I should have asked more questions. Should have been more careful. Should have protected her better.
But I hadn’t.
Because I’d been too busy falling for a man who beat women.
A knock on the door startled us both.
I pulled back from Frankie, wiping my face. “Go to your room, okay? I’ll handle this.”
She hesitated, then nodded and disappeared back down the hall.
I walked to the front door and looked through the peephole.
Maggie stood on the porch, Rhoda beside her. Behind them, Cami and Nox waited.
I opened the door.
Maggie took one look at me and pulled me into her arms.
I broke.
All over again.
I sobbed into her shoulder, my hands clutching at her jacket, my body shaking with the force of it. She didn’t say anything. She just held me, her hand rubbing slow circles on my back, while Rhoda stepped inside.
“What happened?” Maggie asked quietly.
Cami and Nox followed, closing the door softly behind them. Cami’s eyes were red, as if she’d been crying too. Nox looked grim, his jaw tight.
“Where’s Frankie?” Maggie asked.
“In her room,” I said.
Maggie nodded. “Let’s sit down.”
Cami rushed down the hall, and Rhoda took Nox into the guest room and set him up to watch something on her phone.
Maggie guided me to the couch, and I sank onto it, my body heavy and exhausted. Rhoda returned and sat beside me, her hand finding mine, while Maggie looked through my cabinets.
“Tell us what happened,” Maggie said gently as she opened and closed doors. “Aha!”
I waited while Maggie poured small glasses of vodka for us both. She came and sat beside me, handing one of the glasses to me.
“What about me?” Rhoda pouted.
“Not a chance,” Maggie scolded.
Then I told them everything.
I started with Richard and how Derek had left me sitting in the diner and gone to Pennsylvania when I told him what he’d done to Frankie. How he saved Stacy’s daughter and nearly beat Richard to death. Then I told them about Zero. About what he’d said about Derek and Sam and what he’d done to her. I told them about the way Derek had looked at me when I asked if it was true. The way he hadn’t denied it.
And I told them about the part I couldn’t stop thinking about.
The part where I’d let him touch me.
Where I’d wanted him.
Where I still wanted him, even now, even knowing what he’d done.
