The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (32 page)

“Tristan?”

He couldn’t stop the pain so he pressed harder on both sides of his head. His eyes shut. His eyes filled with tears, which he tried to keep inside his eyelids.

“We’re going after Tommy. That’s why we’re here.” Ally’s voice was strong and cold. The opposite of Kylie’s. He was glad she had Ally.

“That’s why I gave you access to what I have. This is everything. If I think if anything else I’ll—”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Tommy’s voice came from the hallway, a loud, roaring bellowing scream at Kylie. She flinched and ducked into his office without a second’s pause. Tristan opened his eyes and jumped to his feet. Tommy appeared in the doorway.

Tristan immediately stepped in front of Kylie, who easily seemed to forget he’d lied and tried to use her. She stood behind him. She backed up, her eyes wide as she stared at Tommy. She hit a file cabinet with a dull thud and stopped. Tristan turned and stood in front of her. He leaned in and whispered, “He’ll never hurt you again.” He put his hand out, palm up and flat. She stared down at his hand and then back up into his eyes. Finally, she nodded slowly, and her small, cool hand slipped over his. He closed his fingers, entwining hers in his. He nodded back, mouth pursed.

Then he turned to face his brother; the rapist. His stomach cramped and a surreal feeling enveloped him. How could the rapist, the monster, the bad guy, the criminal… be his little brother?

His heart felt like it had morphed into a chunk of steel. But instead of cold and hardened to deal with all this, he felt like it was so heavy it was going to push him to his knees. He felt inert. Nothing in his life had prepared him for how he was going to face his brother as the person who raped a woman. A woman who stood behind him, legitimately scared of Tommy. Her hand was gripping his with all her might. He squeezed back. She was protected behind his back. He was the physical barrier between his brother and the girl he loved. Here he was protecting her from his own brother. It was a cruel twist of fate that he’d fallen in love with one of his brother’s victims.

Tommy stared at him, then Kylie, and did a quick perusal of Ally. His jaw locked and his eyes narrowed. There was physical disdain and disbelief reflected in his brother’s expression, but it was his gaze that tore into Tristan. His eyes gleamed with hurt, regret, and betrayal. It all shined out of his little brother’s eyes at him.

“You want to tell me what’s going on here, Tristan?” His voice was now low and smooth, almost sickeningly calm and chilling.

“How are you even here?”

“Philipp called dad about you being here with two girls. I decided to come see…”

He felt Kylie’s body tremble at the sound of Tommy’s voice. She pressed into his back then and all his concern shifted from Tommy to her. Kylie won. He realized it in a split second. She won his loyalty. There was no longer a battle raging inside him over who to believe, who to betray. He knew it was the scared, shaking girl behind him who had his loyalty.

“We’re erasing all traces of my association with Kylie so she can seek disciplinary action against you through the school.” Tristan had to pause as the stabbing pain of the reality of the situation seemed to ripple through his nerve endings, taking his breath away. He finally added softly, “For rape.” He held his brother’s gaze across the small office. Twenty years passed between them. Tommy’s eyes widened and he started to slowly shake his head. He kept shaking it.

“You can’t… you can’t actually think I raped her. You know she’s lying. She’s just a slut who wants it from anyone who offers.”

“She isn’t,” Tristan interrupted him, his tone low and loaded with warning. “Tread carefully. You feel the need to defend yourself with me, but don’t disparage her.”

Tommy shook his head. Teeth gritted, he insisted, “I didn’t do anything to her she wasn’t participating in. She just changed her mind about it later. God, you can’t—”

Kylie pressed tighter to Tristan. He felt her tremble.

Tommy started to step forward but Tristan put his arm out. “Stay back.”

Tommy’s mouth dropped open and both his hands fisted at his sides. “You think… you really think I did this? What the fuck are you doing? Protecting her?
From me?
Like I’m some kind of violent criminal you can’t trust what I’ll do to her? I’m your brother! We are brothers, Tristan, and you’re going to turn your back on me, for… this piece of…”

“I really am going to protect her from you.” He glanced back at her and her worried, confused gaze met and held his. He shrugged just enough to try and convey his sorrow. “Like I should have from the start.”

