Filthy Pride: Dark Bully Romance

by Savannah Rose

  I needed to get Damon to understand.

  But he’d been hurt in all of this mess, too. So hurt, in fact, that maybe he was okay with burning the whole house down if that was the only way to get Eva back.

  Chapter 37

  NOW

  As soon as Adam and I parted ways, I was on the hunt. Five phone calls unanswered. Even more text messages with no reply. Getting through to Damon was a task impossible. He’d made up his mind and I’d be a fool to claim that I didn’t understand why. Eva almost ruined him. And he wanted revenge. Except, revenge wasn’t the answer, not anymore. Not when we’d already won. Not when he already had Angelique back in his arms, and everything seemed right in the world.

  I grabbed my keys from the table and didn’t answer mom as she called out to me. Speeding through the door I climbed into the driver’s seat and just about pushed pedal to the floor before I’d even gotten the door closed. Something told me that Damon wasn’t going to wait for my go-ahead to release the evidence he got. The Forum would be on fire by morning. Eva would be taken away. He’d feel like he won the jackpot. But there would be a lot to lose, too. When we came up with the plan, we were okay with the repercussions. Except, now, there didn’t have to be any repercussions – not if we played this right.

  The ride to Damon’s house felt like it had taken an eternity, when in fact, it was less than twenty minutes. Keys still in the ignition, I hopped out of the car and pounded my fists against the door. There were lights on upstairs, but none on in the lower region of the house.

  A curtain pulled to the side and a face that was not Damon’s quickly came into and then out of view.

  “Angelique,” I yelled, pounding against the door again.

  Only moments later, there was a creak and the front door opened ever so slightly. This time, it was Damon’s face that I was staring into.

  “You don’t get to change your mind,” he said. “We had a plan, Anna!”

  “And our plan has flaws.”

  “Leaving Eva to do whatever the hell it is she does, that’s the only flaw. She needs to go down.”

  I shook my head at him. “She needs help, Damon. She’s sick and she needs help.”

  “This will force her to get the help she needs,” he said.

  “No it won’t. I promise you, it won’t. And think about all the people you’re hurting in the process. You saw the videos. You saw just how much her mother’s suffering.”

  “She’s right,” came a voice from behind him. Angelique.

  He turned to look at her, his eyes wide as saucers. “After everything she did to you!” he said.

  “One way or the other, I might be going to jail. If this gets out…if I’m the one to put it out,” she said, “then I’m definitely going to jail.”

  Damon shook his head at her, gently taking her by the shoulders. “We talked about this, Angelique.”

  “She’s right,” I said. “If Eva gets sent to therapy. If she gets the help she needs, then maybe she won’t rat any of you out.”

  “Or maybe she’ll rat us out if we send her ass to therapy.”

  “But even then,” I said, “she doesn’t have solid proof. You can deny it. Say she’s crazy. Say…I dunno… If you show the videos to the cops, they’ll doubt everything she says. But if you put it online, you look guilty too.”

  Turning to me, Damon met me eye to eye. This was weighing on him and I could tell that all he wanted was for everything to be over and done with. “I’m sick of being under her thumb.”

  I reached for his hand and squeezed it gently. “I’ll hear from Adam tomorrow. If he gets through to his parents, then we’re okay. You’re okay and Angelique is okay and Eva will be sent somewhere far, far away. Just…just give it time, please. You might have been okay with the consequences when we came up with the plan because you were on pins and needles, but…right now, you don’t have to be on pins and needles anymore. Right now, you can keep your secret. Nobody will ever have to know that you stole evidence that night.”

  “And if Eva gets carried away to the looney bin, nobody will believe a word she says,” Angelique added.

  Damon closed his eyes and breathed in the longest three breaths I’ve ever seen anyone take.

  “Fine,” he said, and I felt like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. “I’ll wait for word from you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 38

  NOW

  Sometimes it’s the help you don’t want that you need the most. I wasn’t sure we could save my sister. I wasn’t sure she would ever go back to the girl she was when we were kids. Come to think of it, I haven’t a clue if all her life, she’d just been pretending. What I did know, however, was that I was going to put everything I had on the table and fight tooth and nail to make sure that, for once, my dad did the right thing.

  Eva was cruel.

  Eva was brutal.

  But Eva was also broken.

