me. He had his own chores to do. It wasn’t his fault my aunt was never satisfied.

  Sighing, I looked back at the sink. “You c-c-could finish th-th-the dishes a-a-a-and wipe down th-th-the kitchen, and I’ll g-g-go clean h-h-h-her bathroom and bedroom.”

  “Done,” he said, striding toward me. “We can get this knocked out in no time,” he assured me, then winked.

  I liked it when he winked. Almost as much as I liked his dimple when he smiled.

  “Th-th-thank you,” I said, wishing I spoke normally so I could say more without it taking me forever to get it out. My cheeks were red enough already. No need to embarrass myself more.

  I hurried in the direction of my aunt’s bedroom.

  “Hey, Bryn,” Rio said.

  “Yes?” I asked, turning back to look at him.

  His hair was dark, but with the summer sun, it had some lighter streaks in it. This year, he had let it grow out, and it was tucked behind his ears. It made it even harder not to stare at him with complete adoration on my face.

  “Joey won’t be messing with you anymore,” he said with a scowl. “Wish you’d told me about him. I’d have stopped it already.”

  Joey Turner was a bully. He lived in the last trailer on the left, and every time I had to go to the store or anywhere, he showed up to either take the money my aunt had given me, shove me down and laugh at my clothing, or twist my arm just because he liked to hear me beg him to stop. It had only started this summer. I wasn’t sure what I had done to make an enemy out of him.

  “It w-w-wasn’t y-y-your prob-b-blem,” I said.

  Rio raised his eyebrows. “Someone messes with you, then, yeah, Bryn, it is.”

  In that moment, I was sure I’d love Rio March forever.

  Turned out, forever wasn’t a real thing.

  Chapter One

  Bryn

  present day

  Please don’t let that be Tory.

  “Please, please, please,” I whispered my plea to no one in particular. I had stopped praying long ago when my prayers fell on deaf ears. My pleading was more of a way of silently panicking.

  “What is it, Aunt Bryn?” Cullen asked from the backseat.

  I had hoped he would fall asleep while I drove around, looking for his mother. Unfortunately, he was still awake, and I blamed my sister for that. If she had been at home like she should be, then he would have been tucked in bed at this time, but that wasn’t the case.

  “Nothing, buddy. Just lie back and close your eyes,” I suggested, knowing that wasn’t going to happen.

  Cullen was wise for his four years. With a mother like Tory, a kid grew up fast. Even if I was doing all I could to give him some semblance of a stable home life, his mother was screwing that up every chance she got.

  “Is that Mama?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat.

  I winced as Tory took the metal pole in her hand and swung hard, slamming it into the windshield of a Jeep.

  Oh God.

  No.

  Not that Jeep .

  I stopped the car behind the familiar Jeep my sister was currently beating the hell out of in the parking lot of a beach bar. She was going to draw attention to herself—if she hadn’t already. She was yelling at the Jeep as if it were a person.

  “Do not get out of this car, Cullen. Do you hear me?” I said, looking back at my nephew, who was watching with wide eyes as his mother acted like a psycho.

  He nodded his head and looked at me a moment. “What is she doing?”

  “I don’t know. Just stay in here. No matter what. Stay in this car. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” he replied, his voice shaky from nerves.

  With that reassurance, I jerked open the driver’s door and got out of the car and went to stop my sister. “I swear to God, Tory, if you swing that thing one more time, I am going to hit you with it,” I told her as I advanced on her.

  She barely glanced at me. “Yeah, right,” she replied.

  “Give me the pole now,” I demanded.

  She glared at me. “No.”

  “Cullen is in the car, watching you act like a lunatic. Stop this. What you’re doing is illegal. You can get arrested for this. We don’t have the money to pay for the damages. You can’t keep a job, and the one I have”—I pointed at the Jeep—“well, the guy who owns this Jeep gave it to me. Why are you doing this?”

  She opened her mouth to say something when blue lights lit up the darkness. The pole was then shoved into my hands as Tory hurried to our car and climbed inside the driver’s seat. I stood there, holding the metal pole, unsure of what to do or how to proceed. This was not the first time my sister had let me take the fall for her actions.

  Her reasoning was because of Cullen. I always did it because of Cullen. I was so tired of cleaning up her messes.

  We were here in The Shores, Alabama, because of her. Just when we got settled in a place and I found a job, she would do something to ruin it. Then, we would have to leave. I was done leaving.

  This time, I had chosen where we would move with more careful planning. I didn’t just stop at the first town we came to. No, I brought us to the town that I’d once heard my aunt say Rio’s mom was from. After Rio’s mom had overdosed and he was taken away, I had written the name of this town down. Knowing, one day, I would go find him.

  Life just hadn’t happened the way I’d hoped, and I hadn’t been able to go find him when I turned eighteen.

  I’d gone to the gigantic farmers market two weeks ago when we arrived in town, not only because of their Now Hiring signs everywhere, but also because I had asked the girl who rang up our meager groceries at the store if she knew a Rio March. She had known exactly who he was, and that had led me to the market.

  I needed a job, but I also wanted to find Rio without him knowing I had come here, looking for him. When he saw me, he paused, studied me a moment, then put down what he had been carrying to walk around the counter toward me. Rio March was all grown up, but I recognized him immediately.

  He stopped a few feet in front of me and tilted his head as he continued to look at me. “Bryn Wallace?” he’d asked with a look of amazement.

  I was sure he had never expected to see me again.

  I nodded.

  The grin that broke out on his face was breathtaking. Often, I had told myself that the memories I had of Rio March were exaggerated. He hadn’t been as beautiful as I remembered. His smile hadn’t been magical. My crush on him had only been a childhood infatuation.

  But I had been right. Rio
March was all that and more. He gave me a job on the spot. Making more money than I had expected. Twice, he stopped while I was on my lunch break to ask if I was enjoying my job. We didn’t talk about life or get to know each other again. Coming here, I had hoped for more, but as each day passed, I realized that I’d been holding on to a young girl’s dreams. Rio had moved on from those days in the trailer park. I was just a girl he used to know.

  Other than those two brief interactions, I didn’t see him other than in passing at work. I’d had no idea that Tory was someone socializing with Rio. There had to be a reason for her to vandalize his Jeep. My stomach felt sick as I thought of the reasons why. Jealousy was the only one I could think of when it came to my sister. Her beauty had always gotten her too much attention, and she expected it. However, if a guy triggered her crazy switch, then things like this happened.

  The blue lights were drawing closer, and I was still standing there with a metal pole in my hand. Cullen was in the car, and as screwed up as Tory was, he needed his mother. He didn’t need the stigma of his mother being in jail. I had lived that life. I didn’t want it for him. However, if I were to go to jail, could Tory feed him, and would she make sure he had all he needed?

  “What the fuck?!” a male voice roared.

  I jerked my gaze from the horrible damage to see Rio and another guy walking in my direction. Rio looked murderous. The blond guy looked horrified. What was I going to do?