Silence hung thick and ugly between them. Like black tar had been thrown out to coat the room. “Do you have any idea what this means? What you’re doing?” Tommy’s voice was soft and almost menacing.

“Yeah. The right thing. I’m finally doing the right thing.” Tristan kept his body in front of Kylie’s and felt her lay her hand flat on his back. Her handprint’s warmth seemed to imprint on his skin and he closed his eyes for a prolonged moment. She was speaking to him without words, like she could so easily do. She was supporting
him
now, in this moment, as she was facing the person who raped her. Yet her never-ending compassion was being directed towards him and not herself. He drew strength from her touch, her ability to still feel anything towards him after what he’d done to her. “Get out of my office, Tommy.”

“Get out…” He started to repeat as his mouth popped open. “You can’t mean you want me to just leave? We should… talk about this or something. Work this out. We can’t just…”

“We can. I don’t know why you turned into this. I won’t proclaim to ever understand, but I will never again condone it. But right now you need to get out of this office. Get away from her,
now
.” Tristan pointed at the door. “Or I will force you out. I’m bigger than you are still, so don’t make me do it.” Tommy didn’t budge. Tristan sighed and added, his voice heavy with fatigue, “Please, don’t make me, Tommy. Just turn and walk away right now.
Please.
” He sounded desperate, almost scared, like a small boy begging the school bully not to hit him again, but it was the opposite. Tristan knew he could take his brother and he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hurt Tommy, he just needed Tommy to leave Kylie alone.

Tommy stepped back, still staring in unbridled disbelief at his brother. He took a step, then another and another until, shaking his head, he spun on his heel and was gone. Tristan wilted in relief and sadness as the room stayed completely silent.

He turned finally. His hand was still linked in Kylie’s. Her eyes were huge and hollow. It wasn’t like anyone could leave this confrontation feeling anything but gut-level hurt and aches. He shook his head. Tears gathered in his eyes as he stared into hers.
“I’m sorry.”

There was so much more he needed to say. He needed to get on his knees and beg forgiveness and retribution. He needed to tell her how sorry he was for what his brother did to her. He needed to undo his own actions that sought to destroy her. He betrayed her. His family… There was no listing out what his family had done to her. And the only recourse he had were two stupid, insignificant words that were supposed to make up for all this? He knew it didn’t even touch it. It didn’t even reach the level of a start.

She didn’t flinch, she didn’t turn away or start to cry. She stared him in the eye as he kept staring at her, and it felt like an entire conversation of hurt, sadness, pain, betrayal, sorrow, caring, and love passed between them. Ally stood up from his desk. She cleared her throat. “Kylie? Are you okay? I mean, not okay… but… that was awful.”

He dropped his head and Kylie’s hand. Kylie came away from the file cabinet she was hovering against all out of fear of his brother. The magnitude of that fact; his brother was a rapist, would not stick in his head.

“I’m okay,” she said quietly. He was too choked up to begin to speak. He was reluctant to let her go but she withdrew and wrapped her arms over her stomach.

Ally came around the desk to Kylie. She wrapped Kylie in her arms and hugged her to her chest. “He’s a dirty, rotten bastard pretending innocence. It doesn’t change what he did to you. Okay? I won’t doubt you. Neither will Mom and Donny. Never again are you alone against him.”

Kylie hugged her sister back, but her gaze strayed to Tristan and then away. He had no idea what she felt towards him. She most likely detested him. He deserved that.

“You weren’t going to come up here, why did you?”

“I don’t know,” Kylie answered Ally. “But I did. I think I wanted to talk to Tristan.”

“Do you still want to?”

His head popped up in surprise and a faint bit of hope. She nodded. “Yes. Why don’t you give us a few minutes alone?”

