The Long Road Home [The Final McCassey Brothers Book] (3 page)

She is who she says she is
, a stunned Blackie repeated in his mind.
She's a McCassey. A McCassey with the same father as Judd, Rebel, and me. She's our half-sister.

"That's because there's nothing else in there.” Georgia's angry voice broke into Blackie's thoughts. “I don't have a license. I never had one. I—"

"Shut up!” Blackie instructed, leading her back to her chair.

Shrugging away from him, Georgia sat down on her own, but didn't keep quiet. “First you want me to talk and now you want me to shut up. Make up your damn mind."

Judd's chuckle didn't go unnoticed by any of them. Neither did the dirty look Blackie flashed him.

Blackie followed her lead and sat down, too. From across the table, Georgia looked at him warily, fear and distrust written all over her face.
Damn.

It was suddenly clear to Blackie that if he wanted to get a straight answer from her, he was going to have to be nice. So, in the calmest, most easy-going voice he could come up with, he finally spoke. “Is Dolan McCassey really your father?"

She stared at him warily for just a moment, her guarded expression making him feel like a tyrannical son of a bitch. “Yes."

"You know he's our father, too, don't you?"

Georgia nodded, her fear seeming to vanish. “That's how I found out about the three of you.
He
used to complain about you all the time."

It was no surprise to Blackie that their father had badmouthed him and his brothers. What did surprise him was that Georgia had referred to the man as ‘He'. Not Dolan, not Dad or Daddy, just He. His gut told him that her experience had been just as bad—if not worse—than the one he, Judd, and Rebel had growing up in Dolan's house.

While he tried hard to let the fact that they had a younger sister sink in, Blackie remained silent, trying to organize the hundreds of questions that had flooded his mind.

"I can only imagine what that bastard had to say about us."

"It was all bad. He cursed you boys, your families, and this town every chance he got. That's how I knew you guys
had
to be really cool. I knew he was a liar. I never believed any of the stuff he said."

Blackie had started to run a frustrated hand through his hair again when he noticed that at some point, Judd and Rebel had joined him and Georgia at the table.

"Somethin’ tells me you got quite a story to tell, ain't you?"

Georgia blinked and nodded, and for the first time, Blackie realized that she probably wasn't anywhere near as old as he'd first thought. A closer look at the smooth, freckle-dotted skin on her face, even though it was pale and gaunt, revealed a hidden innocence. Blackie then found himself wondering exactly what she'd been through, and why, at the tender age of maybe nineteen or twenty, she was a full-fledged junkie.

"Well then, I guess you'd better start at the beginnin'."

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Georgia used her right hand to tuck a stray strand of limp, lifeless hair behind her ear as she stared at all three of her brothers.

They're here. They're all here. Sitting across from me just like I always dreamed they would be.

Wishing her mind wasn't so clouded, Georgia concentrated, trying to organize her thoughts. The boys wanted answers, just like she'd known they would. And, she realized, she wanted to give them those answers, tell them everything they wanted to know.

They weren't going to like anything they were about to hear ... anymore than she was going to like saying it. But Georgia hated the life she'd been living, and was ready to begin a new one. Maybe, just maybe, telling Blackie, Judd, and Rebel the whole story would somehow cleanse her, give her the fresh start she was looking for, and help her find just a little bit of the person she used to be.

Scanning their faces, she could tell it was taking all the patience they possessed to wait as quietly as they were. Georgia took a deep breath, sat back in her chair, and focused on her oldest brother, Blackie, as she tried to remember everything from the very beginning...

"The reason Rebel didn't find a driver's license is because I never had the chance to get one. Dolan took me from my mother just after I turned fifteen."

"Took you?” Blackie asked, his voice laced with confusion.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Why? She wished she knew why. Actually ... that wasn't true. She did know
why,
she just didn't understand how a man could do what he did to his own daughter.

"He and my mom weren't married,” she started to explain, avoiding Blackie's question. “They met at a party about a week after she graduated from high school. She drank too much of the moonshine he gave her, and the next thing she knew—"

"He raped her,” Blackie interrupted matter-of-factly.

