If I was Braddox I would have demanded she sleep with me and stay in my room. I wouldn’t have let her act shy or even acted shy myself, but I wasn’t Braddox. I didn’t act like him or talk like him. Thinking like him wasn’t even in the realm of possibility.
She moved toward me; her thick hair pushed back behind her shoulders. I wanted to push my fingers through the shiny curls and pull her to me. The taste I’d gotten in the front seat of my El Camino wasn’t enough. I wanted more. She had become like a drug and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get enough.
Eagerly, I studied her form, trying to see the different angles of her body. I hadn’t been able to see much in the car and I wanted to see all of her. I needed to see all of her.
She sank onto the bed where I’d indicated and she hugged the bag to her chest. Pulling the plump pink flesh of her lower lip between pearly white teeth, Olivia cast her gaze to the side and then up at me as if she were nervous to start the conversation.
I tilted my head toward her. “You okay?” When she’d said she needed to talk I should have been more focused on her tone and what she could possibly want to cover. Instead, I’d let myself be distracted by the way she looked, the way she’d felt in my arms, and how I was the nervous one to see her and why.
“Well, it’s not… I mean.” She laughed and shook her head, reaching out and shifting the laptop around and moving it more to the other side of the bed. Glancing at the screen, her smile faded and she narrowed her eyes. She pulled the computer closer to her and leaned closer, studying the images. “What is this? Why is Stephanie on here?” Olivia shot a glance at me, her eyes suddenly suspicious. “What are you doing with video from Donnie’s house?”
I thought I’d paused the video. I reached out and pressed pause more firmly this time and then looked again at Olivia. “It’s not what you think.” Did I even know what she was thinking? If I was her, I’d be freaking out. Having the video made me look complicit with Donnie and Braddox. How else should she be thinking?
“I’m not sure what I think, to be honest. Why don’t you tell me what it is and I’ll tell you if it’s what I’m thinking?” She dug her fingers into the sides of the backpack in her arms, papers crinkling as she moved. Every few seconds she shot a glance at the paused video, her gaze dark and her lips tight.
I ignored my instincts to keep everything a secret to protect her. Instead, I started talking about Stephanie’s attack. It was the truth. I wasn’t ready to acknowledge what had happened to Olivia yet. Maybe she didn’t trust me and that’s why she hadn’t said anything. Maybe… I don’t know.
“Remember the night of the party when you’d gone to Donnie’s?” I waited for her to nod and then I continued. “I stole the security camera footage from his house. Um, well, actually Braddox made me go with him the night before he came here and pretended to be me. We drove around, looking for Beetham. I didn’t know why, but once we snagged Ryan and took him back to Donnie’s place, they drugged him. I snuck in and pretended to be drugged when they did the same to me and… Braddox found out. He knew I was faking it. So he asked me to get the info he needed from the security room. And that’s when he stole my phone.” I sighed and lifted my hands, palms skyward. “So, I stole the video because he told me to and then I got out of there. My friend died that night and I saw the video early that morning before I came here and found out about you and Braddox.”
“I told you, that was innocent.” Olivia started to defend herself and I held up my hand.
Shaking my head, I pressed my lips together. “Look, it’s not about that. That’s over. I understand. Braddox… can be manipulative. He’s always been like that. You’re as much a victim as I am, if not more. What I’m telling you is how I got this video and what it has to do with everything.” I waited for her to lose the panicked look on her face as she nodded slowly and then scooted back a little further. “I watched the video. All of it. I’ve gone over and over the details. Ryan raped Stephanie, but he didn’t do it on his own.”
Olivia furrowed her brow, her lips falling open in question. “What?”
“After Braddox left you outside, he told Ryan that Stephanie was upstairs. I’m not sure exactly what he said but… Here.” I pulled the laptop nearer to me and went to that specific frame and the time it started and showed her the video I’d compiled of Stephanie’s timeline. For some reason, it mattered more than I could understand without all of the details, but I made note of it anyway.
“Braddox.” Olivia breathed, her expression falling even further with disappointment. “Does he even know how to be honest?”
I clenched my hands as I braced them in front of me and leaned forward on the bed. “Braddox does things for a reason. It’s not because he’s a bad guy. If he did that to Stephanie, I’m sure he wasn’t sending Ryan up thinking he would rape her. Braddox probably thought he was sending him up for plain sex. I’m not sure. There’s no sound.” I shrugged. I wasn’t being flippant, but I had to believe there was something redeemable about my brother. There had to be.
