Rebel Roused (Untamed #5) (12 page)

“No, and I couldn’t care less.” His hands squeezed tighter and I winced. “Jack, you’re hurting me. Let go of my arms!”

“GOOD, you fucking cunt. Everything I’ve worked for is gone because of you. You’ve fucked with my career and you’re going to pay for it.”

“I’m going to
pay for it?
Are you fucking kidding me?” Pain was replaced with fury, and if he hadn’t been holding my arms I would have punched him in the face. “I’ve been paying for it for seven fucking years already, you asshole. YOU ruined MY life. If things are going bad for you now, consider that payback for what you did.” Seven years of anger and humiliation flowed out of me. “I’m tired of being ashamed of what YOU did. I’m tired of hiding.” I held his gaze with mine. “And I’m not going to do it anymore. As soon as I leave this place, I’m going to report you to the police like I should have done all those years ago. You’ve gotten away with it for too long, but not anymore.”

He suddenly released both of my arms, taking a step away from me as I stumbled back. Too late, I realized my mistake as his face contorted in maniacal rage.

I was already running when he shot after me.

sixteen

H
er screams hit my ears as soon as I cut the engine on my bike. A moment later, I was flying through the doors, wondering why I couldn’t hear her anymore.

And then I saw them.

Jackson was on top of Ree, his hands around her neck. Some guy in a maroon uniform was trying to pry him off.

I launched myself at Jackson, tucking my head and ramming it into his stomach. The momentum sent him tumbling backwards, throwing him off Ree. And then I was on him, fists flying, hardly feeling any impact at all as my punches connected with his jaw and cheekbones. So I hit him harder and harder, anger eclipsing all of my senses. Blood sprayed from his battered face, spattering my clothes.

And still I hit him. Over and over again.

Suddenly Ree was in front of me and someone was pulling me off the bastard. Jackson’s hands covered his face as he rolled onto his side and just lay there in an unmoving, bloody heap.

The guy who had hold of me shoved me away from Jackson.

“Pierce!” Ree got in between us. “Leave him alone. Dare just saved my life.” She lifted her chin and I could see the bright red marks around her throat where the prick’s hands had been. My rage reignited, but she put a hand on my chest. “Don’t. It’s over. You’ll kill him.”

“With pleasure.”

“No, Dare.” She wrapped her arms around me, squeezed me tight. My own arms enveloped her instinctually. “If you did, you’d go to jail. I can’t bear to be without you anymore.”

“He’s going to jail as it is,” Ree’s father said, his face livid. “He just attacked the son of a senator. Jackson will press charges, and this one will be sent where he belongs.”

“
What?!
” Ree whipped around before I could even open my mouth to respond. “
Jackson
will press charges? Are you fucking kidding me?” She stormed over and stood her ground, practically nose to nose with him. “Jackson raped me when I was fifteen years old, and you swept it under the rug.”

A crowd of people was growing in the lobby, all dressed like they’d come from the party. At Ree’s statement there was a collective gasp, and her mother clutched her chest as if she was having a fucking coronary.

“He ruined my life and you LET him do it. You fucking LET him get away with it.” Ree’s voice was strong, echoing off the walls of the lobby, but filled with hurt. “You didn’t even believe me when I told you what he’d done.”

Her chest heaved and a sob broke through her words. I came up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders.

“Ree,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. Let’s just leave. Fuck them.”

She looked up at me, her eyes as dark as a stormy sea. “No.” She shook her head. “There’s something I’ve never told you because I was too ashamed. But I’m tired of being scared and ashamed. Tired of hiding. Tired of all the secrets that have plagued my life.”

“Reagan Allison McKinley, if you think airing your dirty laundry is going to solve anything…” Her father’s eyes narrowed and his gaze flicked anxiously around at all the people witnessing the scene.

“My dirty laundry?” She scoffed. “More like
yours
. What you did—”

“Why don’t we just go back upstairs where we can talk about this in private,” he said. It was part plea, part threat. “Reagan—”

“Oh, just shut the fuck up, Dad,” Ree said, and her brother Pierce’s eyes bugged out of his head as he stifled a laugh. It almost made me like the guy. Almost.

“Reagan! I will not have you talking to your father—”

“You’re even worse than he is,” Ree said, her voice going sad. “I trusted you, Mother. When it turned out I was pregnant and you were finally forced to believe me about Jack’s attack, I fucking trusted you! But you drugged me…and when I woke up in the clinic bed to find out I’d had an abortion…”

Jesus. The words cut through my heart, and my soul bled for Ree. I wished more than anything that I could turn back time, save her, make sure she never felt this pain.

Tears were streaming down her face now, and it was killing me to watch her. But this was her fight. I understood that. I stayed with her, though, willing the strength of my love to keep her afloat.

“How could you?” she said. “How could you do that to me? To that baby? How could you not even give me the choice? It was
my
body.”

“Oh, for chrissakes, Reagan. You were fifteen years old. You weren’t old enough to make such a decision. We simply did what was best for you at the time.”

“A forced abortion was best for me?” She laughed, hollow and cold. “Do you want to know what it was like, Mother? It was like
getting raped a second time
. But, this time, it was my parents who did it.”

“You have always gotten so hysterical about this. He was the governor’s son, Reagan. What did you want us to do? Your father was getting into politics and we couldn’t let something like this ruin his career. We had to look at the big picture.”