  As much as the way she treated my mother killed me, going behind her back felt like betrayal. I waited until morning to approach her, needing to collect my thoughts and find my composure first.

  When I walked into her room, Eva looked as though she was expecting me. She was sitting in her wheelchair, her body pointed toward the door and her eyes on me.

  “Brother,” she said, by way of greeting. The smile on her face made it evident that she was in the mood for trouble.

  “I need to talk to you, Eva,” I said. “I don’t need answers from you. I don’t even need you to comment. I just need you to hear me out for a minute.”

  She arched a brow at me and her face twisted into something vile. The look on her face should have stomped away my sympathy, but instead, it did the complete opposite. I felt bad for Eva. Only someone who was deeply troubled, only someone who was dying on the inside, could do the things she did.

  I took a hold of the handles on her wheelchair and pushed her toward the bed before taking a seat before her.

  “I’m going to talk to dad,” I said, getting right to the point. “What’s happening is bigger than just us, Eva.”

  She rolled her eyes. “He won’t care,” she answered, not asking for specifics.

  “I hope he does,” I said and moved toward her, hugging her tight. Maybe tighter than she deserved. “Come downstairs, Eva. If there’s anything I say that you need to defend yourself against, then I want you to have that chance.”

  With tears in my eyes, I let go of my sister and headed downstairs to find dad. He was tucked away on the corner of the sofa, a blanket thrown over his legs and a cup of coffee in his hands.

  “Where’s mom?” I asked and he pointed to the kitchen.

  She too, looked at me like I was an open book. She was shaking her head, just as close to tears as I was before I’d even said a single words.

  “Sit with us for a bit,” I said to her and was thankful that she complied without argument or hesitation.

  Together, in the living room, our broken family - minus one - gathered together for the first time in a very long time. There was a lot of denial as I told them what I’d found out. That Anna hadn’t been the one driving. That my sister’s jealousy drove her to do some pretty heart-breaking things. That she’d been cheated on. Drugged. That she wasn’t taking her pills because she had no intention of getting better.

  And finally, when all of the information had a chance to settle in, I handed my father my phone and pressed play on the video.

  I didn’t need fingers or hands to count the number of times I’d seen my father cry. Right now. Watching the video of his daughter abusing his wife, that was it. With every fiber of my being, I hoped that this first time would also be the last time. I also hoped that this would be the first for a lot of things.

  The first time he listened to a call to help his family.

  The first time he didn’t feel like throwing money at a problem was better than dealing with it head on.

  The first time he held my mother like she was the only thing in this world that
mattered.

  “We need to get her the help she needs,” he whispered, holding my mother’s face in his hands. Kissing her tears. Calming her in a way that only he had the power to.

  I thought that maybe this was it. All the shockers our family would have to deal with for the night, the month, maybe even for the year. But a sound on the stairs stole our attention and together we looked up to see Eva standing tall, taking each step just the way any of us would.

  My father gasped.

  My mother moaned.

  My jaw was exceptionally close to hitting the ground.

  “I lied about this too,” Eva said as she strolled into the living room on her own two feet. Tears as well as acceptance in her eyes as she broke her barriers down bit by bit.

  Maybe I was wrong, but this felt a lot like the first step to recovery.

  This felt like acceptance.

  Epilogue

  One month later

  “Are you ready for this?”

  Anna slid her hand into mine. Somehow, today was the best and the worst day all at the same time. No matter how I looked at it, no matter what happened from this moment forward, I would be eternally grateful for it. Having Anna by my side again felt like the answer to a prayer I was too afraid to say. Having my sister finally get the help she needed felt like heaven on earth.

  Eva was at a rehab center not too far from home. She had counseling twice a day. More if she needed it. And there was never a shortage of friends and family showing up to cheer her on.

  The last time I’d gone to see her, she looked happy. She was talkative, apologetic, calm, but not in a calculated kind of way. Now, Anna and I were heading there together – at Eva’s request.

  I finally felt like I wasn’t lost anymore. I had my north star and I was never going to be foolish enough to lose sight of her ever again.

  As we stepped into the rehab center, I looked over at Anna again, smiling the way she always should. Eva was already in the lobby when we arrived. Instead of turning her attention to me, she headed straight for Anna.

  “I have so much to apologize for,” she started and I watched as Anna shook her head.

  “New beginnings. There’s no need to dwell on the past.”

