Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
He’d shield us all if he could, but not tonight.
Tonight, it’s my time to turn the tables.
Stepping forward, I rest my palm against the heat of his bare chest with as much pressure as I can exert. Ever immovable, Kylian, so determined to have his way. If he won’t let me in, I’ll go around him.
Ducking past, I inhale a lungful of the smell of a house that is nothing but ghosts to me.
“Honor.” Kylian’s hand on my upper arm is firm, but his touch feels considerate. There are no bruising fingers now.
“I need to show you something. I need you to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand. Just walk away. Get in your car and never come back. You can drive off into the sunset with the money. You can walk away and never look back.” He inhales what looks like a shuddering breath, and as an afterthought, he adds, “You earned every dollar, every fucking cent.”
“I’m not leaving, Kylian. Not without you three. Not this time.”
18
LYLE
THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
I’m in the kitchen getting a beer when I hear Honor. At first, I assume I must be imagining things, but then there's Dad’s voice, louder than usual. Ky and Nate, too, but by the time I reach the foyer, I find a strange sort of standoff happening, the four of them each at a distance from one another, no one saying a word.
Finally, Dick breaks the silence. “Who invited you here?” he demands of Honor, who’s such a vision of fair-haired goodness that she doesn’t make sense within these dark walls.
I step into the middle of the group. “She doesn’t need an invitation.” Turning to Honor, I ask, “Why are you here? Are you okay?”
Her bright blue eyes dart around to all of the other men before returning to mine. “I… I have things to show you.” After taking a deep breath, she adds, “All of you.”
Whatever she’s doing in this house, it obviously requires a lot of courage. Even if she doesn’t want to be here, she needs to be here.
“Let’s go sit down.” With a light touch on her shoulder, I steer her into the sitting room. As she takes a seat on a chair, she clutches a folder tightly in both hands.
I settle onto the side of the couch closest to her, and Nate sits next to me. Ky and Dad remain standing, Dad barely inside the doorway.
Again, Honor inhales deeply and looks down at her lap before raising her head and straightening her spine. “You have a lot of ideas about my mom,” she says, looking mostly at Ky, but also glancing at Nate and me. “Ideas that aren’t true. I brought documents to show you the truth.”
“What is this about? What’s going on?” Dad fidgets but doesn’t come closer.
“Go to your office,” Ky tells him with barely a glance. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Actually, it does,” Honor says, raising her voice in a shaky mixture of nerves and determination. “Your father has filled your heads with lies about my mother, and I’m here to set things straight.”
The old man makes a dismissive grunt but stays where he is.
“He abused my mother. He hit her on multiple occasions.” Honor winces as she looks around at us. “She forgave him the first time because he made some excuse afterward, but when he did it again, she called the police. Unfortunately, the police department neglected to do anything about it because apparently money speaks much louder than a woman with black and blue marks.”
There's a sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of Dick hitting Victoria, or any woman. Nate’s eyes widen, and Ky's goes dark at the information. I imagine the news surprises them like it does me, while at the same time, it's right on brand for Dick-Ass. I'd always assumed he only had a heavy hand with us, but what Honor's saying isn't all that hard to imagine, unfortunately.
“She was able to file a police report, and I have a copy of that here.” Honor extracts a paper from her folder and hands it to me.
My eyes only register the title before I pass it along to Nate. I don’t need to read it to believe what she’s telling us, and I don’t want to know the details. After his own cursory glance, Nate hands the paper to Kylian, who skims the document, the scowl on his face growing deeper as he does.
“Of course she’d make up filthy lies,” Dick says. “She’s nothing but a conniving gold digger. A housekeeper with ideas above her station.”
Honor's jaw goes tight and her hand trembles as she pulls out another paper, this one folded. “The police took pictures,” she says. She hands the slip to me, but I pass it along to Nate without looking at it.
“We left with barely more than the clothes on our back,” Honor continues. “While working here, my mother had saved enough money to afford a deposit on a tiny one-room apartment. She got a job immediately after leaving here, and money was always tight.