Chapter 8

DYLAN

Three days.

I make it three whole days without responding to Miranda’s text.

I can’t imagine what she must have thought, waking up after the night we had and finding herself alone in bed.

Hopefully she thought he’s an asshole who’s not worth my time.

Her text came right when her alarm went off and she found me gone.

It said, simply: Please don’t run.

Followed a few minutes later by: I could be your safe place.

That one text gutted me. Because fuck, I know it’s true. I felt it that night. I felt the kind of safety I haven’t since… well I’m not sure I ever felt as safe as I did last night. Certainly not when I was a kid. I could never truly relax in that house. I always had to be on edge for the next time Dad’s voice would be raised or time Mom screamed out in pain. Get the kids out of the house. Don’t let them see. Protect them. Protect—

And look how well that worked out.

I’ve been having the nightmare every night since I left Miranda’s. And it’s as vivid as the first time I lived through it all.

There are the sounds I’ll never forget. Chloe’s screams. My fist banging uselessly at the door.

Someone was hurting her. Violating her, and I couldn’t get through. Not in time to help her. Not in time to be any good to anybody.

Of course the terrible, terrible truth was that I was years too late.

Even though I’m at work and am wide awake, the flashbacks are so real I might as well be reliving them.

I slammed my shoulder against the door a second time and the door finally gave way. Only to find my sister weeping on the bed, tugging down the skirt of her school uniform as the door to her bathroom shut behind someone exiting out the bedroom.

“You son of a bitch!” I shouted, sprinting across the room and yanking the door open. The bathroom had two doors because it was shared between bedrooms and I ran for the other one. I’d kill the motherfucker when I caught him. I’d fucking kill h—

I yanked the door open.

Only to find my father in his dressing gown, standing with his hands out. “Dylan, now just wait a second. You—”

“You sick fuck!” I shouted and ran at him.

My first punch had him on the floor. He’d been a powerful man once but a heart attack last year had left him weakened.

Not so weak he couldn’t still prey on his own daughter. I was going to throw up. How could—? How long had he—?

I reared back and punched him again. He shoved at me even as blood spurted from his nose but I didn’t care.

Chloe. Sweet Chloe. She was the best of us. The only good thing to come out of this house besides Darren.

“Dylan. Dylan!”

The shrieks from the other room came through my haze of fury only distantly at first but as soon as they registered, I dropped my father to the ground and stumbled backwards.

“Chloe?” I turned and ran back through the bathroom to her room.

She was still where I’d last seen her. On the bed, hunched over, except she’d pulled the blanket around her, only her head peeking out. It was something she used to do as a little girl when there was a thunderstorm.

Oh God. Oh Jesus. What had he done to her. What had hedone?

“Chloe,” I said, my voice and my heart breaking as I went to her. She flinched back as I got close and I froze.

Her eyes were red and puffy and she looked at the wall as she said, “Dylan, get me out of this place. No police. No custody bullshit.” Her eyes finally came to mine and they were just… empty. “Get me out of here and don’t tell dad or anyone else where you take me. Anyone. Do you understand me. Not Darren. Not Dad.” She shuddered.

“Jesus, Chloe, I’d never tell Dad.”

I took another step toward her and again she flinched. “Just get me out of here,” she said, eyes jumping back toward the wall.

She couldn’t even look at me.

Sheknew.

She knew I was like him. That even earlier this afternoon, I’d been thinking maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Jesus, I needed to throw up. I needed to kill my father.

But I needed to get her out of this house more.

I swallowed down the bile creeping up my throat. “Do you want to change or pack a bag?”

Her eyes darted over to me and then away again. She shook her head. “Just get me out of here.”

I nodded stiffly, trying for her sake to keep my shit together.

She got up from the bed, still with the blanket around her. She held it like it was a shield even though both of us knew it had done nothing to protect her that day.

Just like I hadn’t.

“Dylan, what the hell, man?”

I jerk my head up to see Darren standing in the door of my office.

“You’re the one who called this meeting and you’re standing me up?”