  Eva looked back at me with tears in her eyes. “I was so stupid,” she said. “If anyone deserves to steal you away, it’s her.” She turned back to Anna and allowed a single tear to fall. “I know this might be crossing a hell of a lot of lines, but can I hug you?”

  Rather than answering, Anna stepped forward and wrapped my sister in an embrace so warm I could feel the heat of it coat my skin. As I watched them, I decided that, despite the seriousness of the moment, today was one of the best days of my life. All the months Anna and I spent separated felt like a nightmare and I was finally starting to wake up. My sister was getting better. She was happier than I had ever seen her. The problems were huge and there was no certainty in the future, but we were facing them together.

  That was better than anything I could have ever asked for.

  Anna and Eva got along just fine for the time we spent at the rehab facility. So much so that you’d have thought they were best friends and I was nothing more than a fly on the wall. Eva gave Anna a tour of her room and walked her through the facility, explaining to her just how much easier it was to heal in a place like this than it was to heal at home. I understood that. Outside of two massive pools – one indoors and the other nestled between shady palm trees – there was a tennis court, a putting green and a mass of other activities to keep one’s mind off the stress of life.

  When the clock struck twelve, Eva insisted that we joined her for lunch. She’d told some of the girls she’d met here all about Anna and wanted them to meet her in the flesh. That was fine by me. More than fine, to be exact.

  The girls sat down at a table in the corner of the dining hall, joined by three others who Eva called over to the table. I excused myself to make a trip to the restroom, which inconveniently was being cleaned. Thinking nothing of it, I strolled through the halls until I got to Eva’s room. It was only a short trip and Anna and Eva were getting along so well that I was sure they wouldn’t miss me. Inside Eva’s bathroom, I took care of business, washed my hands and smiled at my reflection in the mirror perhaps for a second too long. Because that second was all it too for old habits to come rolling right back in. On top of the stand in Eva’s bathroom sat the same old makeup bag and within that bag sat the same old little box she’d hid her pills in. I shouldn’t have looked. To be fair, I didn’t want to look. But before I knew it, the trinket was in my hands and I was pulling open that little compartment at the bottom.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when nothing amiss revealed itself. At least, not at first. As I tried to push things back into place, however, that’s when my world felt like it was falling apart all over again.

  Written in red ink with what looked like blood smeared over it were three names and two titles. At the bottom, in even finer script, was the famous Silence of the Lamb quote.

  Anna

  Angelique

  Damon

  Mother

  Father

  When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin’, but not to help.

  Signed,

  The Fox

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  This little piggy is my target.

  This little piggy I shall break.

  This little piggy will forgive me.

  This little piggy's heart's at stake.

  Momma had a mantra; “Ignore the bullies and they’ll go away, poof, like magic.”

  When I was still naïve enough to believe her, this suggestion had made perfect sense. Only for some reason, it never worked for me. At first, I thought that I wasn’t ignoring hard enough.

  Then, I realized that magic only works when you’re pretty.

  This world wasn’t kind to little pigs.

  We don’t live long.

  Sooner or later, someone always came along to blow our worlds down around us.

  If I wanted to survive, if I wanted boys like Marcus to leave me alone, I’d have to become something different.

  Something new.

  Something better.

  I’d have to grow teeth and claws.

  I’d have to be willing to bite back. To kill the piglet and transform myself into a big, bad, wolf.

  And so I did.

  I wasn't a child anymore. I was a woman with a past that no longer had the right to haunt me. A woman who wanted love and wouldn't shy away from the unconventional in order to claim it.

  The plan was simple. Marry a man I didn't know. Fall in love with love and life. And never, ever, ever, look back. The problem? My past chose to push its way into my future. No matter how big I felt, no matter how much I'd grown, seeing him again made me feel like nothing more than the little piglet, ready for the roast.

  Less than perfect is a duology with a strong female lead, a bully, and a fake fiancé.

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  Love.

  Lies.

  Murder.

  There are so many more secrets to be uncovered. Pasts that will never be forgotten. Loves that will never be lost.

  Cornelia thinks she knows me. She's wrong about that. Just as wrong as she is about knowing herself.

  Sure, Maddox might walk like Prince Charming. He might even talk like him too. But we have something they will never have.

  A past.

  And where there's a past, there will also be a future.

  A bully romance that will keep you on your toes. Featuring scenes from high school as well as scenes where our protagonists are older and more mature.

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