Georgia gave him a half-nod. “That's what I think, too, but my mom would never admit it."

"We're pretty sure he raped our mom,” Rebel explained, drawing an angry look from Blackie. “She was only fifteen when she had Blackie. He was seventeen. Her father forced them to get married."

Georgia knew that because her father had told her. He also mentioned, several times, that his wife, Mary, had died when she was thirty-two. He'd never said how, though, and Georgia had never wanted to know, fearing the worst.

"So what happened?” Judd asked. “Why'd he take you from your mom?"

"My mom was good to me,” she told them, “she really was. I always had food, clothes, and a roof over my head. Her one downfall was that she didn't always make the best decisions. Up until the last day I saw her, she swore she loved Dolan McCassey, swore he was going to marry her someday. I don't understand how a woman could even like such a sleaze, but she must've. Otherwise, she never would've given me his last name."

"Did he live with you and your mom?” Rebel wanted to know.

"No. My mom and I lived in an apartment in a small town in southwestern Virginia. He lived a little farther east, I think. At least that's what he told my mom. But he did come around every few months or so.

"Each time he showed up, she was like a kid on Christmas. She was always happiest when he was around, no matter how bad he was treating her."

"Bad?” Blackie repeated.

Georgia nodded. “He yelled and screamed at her all the time. He never touched her in front of me, but I know he hit her because the only time I ever saw bruises on her body was when he was around."

"How—” Blackie started, looking as if he was almost afraid to finish his question. “How did he treat you?"

"When I was little, I was so afraid of him that I hid and stayed out of his way whenever I could. When I couldn't, I stayed quiet, never speaking unless I was spoken to. That worked for a long time, because he never bothered me.

"In fact, I was thirteen before he even acknowledged that I existed. Then, during an unusually long visit, he suddenly started paying a lot of attention to me. Sometimes, I'd catch him staring at me when he thought I wasn't looking. And he was always making weird comments about my body and my looks.

"A year later, he and my mom had some kind of falling out over money. My mom must've borrowed some from him at one point. I don't know where he got it, though, because he was always screaming poverty."

"What'd she borrow it for?” Blackie asked.

Georgia yawned and shrugged. “I don't know. I don't even know how much it was. But I do know that she couldn't pay any of it back. Dolan gave her a deadline and threatened to find another way to make her pay if she couldn't get his cash."

"She didn't pay him,” Judd said somberly, “did she?"

Georgia shook her head. “Not long after I turned fifteen, I came home from school one day and there he was, sitting at the kitchen table across from my mom with a .22 lying in his lap. She'd been crying, so he didn't need to pick up the gun and wave it in her face for me to know he'd use it on her. That's why when he announced that I had two minutes to pack a bag and kiss my mom goodbye, I listened. He said I was never going to see her again."

It had been years since Georgia had thought about the last time she saw her mom, about the mixture of fear and regret she'd seen written on the woman's face as Georgia walked past her and into her bedroom.

With all three men glaring as if she was under a microscope, she sniffed and blinked, allowing the hot tears that had welled in her eyes to spill over and run down her cheeks. Georgia tried not to remember any more of what she'd been through in the past four years, but it was impossible. Her high was gone, and she could feel it now; all the pain, anger, and humiliation she'd suffered. Had she known that ‘feeling’ was going to be like this, she would've kept the story to herself. It was so much easier, and a lot less painful, to be numb.

She wiped hurriedly at her tears, wondering briefly how long it'd been since she'd cried; how long ago it was that she actually let herself feel some type of emotion. The heroin was going to kill her someday, she knew that, sometimes even wished for it. But until then, it was the only thing keeping her sane.

Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, Georgia continued. “I never even turned around as he led me out the door. My mom was crying, calling for me, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't look at her because I felt like she didn't fight for me; it was like I'd been abandoned."

"Weren't you scared?” Rebel asked.

