Page 57 of Quiet Protector
I unclick the safety of my gun before inching back the trigger. Nothing is on my mind, not a single fucking thing. Liam was right. Sometimes the world doesn’t need another hero.
They need a monster.
“Save a spot for our father in hell. I’m sure he’ll be joining you there shortly because the men who hide rapists are just as evil as the ones committing the heinous acts.”
My gun is cocked, the safety is off, but before I can send Madden to hell for his sins, I’m crash-tackled from the side. With Grayson putting all his weight behind his hit, we skid across the sidewalk before landing on the asphalt with a thud. Our impact with the rigid material shreds my pants, but it has nothing on the fury it bombards me with.
“Get the fuck off me!” I scream at Grayson, fighting to get out of his clutch.
He holds on tight, not relinquishing his grip in the slightest. “We’ll get him, Brandon, but not like this. Not in front of your mother.”
I continue to fight him, needing to end Madden’s life before the pain tearing me in two ends mine. “He raped her, Grayson. He fucking raped her!”
His voice is lower than mine, more controlled. “I know, punk, I know. We’ll get him. I promise you, he’ll pay for what he’s done. Just not like this. Not here. I won’t have you locked up because of him. Melody needs you.”
“He raped her.” This confirmation doesn’t come out as stern as my first since it’s choked by a sob. “He fucking raped her. My Melody. He hurt my Melody.”
As Grayson pins me to the ground as effectively as two plain-clothed officers do Madden to place cuffs on him, I break.
Not a little.
Not subtly.
I break wholly and without constraint.
23
Melody
Ishake my head when Julian jingles a decanter of whiskey from the bar in the living room of our suite my way. I’m still mad at him. He had no right to tell Brandon what he did, no right at all. He wasn’t the one who was raped, so he doesn’t get to choose who I share my secret with.
Furthermore, even in the midst of a terrifying panic attack, I couldn’t miss the horrifying way he blurted out my news. Could you imagine how Brandon felt finding out his brother raped his girlfriend in his childhood home from the man she’s planning to marry? That’s a fucked-up set of circumstances. One I’d give anything to rewind and change.
I had only just gotten out of the shower when the receptionist from the hotel called to say Julian’s wallet had been found in the bar downstairs. Julian offered to collect it when he overheard our call, but since the shower hadn’t helped to unravel the massive knot in my stomach from my confrontation with Brandon, I thought a couple of minutes of fresh air would do me some good.
I also wanted to keep Julian away from alcohol since our room smelled like a distillery.
Part of me wants to say if I had known the outcome of my quick visit to the lobby, I would have asked Fetu to go down. The other half knows that’s a lie. For years, I was convinced it was Joey who had raped me. I saw his shoes. I felt the smoothness of his chin. I was certain it was him.
I would still be convinced if Madden isn’t as disgusting as he is abhorrent.
His comment was the weakest, most underhanded rile, but it flicked on the lightbulb in my head in an instant. He told Connor not to feel bad about my rejection because “Deaf girls aren’t as vocal in bed as people make them out to be.” I could have brushed off his comment as being a generalization of hearing-impaired females if he hadn’t added, “Once I flipped her over and pinned her arms behind her back, she stopped fightingandmoaning. Worst fuck I’ve ever had.”
When my eyes rocketed to his, his face gave him away in less than a nanosecond. He wasn’t just shocked I had heard what he said, he was panicked, aware Brandon wouldn’t care that they share the same blood. No one is off-limits when it comes to protecting me.
My first response was anger. I was mad as hell to be standing across from the man who had raped me. Madden should count his lucky stars the closest weapon I had was his table.
Remorse only overtook my anger when my eyes collided with Mrs. McGee’s as Brandon dragged me out of the bar. She wasn’t upset I was making a spectacle of myself in front of important dignitaries I’m certain to cross at some stage in my career. She looked heartbroken like she knew my secret. But even worse than that was the guilt on her face. I don’t know why she’d feel guilt. She hadn’t done anything wrong. I was the one painting her deceased son as a rapist.
I’m drawn from my thoughts when the buzzer of the Presidential suite shudders my heart out of my chest. When my eyes stray to Julian, too nervous as to who could be visiting, he places down the whiskey decanter. “I’ll get it.”
My breathing stops, my eyes refuse to blink, and my heart doesn’t beat when I follow Julian’s solemn trek to the door. The low hang of his shoulders reveals the words I screamed at him when he thwarted my wish to follow Brandon’s hasty retreat hurt him, but in all honesty, I won’t apologize for them. I don’t recall what I said, much less have had the time to decipher if they were honest or not. I’ve been too busy wearing a hole in the rug, pacing.
My heart falls from my ribcage when Julian swings open the door to display Brandon standing on the other side. Excluding some droplets of blood on the collar of his dress shirt, he appears relatively uninjured. It’s the broken, lost boy I see in his eyes causing my stuttering response. He looks as defeated as I did when I peered at my reflection for the first time after my assault.
He’s hurting—badly.
My heart breaks for him when he signs, “I am so sorry—”
