“That’s not your concern.They’re good for the money.Won’t jip you a dime.”
“I said, who?”she snaps.
“The Fallen Demons MC.”
She blinks slowly, her lower lip quivering slightly.I wait for the tears to trickle from the corners of her eyes, but they don’t.Instead, she plants her hands on the desk and straightens her shoulders.I guess the corporate world taught her to have a backbone.If I weren’t so fucking mad, I’d applaud her for her efforts.
“Well, I hate to break it to you and your biker friends, but I’m not selling my half,” she says evenly.“I can help you here.We don’t need to bring in outsiders.”
That last sentence slashes through my pride, and my armor is up before I know it.
“Della, you’re a fucking outsider yourself.You can’t sweep in here like some fucking hero when you don’t know shit about how this place works.Riding horses and cleaning stalls when you were a teen doesn’t qualify you as the savior of Meadows Ranch.I’m buying you out.End of fucking story.Then you can go back to your happy little life and keep doing whatever the hell it is you did before.”
She flinches, and the dam breaks.Tears stream down her cheeks.
“What life?”she shrieks.“What job?I have nothing.”
I narrow my eyes.“What are you talking about?”
She wraps her arms around herself just as a sob escapes her.“You know nothing about what I’ve gone through.You don’t know how unhappy I’ve been.How coming home felt like peace to me.A peace I haven’t felt since my senior year of college.”
I haven’t seen Della this distraught since our mother died.Back then, seeing my sister in so much pain gutted me and left me with a dire need to protect her.Now, I’m just conflicted.
“Okay, then tell me.What have you gone through that’s been so bad?Huh?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she rasps, furiously wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand.“I’m not selling, Maddox, don’t think you can convince me.”
“Fuck that, Della.You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and just walk away from me.If you want me to understand you, you need to start fucking talking.I’m not a mind reader.”
She hesitates for a moment, closing her eyes as she composes herself.When they open again, they’re vacant.
Soulless.
“My senior year, I was working on two degrees, burning both ends of the candle.I wasn’t playing around.My roommate saw I was stressed andconvinced me to go to a party.”
She pauses for a beat, her eyes flashing with torment.The sight makes my gut twist with dread.I don’t know what she’s about to tell me, but I’m sure I don’t want to hear it.
I listen intently as she recalls going to a party with her roommate.Then my breath ceases when she begins to speak of some fucking guy named Scott.I can sense where she’s going with this, and my hands ball into fists.
“The next thing I knew, Scott was ushering me into a room where James and two other guys were waiting.Cameron was there too,” she sobs, her whole body shaking.“She taped it.”Her eyes flit to mine, and more tears slide down her cheeks.“She just sat there, recording while they raped me.”She shakes her head.“I thought she was my friend.Some judge of character I am.”
My jaw tightens, and my vision blurs as rage surges through me.
“You should have told me.”
I would’ve fucking killed them.I would’ve tortured them all, and when they begged for mercy, I would’ve slit their throats.The roommate’s too.
“I didn’t think you or anyone else would believe me.”She releases a ragged breath before continuing.“I ended up finishing school, getting the internship, and blocking out what happened to me.That night destroyed my future.I had plans to come home after graduation.I figured I could apply my degrees to the ranch and help wherever I could, but everything went up in smoke.But I was too ashamed to face anyone here.”
All this time I thought he was off living her dreams, not giving a single fuck about me, or the ranch.But she was living a fucking nightmare.
I close the distance between us, bending at my knees to make us eye level.
“Della, you listen here.You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.Not a fucking thing.You were a victim.I just wish you would’ve said something sooner.We could’ve helped you deal with the aftermath.”My nostrils flare as I point a finger at my chest.“Icould’ve helped you.”
Instead, she kept it to herself.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she croaks.“I didn’t want to disappoint Granddaddy, and if he knew that I’d put myself in such a situation, that’s exactly what would have happened.”
