When I'm With You (Little Hollow Series, #2)(68)

“She said everyone, Bear,” dad says, narrowing his eyes at him.

Hunter snorts a laugh. “Yeah, I ain’t leavin’.” And sits down in the chair to my right to prove his point.

My dad looks like he’s about to walk forward to get Hunter out, so I sigh, “He can stay.”

He narrows his eyes at him but talks to me. “Your mom?”

I nod even though he’s not looking at me. “She tried to tell you what Merl was like but you wouldn’t listen, you kept telling her to stop attention seeking and do her Old Lady duties and stand by your side.” I eye Hunter and he winces. Although he was always the one I would run to when I needed to feel safe, there wasn’t one time I ever told him why, he’d always just assumed it was because of my mom’s drinking. “I even tried to tell you a bunch of times that he made me feel uncomfortable, but he was your brother, and not just by the patch, he was a blood brother, so why would you listen to us?”

He waits for me to carry on talking, although I can see his jaw ticking as he holds back what he wants to say.

“I was six years old when I first saw him force himself on her. She hid me in your closet but I could still see through the gaps in the doors. He held her down and raped her right there and then left, just like that. It happened nearly every damn day and she tried to tell you!”

I hear Hunter growl beside me but I ignore him and stare back at my dad, feeling the anger flood through me at the injustice. “She couldn’t handle it anymore, she drowned herself in liquor all the time because your sick, twisted brother couldn’t keep it in his pants. The bruises? They weren’t from drunken falls the majority of the time, he’d come around and let off his frustration in one way or another. Why do you think I was always around Trent and Arlene’s?”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve helped,” Hunter says, sounding choked from anger.

“My own dad didn’t believe us, so why tell you when nothing would get done about it anyway? It was a brother’s word against ours, we didn’t stand a chance.”

“I would’ve helped,” he says, gritting his teeth.

“What’s done is done.” I turn to face my dad again. “It became the norm and it turned me against everything that was the club. When mom left us, I waited day after day for her to come back for me but it never happened, and I guess I know why now. He killed her.”

My dad still hasn’t said anything out of shock until now. “I didn’t know any of that was goin’ on or I would’ve done somethin’.”

I laugh. “You wouldn’t have done shit, you didn’t do shit. Instead you invited him around and when I tried to escape it all when I was eighteen, when I chose to have nothing to do with the club, you made me stay. Made me help you run the house and pay the bills instead of getting somewhere of my own away from all of it.”

I can see the anger starting to flow through him, waking him up out of his shocked state. “None of that was my fault! Your mom left me, I didn’t want you to leave me too!”

“Bullshit! Three years later you were throwing me out and calling me a whore, believing that piece of shit over me! I was left on my own, you chose him and the club over your own daughter. Seeing you in front of me now just makes me feel sick.” My chest heaves. “What are you actually here for? ‘Cause I’m about finished with you, I’m tired.”

He walks forward and Hunter stands, protecting me.

“You whored around with a rival club! You knew the consequences!”

“If you had let me explain back then, you’d know there wasn’t an ounce of truth to that!”

He laughs. “Don’t try cover your back now, I forfeited my respect from most of the brothers for you. When the tip came in to me, I knew I had to get you out and away from the club, I was protecting you.”

“Protecting yourself, there’s a difference! I didn’t fuck anyone!” I shout, having had enough of his shitty excuses. “That was the problem, I wouldn’t let him take what he wanted from me so he thought he’d get rid of me instead, just like mom.”

“What you talkin’ about?”

“The ‘tip’? From the sickos mouth himself. Don’t believe me? I don’t give a shit but I would put my life on it. The day before you got rid of me, he forced his fugly self on me and I got away, slashed his face up pretty good too. He didn’t like not getting his own way so he made up that ‘tip’.”

Realization rolls across his face and he runs a hand through his hair. Hunter can’t control his temper anymore as a chair goes flying across the room, narrowly missing my dad. He wasn’t aiming for him but the room is small.

“I thought your intel was sound! How could you not check it out before you threw her out on her own?”

“I thought I was protecting her! I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Hunter, please.” I rub at my temples as the headache from earlier pounds through my head.

The room goes silent apart from his heavy breathing.

“I can’t take back the past three years, but I’m calling emergency church to clear things up with everyone, no one will touch you,” dad grinds out.

I scoff. “You think I’m actually going to come back with you?”