Claiming Crusher (Savage Brothers MC #4)(98)

Another lick. Dinah wept and Meggie’s belly roiled at the tormented sounds.

“Please, Thomas,” Dinah cried. “You’ve got to stop!”

Meggie nodded vigorously. Yes, he had to stop. One of these days he’d kill her mom.

Glass shattered and furniture banged. Dry heaves wracked Meggie at the heavy thud. She knew that sound, knew it meant her mother was careening to the floor. Dinah screamed and Meggie doubled over, sweat popping off her skin, her mother’s pain her own.

Surrounded by her white bedroom furniture and pastel green décor, she wondered how her home life was such a nightmare. On the outside, everyone saw the perfect family—a woman, an assistant high school principal, finding happiness in her second marriage with the teddy bear of a middle school math teacher who’d stepped in as a father-figure to the woman’s daughter.

Dinah’s scream coupled with tearing clothes. Though not in the den, Meggie had seen the situation play out enough to pick out the sounds and their meanings.

“Please,” Dinah sobbed. “I don’t want to.”

She didn’t want to have sex, she meant. Meggie bowed her head into her hands, wishing for the strength and fortitude to take it upon herself to kill her stepfather.

“Let’s go in the bedroom.” Dinah’s breath caught around a moan.

Thomas grunted. “I’m f*cking you right here. Right out in the open.”

Embarrassment competed with Meggie’s fear and anger.

Her mother’s next sob burned through Meggie and she covered her face.

“Don’t. Not in the den. I don’t want Meggie to hear.”

“Think she’s not f*cking?”

No. Meggie bit into her wrist, barely feeling the injury but tasting metallic blood.

“No,” Dinah echoed through tears. “She’s a virgin.”

“No. She’s not,” Thomas sneered. “I should know.”

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Meggie stared at her bite mark, oozing red, and shook her head in denial.

Silence met Thomas’s lie and he took advantage of the stunning insinuation by taunting, “she’s been coming on to me for months. I thought it best to keep it in the family.”

“Wh-what?”

Meggie wasn’t sure if she wanted her mother to believe Thomas or not. Dinah was too broken to attempt to defend her. She hadn’t even allowed the police to haul Thomas away, a week ago, when Meggie had called 911. Instead, she’d blamed her injuries on something asinine and stupid. For Meggie’s attempt to defend Dinah that night, she’d gotten her bedroom door removed.

“You lying bastard,” Dinah screamed.

Meggie drew in a sharp breath, her already aggravated pulse and heart rate throbbing in her ears. She spread her blood over her skin, attempting to refocus.

Thomas yelped and, for a few blessed moments, it sounded as if Dinah asserted herself and inflicted serious damage.

“You f*cking bitch!” he snarled. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Big Joe is coming for her,” Dinah persisted in a wild, unrecognizable tone. “I called him! And I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell him you’ve violated his baby. I’m going to tell him and he’s going to kill you. He’s going to chop your dick off and feed it to pigs.”

Meggie cheered at the thought. Her daddy was coming. She’d been trying to reach him for weeks. Left so many messages, it surprised her his voicemail wasn’t filled to capacity. She knew how busy he was, so the fact he hadn’t answered wasn’t real surprising. Sometimes, it took her months to get a response from him. Before, he’d just blaze into town on his bike, the noise of his Harley pipes rumbling in the quiet suburb blocks away. He took a lot of trips, something he called runs.

Ever since Dinah had barred him from visiting at Thomas’s insistence, two years ago, Meggie always imagined going on the road with him and his boys.

“You know how hard your fighting makes me, huh, baby?” Thomas crooned.

“Y-yes.”

“I’m not letting Megan live with him. When he comes, tell him she’s not interested in going with him.” He groaned and gasped. “Tell him she doesn’t want to see him. Ever again.”

Dinah moaned. “Right there, Thomas. Harder.”

Meggie’s cheeks burned and her stomach churned at Thomas’s filthy response. And so the cycle continued, she thought, humiliated. She stretched to her pillow and retrieved the little knife she kept hidden under it. Pressing the sharp blade against her forearm, she sliced down, sucking in a breath at the brief burn and pain. Blood rushed from the wound and her tension and fear seeped away with it. The respite lasted a moment. The satisfaction dwindled in the amount of time it took the pain to recede.

Sniffling, she tightened her mouth and slashed again. Meggie swiped her tears once more and slashed at the wrist she’d bitten.

“Ah, God!” She’d gone deeper than she intended and had to grab the sheet to staunch the flow of blood, the sounds from the den both sickening and infuriating. She wasn’t sure if her mother truly liked Thomas’s attention or if she just accepted it. In the end, no matter what Thomas said or did, Dinah gave him sex. Meggie didn’t want to see her mother as a weak, pathetic woman because it went deeper than that.

Dinah had tried to run in the early days of their marriage. Both times Thomas had found her and beaten her to a bloody pulp before using his fists on Meggie. Her mother had just given up and given in. She knew her mother refused to risk Meggie being hurt again because of her escape attempts.