“Is this true?” Quincy said, stepping forward, clinging tightly to the baby in her arms. She looked shell-shocked as she glanced back and forth between her parents. “You really did that to Reagan?” She was shaking her head like she couldn’t believe her parents were capable of such a horrific thing.

Even after all I’d witnessed when it came to these people and the way they treated Ree, I was still surprised. If I could have gotten away with decking her father, I would have. But I’d already dug myself a big, fucking, U.S. senator-sized hole, and couldn’t afford to make things worse by punching the governor of New York as well.

No matter how much he deserved it.

But this wasn’t the fight I wanted to have now. Not when all I wanted to do was wrap Ree in my arms and take her far, far away from these monsters masquerading as her parents.

Pierce walked over to stand next to Ree and placed his arm over her shoulder. And Quincy came over to her other side.

Holy fucking shit.

Ree looked from Pierce to Quinn, wonder filling her eyes.

“I thought you’d finally decided to support me, but after tonight, after everything you’ve done…” She held out a finger to Quinn’s kid and he grabbed hold of it. Then she looked at her parents again. “I can’t believe in you—either one of you—and I certainly can’t trust you.”

“Oh, honestly, Reagan! The dramatics are at an all-time high with you. Perhaps you should be an actress rather than an art dealer.” Her father threw up his hands, trying to laugh off the situation, but no one in the crowd laughed with him.

Ree’s head snapped up and her eyes turned to steel. “Fuck. You. I’m done with you. Forever. I’ll never, ever let you come near my future children. Not after everything you’ve done. And the saddest, most disturbing part of this all is the fact that you clearly don’t think you were ever in the wrong.”

“You will stop this now, Reagan,” her mother said, her words flung at Ree like slaps. “This is all in the past, and the only one holding onto it is
you
—clinging to it in a last desperate attempt for attention.” Her voice echoed around the marble-covered room. “And your threat is laughably empty, my darling. Because it’s not like you can actually have children, anyway.”

Her mother’s cold laugh was the only sound in the deafening silence.

seventeen

T
ime stopped, my mother’s words rang in my mind as the echo of her laugh died away.

There was only shocked silence in the aftermath. It vibrated in my ears, seeped into my body, tunneled deep into my heart.

The hair stood up on my arms as her words hit me.

“What did you just say?” My breaths were coming faster and faster, as I desperately tried not to hyperventilate. “What do you mean…I
can’t
have children?”

My mother’s eyes widened as if she hadn’t realized what she’d just let slip. She took hold of her pearls, clutching onto them for dear life. As if that was fucking going to save her now.

In a low voice she said, “Perhaps it would be best if we all went upstairs and discussed this matter in the privacy of our home.”

“Why? Are you embarrassed, Mother? You just announced to half your guests that I can’t have children and YOU’RE suddenly embarrassed?” I shook my head, begging it to stop spinning, pleading with my heart to slow down and my voice to quit shaking. “No, we’ll finish this discussion here because I will not be setting foot in your house ever again.” I took a deep breath. “Why, exactly, can I not have children?”

“There was an infection after the…
procedure
…and the doctor told us it rendered you sterile.” At least she had the sense to look slightly abashed as she spoke, even if it was too little, too late.

Waking up in that hospital bed, my mother by my side, I remembered being confused. I’d asked her groggily if my appendix had burst.

She’d laughed in response. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Reagan. It was nothing like that. We simply took care of that little problem of yours.”

I hadn’t understood what she meant, fevers and pain driving me to the brink of madness. But she made it perfectly clear later on—I was stunned, and felt violated to the depth of my soul. And even though I’d been on heavy antibiotics for a month, it never occurred to me that something had gone wrong. I had thought it was just part of the pain that came with recovery.

That was when my love affair with pills had started. I’d craved the numbness like a fucking junky.

If I didn’t have Dare grounding me with his hands on my shoulders right now, an unconscious reminder of all the reasons not to succumb, I’d be aching for a bottle of pills again. I couldn’t even form words to respond to my mother’s revelation.

Eyeing me, she added, “Which didn’t seem like a big deal because you’ve never wanted children anyway.”

My eyes blinked furiously as my mind fought to keep up with the implications of everything she was saying. My whole future suddenly felt like it was on shaky ground.

I wanted kids. Dare wanted kids. If I couldn’t have kids…where did that leave us?

“It didn’t seem like a
big deal?
” Quinn said next to me, her voice laced with disgust. “How could you keep this from Reagan? From all of us?” She looked like she was seeing our parents for the first time. That had to hurt after a lifetime of delusion.

It still hurt
me
even though I’d been seeing them clearly for years.

But this was a whole new level of clarity I was getting right now.

My father shrugged his shoulders. “We were doing what was best for Reagan.”

Dare’s hands slipped from my shoulders and in the back of my mind I felt their absence hit me in the gut. But I was far too focused on my parents to turn and look at him.

No, instead I lost it.

“That is bullshit!” I didn’t care about the shocked expressions on their guests’ faces or the fact that some of them even had their phones trained on me. Nothing mattered at this point. “You were doing what was best for YOU. What you’ve always done. And you trying to justify it now is absolutely ridiculous. And cowardly.” I waved my arm around the room at all the people watching and listening. “I hope this fucking ruins you. Can you see the headlines now? ‘Governor-Elect Forced Fifteen Year Old Daughter to have Abortion.’ ‘Former Mayor Drugs Daughter, Tricks her into Abortion after Letting Her Rapist Go Free.’ I don’t think there’s any way you’ll be able to spin THAT.”