Page 38 of Broken By Silence
Claire steps closer. “Touch her again. Speak one more word about handing her over to that prick. One move, one breath near her… and you won’t just regret it. You’ll wish you were dead before you ever thought about hurting her again.”
Tracey collapses to her knees, trembling. Relief claws at my chest. Claire is here. For the first time in years, someone is standing between me and her.
Tracey’s lips tremble, but her defiance flares. “You… what are you gonna do? Kill me?” she spits, wobbling to her feet, bottle raised like a weapon. “You think you’re going to be able to stop me? She’s mine! You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do!”
Claire doesn’t flinch. Her eyes narrow, cold, and for a moment, I think she’s going to kill her right here, in front of everyone. “One step closer, Tracey,” she mutters, “and you’ll regret it more than you’ve ever regretted anything in your pathetic life.”
Tracey swings the bottle, wild, unsteady, and I flinch, but Claire moves like a shadow… Quick, precise, just like she taught me. She deflects it with a sharp kick, sending the bottle skidding across the pavement. Tracey swears, lunging forward with hands raised, eyes wild.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” Tracey screams, voice cracking. “I raised her! I did what I had to do to survive!”
Claire steps closer, each movement measured, deliberate. “I told you that you’re done. You chose drugs over your daughter. She was never yours, because no mother would sacrifice their child for their own gain.”
Tracey freezes for a heartbeat, the words sinking in, but only barely. Her chest heaves, eyes flicking between Claire and me, hunting for weakness. “She’s nothing,” she spits, voice shaking with anger and something darker, “always acting so perfect. Do you really think she’s worth all this fuss?”
Claire doesn’t flinch, her gaze locked on Tracey. She gets into her space, crowding her against the wall. “Worth something?” she repeats slowly. “She’s my daughter. She’s worth everything.”
Tracey staggers, wiping sweat from her face, a manic grin twisting her features. Her voice cracks with fury. “She’s worth nothing!” she spits, venom dripping from every word. “She’s never been anything. She’s just a tool. A ticket. Lorenzo uses her, and I take what I can. She has never been worth a damn thing to me.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the chest. My knees threaten to buckle, my breath catching, but Claire doesn’t flinch. Her expression changes slowly, terrifyingly, from controlled fury to something darker.
Her pupils narrow, the air around her seeming to tighten. I’ve seen Claire angry before, protective—but this is different.
This is raw, uncontainable rage. “You are done,” she says, voice low and deliberate, carrying the weight of every threat she has ever made. “You ever come here again, and I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
Tracey laughs, bitter and unhinged, and her voice is loud enough to draw glances from passing students, but she doesn’t care. “Killme?” she hisses, shaking her head. “You really think she’s worth that? Worth anything at all? She’s just a pawn. A girl to be used up by Lorenzo. A piece in his games, and if you think saving her matters, if you think she’s anything more than what we made her, you’re a fool. You are a fool to care about her.”
Something in Claire snaps. I see the red flare in her eyes, the way her hands clench, the almost imperceptible tremor that betrays the power coiling inside her. She doesn’t hesitate. The world narrows to her movement.
She moves faster than Tracey can react, a shadow striking, and everything changes in an instant. The sound of a body hitting the pavement is loud. Tracey’s eyes widen in shock, the sneer wiped clean from her face. I stand frozen, my chest heaving, my mind caught between disbelief and relief.
Claire doesn’t breathe heavily, doesn’t move. She stands over Tracey, calm now, but the lethal edge of who she is stays. She turns to me, voice steady, low. “She will never touch you again. Not ever.”
Claire pulls out her phone, while I stare down at Tracey’s unconscious body. I hear her muttering to Will… I think… about needing some trash cleaned up, and then she’s back. Arms around my shoulders, leading me away.
Chapter 15
Lottie
The office is too quiet. The hum of the diffuser, the scratch of Emma’s pen against paper, even the faint groan of the radiator. It all makes the silence louder.
I hate silence. I lived in it far too long because of the choices of other people.
I sit on the chair across from her, hands twisted in my lap, my throat aching like it has been stitched shut. Speaking still feels like dragging broken glass across my vocal cords.
My voice works now, but the memory of all those years when it didn’t makes me hesitant.
Silence was safer then.
Sometimes it feels like it would be safer now.
Emma leans forward slightly,her eyes steady on me. “Lottie,” she says softly, like she’s afraid to spook me, “last time we spoke, you were struggling still. How are you doing today?”
I take a shaky breath. I am already sweating. My tongue feels heavy, like it doesn’t belong to me.
“I’m still struggling, but it’s more because of Roman, Elijah, and Crew. The three boys who bullied me are now staying with us.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
