“Holy shit!”
He nodded and looked at me more seriously than I’d ever seen him look. “Yeah, apparently when you’re caught with minors it doesn’t go well for you. And he wasn’t picky on what gender they were either.”
My heart broke for the kids who had to resort to that to survive for whatever reason, but my stomach was close to rebelling at the thought of Lara’s dad actually paying them for…probably best not to go there. “Gross! That’s just so fucked up.”
“So, the lawyer looked into it and basically with the statute of limitations not being up yet, you can still press charges. Your dad gave me the file and the letter that he got from the dad.”
I chewed my lip while I mulled all of this over. “Is there a point in taking action now?”
“Yeah, baby,” he said softly. “You get justice for what happened to you, and you can close the door on it. You will also get rid of the worry that I know you feel about them doing it to someone else.”
It was true, I did worry about someone else ever being on the receiving end of any of their hatred. I hadn’t done anything to them, and they’d almost killed me. And for what?
“What do I have to do?”
“We need to make a statement to the police about it.” He made it sound so simple.
Sighing, I nodded. I was fucking terrified of doing it and nauseous over reliving what happened that day, but if it meant that they got charged with the crime that they committed and it helped their other victims, then I’d do it. And I knew there had been other people on the receiving end of their nastiness. Granted they hadn’t stabbed them, but they’d done other things that could scar people both inside and out. Bullies were rotten to the core with a heart blacker than oil, and those bitches were definitely bullies.
Chapter 16
Ebru
C ole had brought us back out to the lake after I’d given my statement to the police. When he’d passed the report from the lawyer and all of the other paperwork over to them, they’d promised to assist in the case.
What had happened to me was horrible, and it was something that few people would recover from, but psychologically it hadn’t scarred me as much as people expected. After it had happened and I’d recovered, Louise had gotten me through it. I’d been so focused on getting the hell away from my parents that I’d built a wall around it and had subconsciously filed it under ‘come back to another day’. I knew from my qualifications that some people did this and it was a way of either burying their heads in the sand or they were genuinely that strong mentally that they could do it, especially when they had the strength of an amazing sister to lean on. Some people didn’t though, and they were severely affected by it, or they were so traumatized that they’d try to or succeed in taking their lives. I’d been thinking about how I’d dealt with it, and I wasn’t sure if I was burying my head in the sand or not.
“What are you thinking about?” Cole asked. I’d been sitting staring at the water for ages with my chin on my knees.
“Do you think I buried my head in the sand?”
Moving behind me so that his legs were either side of me, he rested his chin on my head. “I don’t think you did per se. I think that you might have done a tiny bit, but the rest of it was pure strength.” I wasn’t sure that I agreed, but he didn’t give me the chance to argue. “Louise was strong, and you knew that, so you immediately realized, regardless, that you weren’t fighting it alone. Then afterward, you were hit by losing her so suddenly and then just surviving, so it got put away inside here.” He tapped my head gently with his finger.
I mulled over what he was saying and tried to see if it felt right, but I was pretty much one big ball of confusion.
“Have you ever had any nightmares about what happened?”
“A few.” They had happened not long afterward, but I’d had an amazing counselor at school who I’d been able to talk to in addition to Louise. She’d been angry at the way that the girls responsible had gotten away with it, but our hands had been tied by one of the fathers being the DA and everyone in our hometown pretty much bowed down to him. Within a year of it happening, though, the nightmares stopped.
“Did you know that your mom used to park outside the school every day and would do walkthroughs to check that you were okay?” Cole asked, and I froze.
“What?”
“Yeah, your dad told me.”
“She can’t have…they didn’t…why…” I could feel tears starting to fall, but I was so shocked about what he’d just told me.
Cole didn’t say anything, he just turned me sideways and held onto me. I want to say that I bawled, but I didn’t. I couldn’t even make sense of what I’d just heard, so the best I could give was the few tears that had already fallen.
We both stayed quiet for a while, just listening to what was around us while I tried to figure it all out. When I didn’t get any further into understanding it, I gave up. I wasn’t a quitter, but I also knew that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try and make sense of what I’d just found out, so I’d think about it when I was.
“Tell me your favorite ever memory of Louise,” Cole asked out of the blue, and I didn’t have to think. I knew my favorite memory off by heart.
Grinning, I leaned back and looked at him. “We went to this party at her university accommodation once. It was just before summer break and they were raising money for Cancer Research. Anyway, they had a lot of fun things going on like a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, that thing where you stand on a beam and have a pole with a soft round pouffy thing either side and you have to knock the other people off.” I mimicked the whacking because hell if I knew what they were called.
“I know what you mean,” Cole said laughing at my description, but nodded his head. Everyone knew those Gladiator things.
