“I get it, Emily. I get it.” The words were razors raking my throat. “Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.”
Emily’s gaze moved over me. Need and hope and everything I was terrified of shining back. “That’s why I’m telling you, Royce . . . because I know you get me. You’re not gonna make light of something that was so important to me.” She swallowed hard. “A part of me hated Nile for not being there for me, for drifting away, but there’s a bigger part that knows I pushed him away.”
She pressed both her hands to her flat stomach. “Afterward, I felt so empty. My heart no longer felt right. No longer beat right. I couldn’t even conjure up an ‘I miss you’ when I talked with him on the phone.”
Desperate, I cradled her face in my hands. Night wrapped us in shadows.
Angling my head, I dipped down, my nose brushing hers. “That’s not your fault. You don’t have to feel guilty for mourning. Not ever.”
I tried to sound reasonable. To cover up the misery cutting me to shreds.
She reached up and gripped me by the wrists.
Hanging on like I was a lifeline.
A buoy.
“I was pretty sure I’d hit rock bottom. Depression took me over. The spark I’d felt to sing and play dimmed so far that I thought it might have been extinguished. But I had no idea how bad it was goin’ to get.”
Emily’s eyes pleaded with me to see.
Like she wanted me to reach inside and see all that she had suffered.
Hold it.
Fuck, I wanted to.
I increased my hold. “You can tell me anything, Emily. You can trust me.”
Fear traipsed across her face. The same fear she’d been wearing since I met her. “Rich . . . h-h-he got himself into trouble. Into something that I can’t even process or understand.”
My chest fisted. Knew well enough where she was going with this. “Tell me, sweet girl.”
Agony pulsed through her expression. “Cory Douglas . . . he’s involved in something wicked, Royce. Something so bad that it hurts just thinking about it. And my brother . . . I . . . I think he might be wrapped up in the middle of it.” Her voice lowered in dread.
To a hurt I could feel cutting her wide open.
“Cory . . . after one of the shows we opened for his band, he lured me to his hotel room. He said he needed to talk with me.”
Fury raced. This overwhelming need to annihilate taking me over. Completely.
Fuck justice.
Fuck my freedom.
I’d gladly spend my life rotting behind bars if it meant it would keep this look off Emily’s face.
“I should have known, Royce . . . I should have known. There was this . . . chill in the air. Evil. I could feel it crawling over my skin. Lifting the hairs at the nape of my neck.”
She blinked a bunch of times, like she was trying to see but wanted to block the memories at the same time.
“The second I stepped through the door, he had me pinned against the wall. He grabbed me by the jaw and he . . . he said my brother had taken what was his and he’d chosen me to pay off his debt.”
A shudder rolled down Emily’s spine.
I gathered her closer. Wanting to bear some of it. Wanting to shoulder it.
All the while my mind was slammed with a memory carved so deep in my brain I could never forget it.“What are you doing here? I said you were out,” I’d grated, barely containing my fury as I backed him toward the door.
He laughed.
A maniacal, unhinged sound.
“You took the one thing that meant anything to me . . . now I’m going to take everything from you. You should have known better than to fuck with me, Royce. Now I’m going to fuck with you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”Rage burned through my blood. It took all I had to remain standing in front of Emily.
She inhaled a shaky breath. “He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to the table. Pictures of Richard were spread all over it. Pictures of Richard with a woman who wasn’t dressed. She was kneeling with her arms tied behind her back. Some of them were of her on his lap. One had them leaving a hotel room.”
Emily dropped her attention to the ground, unable to look at me when she said it. “I think . . . I think she was being forced to be there.”
My insides curled in aggression.
In my own disgust.
I hooked my index finger under her chin, coaxing her to look at me. “Emily. Precious.”
That energy sifted around us. Taking a different shape.
Her tongue darted out, swiping across her quivering bottom lip. “Cory had pointed at the picture . . . said that woman belonged to him. That he’d marked her. At first, I was confused . . . I knew Cory was married—”