“Shit.” I look down at the time on my computer and realize it’s ten minutes after two. I push my chair back and hurry to my feet, looking around and trying to grab the appropriate papers. And my laptop. Shit, don’t forget the laptop—

“Christ, slow down,” Darren laughs, coming in and helping me with the papers. “We’re the CEO and CFO. Believe me. The meeting won’t start without us.”

I cringe. I hate to be that guy. The boss that demands a standard from everybody else he doesn’t adhere to himself. And I’m pretty big on punctuality.

I swing my laptop bag over my shoulder.

“Okay, I’ve got everything. Let’s go.”

Dare just keeps shaking his head. “Slow down, take a breath. I know all the sudden you’ve decided to start taking a more active role in the company again, but the world won’t stop spinning if Dylan Lennox pauses to take a breath every so often.”

He claps me on the back and I do what he says, take a big breath in.

Yes, I do want to be more active again. Of course Darren noticed that I wasn’t living up to my end of the bargain when it’s come to being an equal partner in the company. I’ve walked around Lennex Brothers Corp like a zombie for years. But that’s all changing.

Ever since meeting Miranda, it’s like I was asleep for a hundred years and I’m just now waking up.

And it feels fucking terrifying. I’m not used to…feeling this much. To seeing this much.

For example, Lennox Bros. is about to launch a new robotics board in six months. And we were all set to go.

But we were going about it all wrong—playing it safe when we needed to be pushing the limits of innovation.

Hence, the meeting I’d called and am now late for.

I take the lead out of my office and head down the hallway to the conference room. All the usual suspects are there. Rob, Darren’s right hand man on the business end. Malik from engineering. Kayla from acquisitions. Natalie and several other reps handling the hardware bids. A handful of other people fill out the room. Water bottles are set out at each chair and a coffee tray steams on the back counter.

I sit at one head of the oval table and Darren takes the other.

“So,” Darren waves at me as soon as we’re settled. “We’re on pins and needles. What’s the reason for this meeting?”

Darren kept asking for a heads up to what the meeting was about but I wanted to wait and do it here. I’m not like Darren. I can’t just talk off the cuff. I’m best when I have all my facts together and I’ve thought through the presentation I want to make.

I take another deep breath like Darren suggested earlier and then begin.

“Right now the robotics board we’re about to push in six months is using the same kind of processor the last ten boards have used. But Intel-based processors are the past when it comes to robotics. They’re slow and inefficient when it comes to the massive amount of real time data you’re dealing with in robotics.”

I open up my laptop and go over the statistics from the past few years. It’s all clearer and clearer in my head the more I talk.

I finally look up at everyone again. “We don’t want to just be another robotics company out there. That was never our goal. Lennox Brothers is about pushing the envelope, being the best robotics company in the Silicon Valley, always on the cutting edge.”

I pause and look at each person, from face to face. “So I don’t think we have any other choice but to switch to a RISC based processor with our next launch.”

Talk immediately erupts around the table.

Kayla speaks up. “But we already have contracts in place with our current suppliers. We can’t just—”

“We have bids from our current suppliers,” I correct. “I checked and know for a fact that we haven’t committed to anyone for the new line yet.”

Kayla’s mouth drops open but then she closes it again, looking to Darren. She’s not the only one. About half the table is looking my brother’s way, like they expect him to put a stop to what I’m saying or put me in line.

I frown. All riiiiiight. Apparently more has slipped in the past few years than I realized. I am still the CEO.

But Dare has my back, just like always.

“I’ve been hearing murmurs about the RISC chips here and there,” Darren says.

“It’s more than murmurs,” I say. “RISC chips reduce consumption and can work up to ten times faster than the old style of processors. Half the community is already convinced RISC chips are the future of robotics, and if we can be on the frontier of integrating—”

“What about the other half?” Rob cuts in. “Doesn’t that mean that the other half thinks they’re a bad idea? I mean, when did status quo become the bad guy? We did a seven billion dollar quarter last year. We should go with what we know works.” He lets out a huffed laugh. “You don’t gamble when it comes to seven billion dollars.”

Who the fuck let this guy in here? This is a meeting about the product and he’s some asshole in a suit.