“Anyway, we walked around and saw a huge mat on the floor, and massive padded sumo outfits and Lou went nuts because she wanted us to give it a go. I obviously said yes because those things are funny as hell.” I was giggling at the memory already. “So, we get into them, and the second we turned around, Lou started cracking up harder than I’d ever heard her laugh. We couldn’t even look at each other in the suits because we were laughing so hard.” I was struggling to get out what happened next because the memory was just too funny. “She had…the suit…”
Cole was snickering hard at me giggling and my body was bouncing off his chest.
“So, my suit,” I cleared my throat. “My suit had a red crotch thing like Sumo’s wear and hers was blue, and all I could see was this massive padded body with moobs and her tiny little head. Anyway, we were laughing so hard that when the guy yelled ‘fight’ we ran into each other, missed and both hit the deck.” The memory was playing through my mind like a movie making me snort harder over what happened next. “So, we’re on the floor, and we’re both laughing, and we can’t get up. I was trying to crawl over to her, but this damn suit was so padded that I ended up rolling.” I wiped my eyes, but the tears of laughter just kept coming. “Unfortunately, we were on a slope, and she rolled towards me on the mat, and the two of us went rolling down it.”
Cole started roaring as I mimicked this massive suit and me going down the hill. “I didn’t think we were gonna stop, but then I hit the tree and she smacked into me right after that and squished me against the trunk of this damn thing. The dude who was in charge of it was running down the slope yelling and panicking, and the two of us are lying in these suits just laughing our asses off. It took five guys and about twenty minutes to get us off the floor because we’d take one look at each other and start all over again,” I was trying to take deep breaths in which was proving useless because I was laughing so hard.
“What happened afterward?”
“She ran to her room to change her sweats and panties,” I wheezed, and it was true, she had! “That poor bastard had to take the game off the field to go and clean it.”
It took a while for the chuckling to die down and when it did we just s
at there grinning. It was a bittersweet memory that I held close to my heart, and I guess if you saw it, you’d see the true hilarity of it that was missed when you retold the story. I didn’t give a damn, though, it was my precious memory and one that I still found as funny today as I did the day that it happened.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Cole murmured into my hair, and I turned to look at him. A lot had happened in the last couple of months since we’d gotten together, stuff that could either make or break you, but I think it had made us stronger.
“I love you,” I whispered. I didn’t want to break the peace and quiet that had now settled over us, but I wanted to let him know.
“Ditto!”
I felt the back of the bed hit my knees as Cole kissed me and lost my balance. As I landed on the soft comforter, I looked up to see Cole pulling his shirt over his head and then throwing it over to the corner of the room. I joined in and started undressing too. Once every last bit of clothing was gone, he continued standing, and I took in the beauty of him.
Cole was tall and broad shouldered, but even though he didn’t officially work out, he had a perfect six pack and muscles. All of the Townsend boys had wanted an area to do workouts in when they felt like it, so one of the outhouses had been turned into a gym with weights, treadmills you name it. Cole went every now and then to work out, but it wasn’t part of his daily routine. Whatever was, it was working for him.
“I love the way you’re looking at me,” he rasped, looking over me in hopefully the same way that I was looking at him.
“I love every part of you.” It was getting easier to say my feelings out loud to him, and the beauty of it was that every time I did, I just knew that it meant something to him because of the expression that he’d get.
Crawling backward on the bed toward the pillows, I lay against them and waited for him to join me. He didn’t keep me waiting for long as he crawled up the bed toward me giving me sporadic pecks on whatever part of me he could. Once he reached my core, he stopped and pushed my legs further apart with his shoulders.
“You’re beautiful all over.” He put his hands under my ass and lifted me up towards him and then licked up my pussy and groaned. “Fuck, baby. Mine!” He leaned back down and licked again, this time, more firmly. I tried to move my hips to get more of him, but his hands tightened underneath me, and without him saying anything I knew I was to stay still. “Good girl.” He rewarded me leaning forward and licking again, but this time, he didn’t stop. He drove me crazy licking around me and inside me, but not once did he head towards the area that I needed him the most.
Just as I was about to try and smother him with my thighs, his control broke and the next thing he was sucking on my clit as he pushed two fingers into me. I screamed louder than I think I’d ever screamed in my life as I came hard.
He waited for me to come back down again before moving up my body and doing the sporadic kisses again whenever he felt like it. I’d expected him to lay down and take his time, but as soon as he was far enough up my body and the tip of his cock was where it needed to be, he adjusted his hips so that he was in the right position and started to push into me.
My head fell back onto the pillows, and I groaned as I felt him entering me. He’d only just gotten a couple of inches in me, when he pushed hard until he was all the way inside.
“Look at me.”
I lowered my head back down and opened my eyes to see him looking down at me with such love on his face that it took my breath away, even more than when he slammed into me when he got carried away.
“I’m never letting you go,” he growled as he started to thrust hard. It wasn’t enough for me, and I lifted my right leg higher until it was over his shoulder. Oh, fuck me, that was perfect.
“I don’t want you to.” And I didn’t.
Cole was on form, and I came another two times, and when he finally came, his groan was so loud that I felt the vibrations of it all over my body making me involuntarily tighten around him.
