Page 11 of Broken By Silence
Crew’s mouth opens, closes. He turns to me again.
I see the pain in his eyes, like he wants me to tell him this is all one big lie, to take it all back, but I can’t. “Lottie…”
I shake my head. “I…” My throat closes, and I squeeze my eyes closed as silence threatens to overwhelm me, but I push forward. “I couldn’t. You were theirs. Their heirs. Their tools. And I was just the girl they left broken.”
“I killed James because I found out, but it wasn’t mine to tell you…” He looks at Crew, who looks shattered. “Or you. I did it for revenge for her because I thought she was dead. I got revenge for the girl who couldn’t do it herself.”
Roman snorts, bitter and hollow. “You did it for yourself.”
“I was protecting everyone,” Elijah shoots back, voice cracking. “If the truth came out, everything would’ve exploded. The whole fucking foundation of everything we were working toward?—”
“I don’t care about foundations,” Roman growls. “I care about her.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
Crew slowly turns back to me, tears pooling in his eyes, but he doesn’t let them fall. “Why didn’t you let us fight for you?”
I close my eyes. “I tried. I was going to, and you locked me in that cupboard. I didn’t think you would believe me, and I just wanted to forget.”
No one speaks after that.
Tears sting, but I don’t let them fall. Not now. Not here.
Elijah steps toward me. “If I knew…” His voice fractures. “Lottie. I swear—if I knew he… If I knew—God.”
He steps toward me, like he wants to touch me, but I step back.
Not out of hate. Out of self-preservation.
“I know,” I murmur, because what else can I say?
Crew is pacing now. Hands in his hair. “So this is what we are now? People raised by monsters?”
Roman coughs—half breath, half pain. “We were always that.”
No one speaks after that. The air is thick with betrayal and the truth that finally unearthed itself like bones in shallow graves.
Then the door creaks again.
Oscar steps in, unaware of the powder keg he’s just walked into.His eyes go from me, to Roman, to the two stunned men standing around the hospital bed. He frowns and signs,“What’s going on?”
I freeze.
And Roman looks at me. “Does he know?” he asks quietly.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
Oscar is the one person who looks at me like I’m not broken. The only person who doesn’t know that I’mtainted.
Oscar walks toward me, confused but concerned, brushing my arm gently with the backs of his fingers. I blink up at him, heart hammering.
He signs again, slower this time.“Lottie? Are you okay?”
I feel my throat tighten, and my eyes sting. Then I slowly lift my hands to respond, but they shake too badly for the signs to come out clean.
But I try.
“No.”