“Yes,” I say, conscious to stay absolutely calm on the outside. “But the reason we did that seven-billion-dollar quarter is because of our product and brand. Because people know they can trust that Lennox Brothers Robotics are always at the forefront of the state of the art. Our brand is everything. If we lose that confidence by putting out a product they can get anywhere else that’s slower than our competitors, then—”

“How about this?” Darren interrupts me.

I glare his way but he puts out a pacifying hand and I can see from his look that he’s pleading for me to hear him out.

Which is when I remember that yeah, while I’ve been checked out, it’s Dare who’s been steering this ship singlehandedly while I holed away down in in engineering and let the months and years pass me by.

I nod toward him and take my seat.

“My brother’s right,” Dare starts and I struggle not to smile at the reactions of the suits to his words. They all look like they’re sucking on lemons.

“Lennox is all about consumer trust,” Dare says, “and we can’t break that by giving them anything other than the most superior product.”

“But,” he raises a hand again when it seems like he’s going to get talk back, “we can only guarantee the most superior product if we can build it and get it working flawlessly. All the companies who’ve bid to have their processor used in our robotics board have sent along prototypes. So let’s do extensive testing and let the data speak for itself. Which processor gets the job done best in the fastest time? Let’s find that out, and then make our decisions.”

And this is why my brother is the face of Lennox Bros. Dare is so damn good with people. I assume that when I produce facts, that logical action will follow. I know the RISC processor will produce the best results without jumping through all the hoops of testing it against the others. But Darren sees what I can’t—that to appease the suits, we’ll need charts and defensible evidence to prove their money will be safe.

The rest of the meeting is logistics, organizing the order of testing the processors and which team leads will head up who, along with making a timeline. We won’t have long, three weeks or a month at most, but that will be pushing it if we want to keep to our current production schedule, six months out.

Two hours later, the meeting breaks up and Darren shakes everyone’s hand and chats as they all leave. I stay seated, phone in hand. Now that the meeting’s over, I’m back to staring at Miranda’s text.

I could be your safe place if you’d let me.

I shake my head and shove my phone in the side of my laptop bag, then I stand up to stretch my legs. Darren turns to me when the last person is finally gone.

“I could have used a heads up about this one.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I thought it would—” I gesture at the table and shake my head.

Dare frowns. “What?”

“Well I thought switching to the RISC chips was such an obvious move, I thought the meeting would just be about how to implement them. I didn’t even think about pushback.”

Darren busts out laughing at that. He’s still shaking his head when he comes over to me and claps me on the back. “Christ, Dylan. I know you’re my older brother, but I swear sometimes it’s like I’m the one shielding you from the way the world really works. Change freaks people out. You have to go slow and then convince them it was their idea all along.”

“Jesus, I hate all that politicking bullshit.” I shake my head and take a swig from my water bottle.

“Which is why you tinker and build the nice machines and I sell them. Now, enough about work. Anything happen with the babe in the red dress?”

I choke on the water and spit half of it out.

“Whoa, whoa!” Darren smacks me on the back and I cough until I can finally manage a breath.

“Christ, that bad?” Darren laughs.

I shake my head, swiping my mouth on my shirt sleeve. After another few coughs to clear my throat, I look up only to find Darren with an eyebrow raised.

“So it went well? Let’s hear it. Was she screaming your name or was it more of a dine and dash situation?”

I roll my eyes and grab my chest. “Jesus, I’m dying over here and all you can think about is whether or not I got laid?” The last thing I want to talk about is Miranda. I’m too fucked up about her in my own head to try to be able to make sense of it all in words, especially to Dare, who only sees women in terms of notches on his bed post.

“Basically.” Darren nods. “Now, I gotta know. Were those tits real?”

“Jesus, Dare.” Then I scrunch my forehead. “Wait, how do you even know about her?”

“I stopped by the conference.”

“You hate those things.”

“Not true.” He holds up a finger. “I hate the boring as fuck talks. Now the partying afterward, that I’m all about. But right as I got off the elevator in the lobby from my room, I saw you following her out.”

“You had a room at the hotel that night?”

“Yes. Unlike some people, when I see a woman I want, I’m not afraid to seal the deal.” He scrutinizes me before a smile slowly creeps across his face. “You did it, didn’t you? You dog.” He raises both hands. “Well all I can say is hallelujah, praise Jesus. So all it took was a stacked brunette to finally bring an end to the—what? year long?—dry spell?”