Lying on top of him afterward, I closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat. I was going to speak to the Cardiologist at work and get myself tested for the arrhythmia problem that Lou had. Cole had flipped a switch inside me, and now I needed to make sure that I was okay.
Chapter 17
?
I ’d been calling the asshole in Piersville for two hours now, and he hadn’t answered me. Maybe I should send someone out there to give him a shake? He didn’t know that I knew about his little thing for the red-headed owner of the underwear shack in Shitsville, and what he got up to at night. Yes, I think I’ll arrange for a little surprise for him.
“Yeah,” the arrogant piece of shit answered.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” I was getting more fucking pissed than I’d already been. That ‘shake’ was going to be a life-altering wake up call now, and he only had himself to blame.
“I apologize,” he sounded like it caused him pain to say that and I couldn’t help the grin that knowing that gave me. “What can I do for you, Sir?”
“Update.”
“Still no change. The heads of security are still keeping it tight and with the involvement of that ex-SEAL, his friends, getting close to them is still an issue. Although, not impossible.”
He was speaking my language now. “How so?”
“One of the guys stationed on the ranch is a friend of a friend. With a bit of information, I’ve been able to persuade him to see things from our perspective.”
“You have dirt on him?” Dirt was good, it made people act obediently. Look at the dirt that I had on this piece of shit, he’d be heeling in no time once I used it.
“Yes. It appears that this guy had an affair with his wife’s sister. She has a baby now and the question over whether it’s his or the husband’s is there. The wife doesn’t know, though, and he doesn’t want her to because she’s sick or some shit and he apparently loves the bitch.” The snort he gave showed his weakness. Men in our positions and jobs didn’t give a fuck about feelings, well at least not any but our own, and there he was judging a man on his.
“How accommodating is he going to be, do you think?”
“Very.”
“This is good news,” at least for you. “The person seeking retribution on the Townsends has requested that we do something, so I think it’s time for a shake up. One that will rock the Montgomerys too.”
“What would you like me to do?” Ah, the obedient dog was back. Too bad he had his own surprise coming.
“I want you to focus on the heads of the family; Hurst, and Linda. Not fatal, that would make them tighten security even more and take away the fun. Make it look like an accident, but make it painful.” Pain, the word was so beautiful to me.
“An accident?”
“Can you do that or not?” I was wrong, the obedient dog wasn’t back. It would be soon, though.
“You know that I can.”
“So what are you waiting for?” I ended the call and threw the phone into my office drawer seeing the photograph that I kept in there staring up at me.
“Soon, mother, soon.”
Chapter 18
Cole
I couldn’t believe that I was back in this fucking hospital. I know that Eb worked here, but we were here more often for accidents than I was to visit her.
Ren and I had been working on a truck when the call came through from Mom telling us that Gram had had an accident. She’d been taking a load of laundry down to the basement when the step had snapped, and she’d fallen. Pops had heard her scream and called an ambulance when he’d found her unconscious. Right now, we didn’t know anything about her condition, and I’d been pacing back and forth waiting for the doctor or Ebru to come out and update us. The only consolation we had was that Ebru was part of her medical team; we knew she’d get the best care regardless.
“She was just lying there,” Pops said for the billionth time. “She only has a small cut here,” he pointed t
o the side of his head. “Why would that make her go out cold?”
“Sometimes it happens, Dad,” Dad said to him. He sounded calm, but that was just for Pops’ sake. “She wasn’t unconscious for long, so that’s good news.”
“Was it because I wanted her to wear one of those ass flossers?” Pops asked, and we all stopped what we were doing and looked at him in disgust.
“Look…I get that we’re an um…unique family,” Ren started, “but what y’all get up to behind the doors of your home…”
“What the shit are you on about son? Women wear those all the time.” Pops looked confused.
“You said ‘ass flosser’.” Maybe the old dolt was going senile? That might explain his recent ideas about going to a resort in the Caribbean and walk around naked as the day he was born.
“Yeah, those thong things,” he replied, and even though it was better than the awful thoughts that we’d apparently all had, it was still nauseating thinking of Gram having thongs.
We were saved from continuing the conversation from hell by the doctor and Ebru coming into the room. Apparently, she had a mild concussion, a couple of broken ribs and a broken arm and would be just fine. In fact, after the results of her CT scan, she was being released in a couple of hours. Breathing a sigh of relief, we all sat back and started arguing over who was going to nurse her. Not arguing for being the one to look after her, but arguing to not be the one to look after her. She was hell when she wasn’t well, and last time we’d had to get the doctor to sedate her when she’d sprained her ankle because she was determined to help repair fences on the far western side of the ranch. After five rounds of five rounds, and a couple of extra ones, of rock, paper, scissors we were still undecided who was going to do it. As her husband, though, it was decided by unanimous vote that Pops was going to do it, so the old guy was sulking in the corner of the waiting room glaring at all of us. Happy days!
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