My spine is ram-rod straight as I wait.

As the clock ticks the minutes past.

The seconds.

The moments.

This summer, there just wasn’t enough time with Brand.  It all ticked past so fast.  And now that I’ve left him, the seconds are coming so slowly, passing like razor blades on my skin, achingly, wretchedly slow.

I can do this.

I’m brave.

I’m brave.

I’m f**king brave.

Being brave doesn’t mean not being afraid, Nora.  It means being afraid and doing it anyway.

The mere memory of Brand’s voice, his words, makes me smile, warms my heart and buoys my resolve.

How dare William threaten him?

I could’ve cowered forever under threats toward me, but toward Brand?

That’s where they f**ked up.

The front door opens.  I hear the latch, I hear the knob. I lift my chin.

I’m f**king brave.

I’m f**king brave.

I reach under the edge of the mattress, my fingertips reaching, feeling.   Cool metal answers my question.  It’s there… just within reach.  Concealed and waiting.

It all ends today.

A polished loafer appears in my bedroom doorway, and I follow the legs up to the waist, up to the chest, up to the face where hardened brown eyes stare at me.

“Nora,” my father says, a camera dangling from his hand.  “I see you’re ready.”

He eyes me, all of me, my bare legs, my br**sts spilling from my bra, my bare skin, my arms, my face.  It’s all exposed.

For my father and my uncle.

My reality slams into me, hard and fast and ugly.

I’m tainted.

I’m used.

But it all ends today.

One more time. 

One.

More.

Time.

I unclench my teeth and lay back on the bed, spreading my legs the way they like.

“A Greene does what it takes,” I tell my father coldly.  “You taught me that.”

My father nods, his gaze fixed on my crotch.  He snaps a picture, then two, then three.

“Starting without me?”

William steps in.  He’s already shed his clothes, probably in the living room, and he’s only wearing his underwear.  He’s pale, wrinkled, sagging.  My stomach turns, but I ignore it.

I’m f**king brave.

“Take off your bra for your uncle, Nora,” my father tells me, with eyes like a predator.  “You know what he likes.”

The camera snaps.  Again. Then again.

Just like last time, my father stands in the corner, behind the camera, stroking himself while his brother gets off.   Like last time, he’ll be careful to stay out of the photos. He only takes them so that William can get off on them later.

William crawls onto the bed, on all fours, his white gut sagging to the sheets.  I pull my legs up, away from his skin, not wanting to touch him.

I squeeze my eyes shut, preparing.

I can do this.

I’m f**king brave.

“Open your eyes, Nora,” William breathes into my ear, his rank breath hot on my face. “I want to see you as I f**k you.”

He moves over me, hovering, positioning, and I reach to the side, beneath the edge of the mattress.  My fingers close around the cold steel.

That’s when I open my eyes.

And that’s when the breath freezes on my lips.

Bursting through the doorway, with all the fury of hell in his eyes, is my avenging angel.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Brand

Rage settles down on me, like a cloud, like a shield, as I bellow my way into the room.

With one fist, I punch Maxwell Greene in the face, slamming him into the wall.  In one deft motion, I ram my boot into his dick, crushing it.  I leave him whimpering in a heap on the floor.

With one bound, I grab William by the neck and drag him from the bed, ramming his face into the wall, again, then again, then again.

I don’t see, I don’t hear, I don’t feel.

I just am.

I just am enraged.

I’m a machine, intent on revenge, on protecting what is mine.  I punch William until his face is a wet pulp.  The anger pumps through my veins, pushing the rage through my heart, fueling me.

“Brand!”

Nora’s voice breaks through the cloud and I pause, mid-punch, my fist frozen in the air.  I turn and she’s poised on the bed, a delicate waif, beautiful and haunting, and with a 9 mm pointed at William’s chest.

“Stand back,” she tells me calmly, her voice cold and soft.

I drop William and step back, my eyes frozen on her face.

William is unconscious on the floor, blood spurting from his mouth, and gurgling in his nose.  Maxwell moans from behind him, his hands clasped to his broken cock.

“Nora,” I speak softly, my eyes trained only on her.  I see in her eyes that she means it.  She’s not aiming to maim.

She’s aiming to kill.

“Nora, I know you’re hurt.  What they’ve done is unthinkable, but I don’t want their blood on your hands.  You don’t know what that’s like.  You don’t deserve to know what that’s like.  They can’t hurt you now, Nora.  We’ll call the police.  It will be over.”

Nora keeps the gun on William’s chest, but she looks at me, her eyes big and blue.

And cold.

“Brand, you don’t understand,” she says simply. “I can’t get away from them.  William will ruin you. He knows about your past… about assaulting your father and how the judge made you join the Army. He’s going to use that to bankrupt your company—because he knows people in Washington.  And my father…”

I speak up, trying as best I can to stay calm, to dissuade her.  “Nora, they can’t ruin me.  I was always going to be a Ranger.  It was my dream from the time I was a kid. I wanted to protect people from evil like my father.  The judge knew that.  The judge saw the situation for what it was and gave me a break.  Nora, they can’t hurt me.”

But she’s unmoved and her voice is filled with contempt.

“Don’t you see?  It doesn’t matter what the truth is.  William has connections in the pentagon who will believe whatever he tells them to.  If he wants to ruin you, he’ll ruin you.  And that’s not all. I signed a contract that ties me to my father for twenty years.  I can’t do that.  I just can’t.  I’ve got to end it today, Brand.  It ends today.”

Her voice is so resigned that it sends my heart pounding into my throat, especially when I see her hand shaking.  She means to do it.