More like six years, not that he ever needs to know. “Shut up, dumbass. And don’t talk about her like that.” Miranda is so much more than he’s making her out to be. Even thinking about her hurts because it just reminds me of all I’ll never have.

“Ooooh,” he draws the word out. “So it’s like that? Has there been a second date? Come on, I tell you everything. In the hotel, I took Rita, this hot as fuck piece of ass from Kent Laboratories, and fucked her brains out in the bathroom. She must do fucking gymnastics, because I had her bent so far over, I swear her—”

“Enough.” I squeeze my eyes shut and put a hand to my temple. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want a play by play of your most recent fuck toy?”

“I figure I’m doing you a favor. You gotta have material for the spank bank somehow, right?”

“I’m done with this conversation,” I start walking for the door.

Darren just laughs behind me. “Never gets old. You make it too easy, brother. And it’s Friday night. Go live a little.”

I roll my eyes but right before I get to the door, I stop, remembering what happened the last time I gave in and lived a little. Miranda, cradling her arm. And that was after we acted out a fantasy of me raping her.

Like father like son.

“Hey,” I swallow down my self-disgust and turn my head back toward Darren, “do you ever miss Chloe?”

Darren’s face sobers instantly and he blinks a couple times, obviously surprised by my non-sequitur. “Yeah, all the time. What makes you ask?”

I shrug and look down.

“Do you ever call her? Or write?”

After that horrific afternoon, I took Chloe straight to a hotel. She was only a few months away from her eighteenth birthday so I kept her hidden away in the hotel until then. Once she turned eighteen, I asked her where she wanted to live. She said Austin, so we bought plane tickets to Texas. I bought her a house there with my portion of my grandfather’s inheritance I’d gotten when I’d turned eighteen.

She doesn’t do social media so I can’t look in on her. But I try to imagine her happy. Even though I know it’s probably a fucking lie. After all she went through… for years… To this day, I don’t know how many years my father sexually abused her.

Darren looks toward the window. “I tried. In the beginning.”

I gave him her number and email right after she moved. I figured she should have some tie to the only part of her family that wasn’t fucked up. Or that wasn’t me. If there was one gift I could give my sister after all she went through, it was never having to see my face again.

I look exactly like my father.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror in the morning I feel a rush of rage and self-hatred so violent that I’ve broken at least two mirrors by punching them.

“Did she talk to you?”

Darren shakes his head. “It just went to voicemail. She never opened my emails, either.”

I swallow and nod. “She needed a clean break.”

“From what?” Darren looks at me and takes a step closer. “Dylan, what happened?”

The cocky, self-assured guy from minutes ago is gone. It’s my little brother standing in front of me now. The same little brother who would grab hold of my legs and look up at me, eyes wide and scared when I ushered him and Chloe out to the back yard after Dad started yelling and I knew what would follow.

“I know it was something bad,” he says. “Something with Dad. And Chloe. He was never the same after she left and then just months later he had another heart attack when he’d been doing fine for years.” He gets right in my face. “I’m not stupid. I knew what went on in that house. Dad hit her, didn’t he? He hit Chloe and you found out? Then you got her out of there?”

I turn away from him again and he grabs my shoulder in an iron grip, swinging me back around to look at him. “Stop it. I’m not a little kid anymore. You don’t have to protect me.”

“Yes I do!” I shout, shoving him off me. “I do.” I back away, shaking my head. “I do. Believe me, it’s better this way.”

It’s better if he never has that image in his head. So much better if all he has are suspicions that Dad hit Chloe. Jesus if only it had been that. If I can save him from the sick details of what actually happened, then by fuck, I will, no matter the cost.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” I mutter and stride out the door and into the hallway.

Still, his voice carries. “So you’re just going to run away? Dylan.”

Please don’t run.

I squeeze my eyes shut after I punch the down button on the elevator.

I could be your safe place.

She’s wrong. She’s so wrong.

No place is safe.

Because the memories and the monsters?

They follow me wherever I go.