Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight Scar

My peaceful dreamsare shattered with a few simple words.

“Charles found them.”

I’m instantly awake, sitting up fast enough to make my head spin. I still don’t let it slow me down, jumping out of bed as I stare down Luca, waiting for more of an explanation than that. He can’t just drop a bomb like that on me. He can’t do that.

A million thoughts run through my head, questions, doubts, fears. Memories flash by, broken bits and pieces crashing down on me, making me flinch with the force of them.

I want to ask how, where, when? But only one word slips past my lips, the most important question of all and the answer I fear the most.

“Who?”

Declan wraps his body around me, pulling me against his chest where I can feel his rapid heartbeat. My own pounds so hard it’s almost hard to hear anything over the pounding in my ears. His arms band across my chest like a straight jacket, forcibly holding me together because he knows I’m moments away from completely losing it. Again.

Luca meets my gaze, his dark eyes a steel band of reassurance. It’s true. We’ve really found them. After all this time, I’m finally going to know the names of the men who hurt me. Probably more than their names. I’ll probably know them. Their families, their wives, maybe even their kids. Fear, shame, and something far more primal ricochet through me.

“Who?” I repeat, my voice cracking, and tears fill my eyes. I need to know and I’m fucking terrified at the same time. After so many years, I didn’t expect to feel this way. To feel the familiar sense of dread and terror. How many more pieces of myself are left to break? Will the who behind that night take the last pieces of myself I managed to save? The pieces I’ve managed to rebuild.

Am I about to shatter all over again?

“Jeffrey Schroder and Daniel Bernard.”

Five words. So decisive. So easy to push out.

Each one a whip against my bare skin. A new lash of pain and hate and humiliation.

Mrs. Schroder was my piano teacher. I used to babysit their daughter. Their miracle baby. They tried so hard for so many years to get pregnant and Mrs. Schroder was so happy when she finally got her daughter. A beautiful little girl the same age as the twins. Their friend.

Their family spent the second Sunday of every month at our house for a family dinner. Charles and his father were there often as well. It makes perfect sense for him to be one of the men. Of course, he was there. I almost hate myself for not seeing it earlier. It seems so obvious now.

New flashes of long forgotten memories begin to drown me.

A class ring against the dark walnut desk in my father’s office.

Familiar loafers in front of my face as my head bounces against the floor.

A dark chuckle that sounds familiar but distorted.

The weighted gaze in the crowded hallway that sent fear pulsing through me.

The heavy hand that landed on my shoulder, pushing against my wounds as Dean Bernard steered me into his office.

The guilt and shame that coursed through me.

The final pieces of the puzzles of my past click together in my mind. Enough for me to truly understand why I had to endure all of the trauma I did. Why it didn’t end with just that one night. Why I could never feel safe until I forged myself into a weapon.

Tears stream down my face. My body shakes in Declan’s arms. Their words all fall on deaf ears. I can’t hear them. I’m too busy processing it all. Men who were nice to me, who had families, kids of their own. Men who knew me. Really knew me. Didn’t hesitate to tear me down. To tarnish the crown they put on my head.

I want to hurt them. To destroy them. To hear them beg and whimper and watch them bleed before finally stealing the life from their eyes, the oxygen from their lungs.

I just woke up and I’m already exhausted by the emotional turmoil rising and falling through me. My body has a physical response to the emotions I can’t even begin to process.

I was right to be scared. To fear the answer. Somehow knowing makes that night all the uglier, all the more humiliating and painful. It makes every wound that much deeper, cut a little bit closer to the core. Anger at myself for not seeing it. For not noticing the lingering looks sooner, the odd behaviors, the manipulation that occurred after. The way the school stood back and allowed the sharks to circle me in blood-infested waters. For allowing the Dean to put the blame on me and never seeing it for what it was.

I was right to be scared. But I was wrong about it shattering me all over again.

I’m not breaking this time. I’m not alone anymore. I’m not the same girl they once knew and this time, we’re going to meet again on my terms. I’ll be the one with the blade. With the power. With all of the control.

But first, I need to let it all go. So I do.

Luca has already taken control of starting a plan. Declan, Kade, and Ryder all hold me together. I’d bet money Noah is already sitting behind a computer. They’re doing everything I should be doing, so I don’t have to. So I can let go.

I can feel the pain and mourn a life I thought I had stopped mourning long ago.

Sobs wrack my body, but this time I hear every word Declan, Kade, and Ry whisper to me. Each one gives me the strength to hold on. To not get sucked down into the whirlwind of despair building in my soul. I can feel this pain without drowning in it. Because I have them.

It could be minutes, or hours later when my tears finally subside. I feel wrecked. Broken words and half thoughts have slipped free as I tried to purge the thoughts from my brain. The guys stare at me with a mix of awe, devotion, and empathy in their eyes. They feel my pain as if it’s their own.

There was a time I would have thought this breakdown would be a sign of weakness, but my men have taught me better. I’ve never been stronger than in this moment. As I let my emotions bleed out of me the same way they did that night as I laid in a pool of my own blood. And just like that night, I’m going to stand back up, pick up the pieces and put them back together. Build an even stronger armor around my bruised and battered heart and get ready to become the predator.

I have my prey in my sights, and soon it will be time to pull the trigger.

They won’t be ready.