“Here? You want to do this here in his office? His family’s business? Why don’t we at least go somewhere more neutral?”

“Because we’re here. It’s okay, Ally. Just wait for me? Okay?”

Ally scoffed. “As if I’d ever leave you alone in Tamasy territory. Never again. I’ll be right outside the door. Waiting.” She glanced at Tristan, the message clear.

Ally passed him and then, they were alone. He shook his head, the exhaustion making his limbs feel heavy.

“Do you really believe me?” Kylie said.

“I know you can’t believe that I do. But it wasn’t an act. I just didn’t want to believe he could do that.”

“It was a shock to me to realize he’d do that too. I doubted myself for a good year. I’d argue with myself that I must be wrong. I mean, why? Why would he bother to do it? All he had to do was ask and I’d have had sex with him. You understand that, don’t you? I wanted to have sex with your brother.”

He shook his head. “I understand whatever your motivations were you didn’t deserve what he did.”

She tilted her head in consideration. “Why did you never ask me? In all this time we were together and spent time together, why didn’t you ask for my side of the story? You could have used it against me. Made sure to spin it around to suit Tommy’s and your needs. Why didn’t you ask me who it was?”

“I haven’t been with you to suit Tommy or my family’s needs since I met you. I’m not sure I ever was. I was irritated, beyond irritated, when my grandfather came in this very office with this stupid assignment that I needed to go neutralize first Cadence and then you so that Cadence’s claims couldn’t be given more credence. I swear to you, Kylie, when this first started, I believed my brother. He’s always talked rude and crude about girls. They were either hot or not, he was sleeping with them or not. You can imagine the language he uses. I just thought he was young and blowing off steam. Arrogant, but never, not once, did I consider he was dangerous or actually did this.”

“I don’t understand, what changed your mind? I would have slept with you the night you walked me home from work. It would have been done, right then. I imagine you were supposed to get pictures to discredit me. I asked you in, but instead you asked for a date. I don’t understand you… Why didn’t you do it then?”

He dropped into the chair in front of the desk. Defeated, he agitatedly kept running his hands through his hair and linked his fingers behind his neck. He finally leaned forward, staring down at the carpet. “I’m just a manager, Kylie. I don’t think I was ever going to actually do anything. Not like Grandfather was thinking. I mean, sleep with someone for some nefarious reason like that? It has and will never be my way. I just wanted him off my back. I obviously let him influence me far too much. But to actually go through with it? I don’t believe that was ever my intent. I might have intended to talk to you. Maybe. But I wasn’t really interested in the task of managing Tommy’s current crisis. But then, I met you.”

“And?”

“And everything in my life changed.”

“I don’t really know how to believe that.”

She slipped into the chair next to him. So quiet and unassuming. So the entire center of his life now, and yet she wouldn’t believe him. “From the first moment you smiled at me there was something in me that responded to you. The first conversation, whisper, touch, kiss, I felt something different than ever before. It wasn’t a week before I told Morgan we were no longer sexual together. It was you. It was just you.”

“How did you think this would end? You knew about Tommy. The thing I didn’t think you knew about, you knew the entire time.”

He shook his head repeatedly. How to explain what seemed asinine in retrospect? “I don’t want to insult you with what I first thought. I used it to justify hanging around you without telling you who I was.”

“Try me.”

“I wanted to believe you were mistaken.”

He saw her twist around in the chair, her agitation obvious. “How did you think I was mistaken?”

“I wanted to believe you’d been drunk and blacked out. That you didn’t realize you two had sex and just thought…”

“When did you change your mind?”

He peeked up at her, surprised at the mild-mannered tone to her voice. “I think I always knew better. I couldn’t fathom how to admit to myself that the brother I love was a rapist.”

“He did it. I don’t know if you’re still conflicted on that. But he drugged me and had sex with me.”

Tristan’s stomach squeezed and he nodded as he stared almost blindly at his feet. “Tell me what he did to you. Tell me what you suffered. Tell me what these last two years dealing with it all alone has been to you.”