Aidan stared at him puzzled. “A trip?”
“Yes,” Connie continued. “You’d like a tour of the Brown University Campus. Your daughter is interested in attending.”
“My daughter?” There was a questioning yet confused tone to Aidan’s deep voice. Connie watched as the expression on his face changed when he finally understood. “Oh that’s right. My daughter. Yes, she’s always wanted to attend the Brown University.” Connie smiled at the fact that even though it took him a while to catch on, Aidan always knew how to read his mind.
It wasn’t until Aidan closed the door to the town car that the sickening feeling returned, swirling around in Connie’s gut when he thought about the unfortunate situation the brotherhood was in and how he’d have to demonstrate what happened to rats when they double-crossed him.
He’d been investigating, and following around all the members of his crew and the dirty little scoundrel had been right under his nose all along.
But one thing Connie never took into account was that the rat…
The dirty, stinking rat.
Would be a female.
Chapter Twenty Three
~Sean~
Hadlee is still shaking.
She’s staring into my eyes, but she’s still shaking.
And she knows.
She knows for sure who I am and what I’ve done for her. There was a sliver of a second when I was holding her, where red flashed behind my eyes. Red equaling rage, and I could feel it boiling in my blood, pumping through my nervous system.
I saw the fucking pervert’s face behind my eyelids and all I could think about was how I should have killed him and discarded the body. How I wished like hell that Joe hadn’t happened upon us and insisted that I turn that fucker over to the cops. Then there’s another part of me that wishes that I could repair the angel shaking beneath my fingertips.
I wish I could make her forget the last year and a half and return her to her former glory.
Maybe she used to be a different person.
Maybe she used to be less helpless.
And it sickens me that that piece of shit took that part of her away.
Who knows if she’ll ever be whole again?
That’s the worst part of going through something traumatic. The not knowing and the wishing. Not knowing if there’s any hope left in life. And when realization hits you and you face the fact that all hope is lost, that’s where the wishing comes in. Because you wish for hope like it’s a shooting star burning across miles of darkened sky, and when it sails away you feel like hope is just a dirty tainted word.
A word that breathes false prophecies.
A word that eventually tastes rotten or like moldy bread as it rests on your tongue.
I know how it feels to lose hope.
And yourself.
And everything you used to believe in.
I know what it’s like to feel like you’re entraped in the bottom of a deep dark pit, and you’re constantly wondering when, or if you’ll ever be able to climb out.
Hadlee’s voice cuts into my depressing thoughts when she asks, “Why?”
I lower my eyes to meet hers and when I see the tears glistening, dangling on the tips of her long, dark lashes, the only thing I can think about is how I want to take her away. Console her. Hold her. Tell her everything is going to be all right over and over again. But I don’t say any of that. I don’t like to express my emotions. Or sound like a pussy. So instead I say, “Why, what?”
Her voice vibrates, thick with a wad of emotion when she questions me again, “Why did you save me?”