Was he kidding? “You grew up living in his house, Rebel. You know what the man was like. Of course I was scared! But no matter what my mom had done, I loved her, and was more scared about what he'd do to her if I didn't cooperate. I thought that if I went willingly, he'd leave her alone, she'd go to the police, and they'd rescue me."

"What happened instead?"

Something in the way Rebel asked the question told Georgia that he already knew—that they all probably knew—but she answered him anyway. “On our way out of town, he drove to a spot in the woods known as Lover's Lane. Teenagers have been going there to ... be alone ... since the beginning of time. Dolan parked his truck in a tight spot between two trees so I wouldn't be able to get either one of the doors open, and,” she paused to take a deep breath, “raped me right there in the front seat, less than ten minutes after we left my apartment."

"Goddammit!” Blackie shouted, causing Georgia to jump as he stood, grabbed a wrench she hadn't seen sitting on the table, and hurled it through the glass door of the office. “If that lousy mother fucker wasn't already dead, I'd—"

What? Georgia suddenly felt her heart start to beat faster as Blackie's statement sank in. “What did you just say?” she interrupted loudly enough to get Blackie's attention. “Dolan's dead? Are you sure?"

Blackie picked up some other kind of tool she didn't recognize and threw that as well, waiting until after it dented the wall next to the office before he sat down again. Breathing heavily, and seemingly seething with anger, he said, “I'm sure,” as he clenched his hands into fists, relaxed them, then repeated the action several times. “Judd blew him up with an incendiary grenade last month."

Georgia's gaze flew to Judd, the brother she looked most like. Their dark, loose and unruly, curly hair was the same color and length; their facial features very similar, as well. The first impression she'd gotten of him was that he was the least serious of the brothers. He'd done everything Blackie had told him without question, seeming happy to let the other two take the lead. He didn't seem like he had it in him to kill a man—especially his own father.

Then again, she didn't really know these men; didn't know what they were capable of. They were Dolan McCassey's sons, after all, and each one probably had it in him to be just as violent as their father. Strangely enough, she wasn't scared.

"Why'd you kill him?” she asked Judd.

He looked her dead in the eye and took a long drag on the cigarette she hadn't even realized he'd been smoking. “Because someone had to,” he replied coldly, squashing any doubt she had that he wasn't as tough or serious as his brothers. “I was the one with the best opportunity, so I took it."

Georgia suddenly felt relieved, as if part of the weight that had been resting on her shoulders the past four years had been lifted.

Dolan McCassey was dead.

He couldn't hurt her anymore.

She was free.

Although she was a little disappointed that he didn't elaborate, she understood why. They were talking about her, and she doubted Blackie was going to let the fact that she'd been raped by her father—their father—slide.

"Then what?” Blackie demanded through clenched teeth, intense anger noticeable in every line of his stone-cold expression. “What happened after he raped you?"

It wasn't just a question that Blackie had asked her, it was a demand. He wanted to know what she'd been through, and probably wasn't going to give up until he knew every detail of the last four years of her life.

Talking about her experience—especially to the three brothers she'd adored from afar for so long—would've been completely humiliating if she hadn't lost all her pride and modesty years ago. It still wasn't her first choice as a topic of conversation, but compared to what she'd suffered through at the hands of her father, it'd be a piece of cake.

"He never touched me again after that, if that's what you're asking."

She looked up at him, but he remained silent, obviously waiting for her to continue.

"He was living in southern Virginia at the time he took me, renting two adjoining rooms in a boardinghouse. When we got there, he introduced me to Bert as his daughter.” She paused and looked at them, but they just stared at her, waiting for her to continue. “Bert was the one who owned the place,” she explained, and was finally rewarded with a nod from Judd.

"After the introductions were out of the way, he led me into his room and locked the door, explaining that since my mom couldn't repay her debt, I was going to have to do it for her. The next thing I knew, he tied me to the bed and ripped my shirt off. I thought he was going to rape me again ... until he turned around, opened the drawer beside the bed, and took out a large tourniquet. I'd never seen one before and had no idea what he was going to do with it. I thought maybe he was going to strangle me or something.