Page 58 of Hate So Deep

Stepping back, I whisper, “N-Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” he growls, grabbing my arm.

“Colt,” Dirk says, his frown bouncing between me and the back of Colt’s head.

We may not get along and he may hate me but I’m not going to tell everyone in this room something Colt wouldn’t want to share.

When my eyes slide to Finn, Colt shoves past me and Finn follows. The icy fear behind his look haunts me though and I blurt, hoping to make this right somehow, “It was nothing. She thinks you attacked Buck.”

It’s a partial truth but better than lying because Colt knows something, and he’ll hate me that much more if I do.

Standing to his full height, he eyes me for a moment before saying, “I don’t give a fuck what she says. Or you…”

After that he rushes up the stairs with Finn behind him and I turn to Dirk.

Beyond him, Ramie, and Hayden stand, and I shrink away when Hayden sneers, “That sick, disgusting, piece of shit got what he deserved.”

“Hayden,” Ramie whispers, and he grabs her up, resting his forehead against hers.

Absently I note that he’s trembling, I assume with rage but the particulars of what my brother did to earn the enmity of all these people will have to wait.

I’m now stuck wondering if my mother just admitted to sleeping with my half-brother and based on his reaction, I suspect it wasn’t consensual.

How do I unpack that?

Turning away, I grab the bottle of tequila sitting on the floor and proceed to chug from the top, until Dirk grabs it from my hand and rasps, “Stop.”

“I can’t,” I sob as Ramie and Hayden disappear up the stairs.

“Lauren,” he says, grabbing me up when I collapse to the floor. “What the fuck is going on?”

Covering my face because I can’t look at him while my skin itches like this, I don’t answer. I also can’t reveal a secret that isn’t mine and as I sit here on the floor in Dirk’s arms rage suffuses my bones.

“I hate her,” I mutter, burying my face in Dirk's chest. “I fucking hate her.”

“Sh,” he says.

How dare she spit her disgusting shit at me. She’s created a rift that nothing can repair and now I have to walk this path knowing something my brother didn’t want anyone to know.

Fuckher.

Dirk

Why can’t that bitch let her find happiness? It’s like she sniffs out when Lauren is here and creates chaos before leaving her to pick up the pieces.

There’s something seriously wrong with that stone-cold bitch and her father isn’t much better.

Regardless, the weight of her grief feels heavy in my arms while she sobs her pain into the universe and the worst part is that there’s nothing, I can do to change her reality.

What did the woman say that set Colt off?

I could probably guess, but some things are sacred and if Colt wanted to share them, he would have.

Still, as I hold Lauren, trembling in my arms, Colt’s vicious gaze passes over my vision and I concede, he may never get to a place where he can accept Lauren as his sister.

Especially if that bitch continues to try and tear it apart.

This leaves my broken baby girl alone and with a weird burn in my chest, I carry her upstairs to her bed before laying down beside her.

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