Page 144 of Dark Endures

I did this all wrong. “It wasn’t you. I know how to take care of mean drunks. My mother taught me how to protect myself.” She even demonstrated it several times with random men who didn’t turn into boyfriends. “When he got his hands around my neck, I froze. All I had to do was kick him, and I would have been free.” But I froze. I’d like to blame it on shock, but it was fear, plain and simple. I’ve never seen someone that wrathful.

“But you didn’t kick him?”

“No.”

“How bad was it?” she whispers as tears fill her eyes.

“I passed out through most of it. Small gifts, right?”

She pretends to smile to match mine.

“Dahlia.” Maverick’s voice echoes through the library.

Uh oh.

I stand up and turn towards him.

“Tell me that an honorable man is lying to me. Tell me he is lying, and that you weren’t sexually assaulted when I was there.”

What? No! This man isn’t treating my friend like that. I step in between the two of them. “Don’t you talk to her like that.”

Rage builds inside of me. “When a woman has been abused, she gets to choose when she shares and who she shares with. You don’t get to bully her.” I get really close to him, which probably is asking for death, but that’s not going to stop me. “I don’t care how scary you are. Or that you’ll probably smush me like a bug. You need to step back and change your tone.”

“Who hurt you?” Maverick asks in the softest tone.

One I’ve only heard reserved for Dahlia. “Adonis.”

“No. I mean before that. Who hurt you?”

“How… How did you know?”

He steps closer. “Tell me their names.”

“No. She’s mine.”

What did Maddox just say?

“She lives on The Street. Mindy is my responsibility.”

Those words confirm that all of this isn’t because he has a thing for me. I’m his responsibility, like all the other people around here.

Duel At Dawn

Maddox

“No. I mean before that. Who hurt you?”

Before Adonis?

“How… How did you know?”

Wait, she was assaulted?

Vex steps closer. “Tell me their names.”

“No. She’s mine,” the words burst out of me before I can temper them.

Three heads snap towards me.

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