“You’re making excuses for him?” Olivia narrowed her eyes and then set her jaw. “Maybe you should know about your saintly brother before you start sticking up for him.” She turned, facing me with the laptop to her left. She moved to dump out the backpack and then froze as she caught sight of the next frame which was of her walking toward the pool house.
I stared at Olivia, transfixed as she couldn’t drag her gaze from the screen. Her eyes grew wide and she pressed her fingertips to her lips. I knew what she was watching, what she was taking in, but she’d lived it. She’d survived it and barely gotten away because she fought back.
“Donnie. Why would he try to rape me? I don’t understand. Why would he do that?” Olivia shook her head and then turned to face me; her eyes bright with tears she probably wouldn’t shed. Her pride made my own look nonexistent. “I thought it was Braddox. He… when he came in here and I thought it was you, he’d done it from behind so I wouldn’t see his face – I think. I mean, the whole thing was surreal. I thought it was you, but my body didn’t respond the same way as if it was. Nothing made sense until I found his phone and that’s when it clicked.” She shook her head, sorrow deep in the dark brown of her eyes. “What do you think about all of this?”
I motioned toward the bag she’d been about to dump out. “I have a feeling I don’t know everything yet.” What felt like a rock dropped into the center of my stomach. Not knowing was worse than knowing. It didn’t matter how bad it was, I could handle it. I could face it. But not knowing meant it could be anything.
Braddox could have done anything and until I knew for sure, I couldn’t help thinking the worst of him even while hoping for the best. “Olivia, I need to know.” I squeezed my eyes shut tight, and then opened them to watch her, wait for her reaction.
She nodded, slowly tilting the bag toward me and allowing envelopes and papers to spill onto my bed. “Before you read these, I need you to know that I wasn’t sure if you should know, but… the more I find out, the more I know Donnie and Braddox aren’t good guys. I thought it had to be impossible. Maybe Braddox was a good guy who’d been in the wrong situation at the wrong time and Donnie was just taking advantage, but when I started reading these? I knew that wasn’t true.”
She reached out and put her hand on my wrist as I reached for an envelope. “Jaxon, I’m serious. Don’t read these if you want to keep any semblance of your thoughts for Braddox clean.” The warning was a little too late.
I shrugged and pulled open the envelope nearest me. “I don’t have a very good opinion of him as it is. I’m sure he’s not worse than I think of him. I have a pretty low opinion right now.” I smiled reassuringly at Olivia, grateful for her concern, but more than sure, I knew the worst of it.
What could be worse than setting up his girlfriend’s best-friend to be raped?
Chapter 12
Olivia
I hoped Jaxon didn’t see the tremor in my hands as I emptied the bag and then waite
d for him to pull open the first envelope nearest him. It seemed to take forever, that first one. Then he seemed to devour them one by one as he tore into the envelopes, reading them out of order, but putting the words into some kind of a consecutive timeline. At least in his head.
He slowly looked up at me, his eyes begging me to tell him it wasn’t true, that the secrets coming out weren’t true.
I shook my head. I couldn’t do that. While Braddox was Jaxon’s twin, I needed him to see what he really was. I needed Jaxon to see the things Braddox had done to their family and to others.
That was the only way I’d be able to really ask for help seeking revenge. And I needed help. I needed Braddox to get what he deserved. Braddox, and now… Donnie. I’d already kind of asked Jaxon at the cemetery, but I had no doubt everything I said had been diluted with the sex we’d followed up with.
As much as I didn’t want Jaxon to have this burden, at the same time, I didn’t want to shoulder it by myself. Plus, Jaxon had just as much to be mad about, if not more, as me.
“Where did you get these?” Jaxon reached out, closing his fingers around my shoulder and holding me still so he could penetrate my gaze with his. His dark eyes suggested he might not believe me, but at the same time his hand shook as he held me in place.
How upset was he? Was his anger directed at me? I didn’t want to ask him, but I also had to know. I winced under the tight strength of his hand and tried to pull away.
After a second, he dropped his fingers to his sides, clenching and unclenching them as he stared at me. “Olivia, where?”
I shook my head, swallowing. “A few nights ago, Braddox broke into my room through the secret passageway. I figured out that’s what he was going to do when I went into his room to find something on him, anything, so I could get back at him for everything he’s ruined.” My words broke on a sob and I sucked in sharply and blinked rapidly to avoid tears. I wouldn’t cry. I refused to. He wasn’t worth it.
But crying was necessary when I had so much pent up frustration and anger. Plus, I hadn’t really had a chance to assimilate what Braddox had set up, how he’d violated my privacy in more ways than one. Maybe this would help me get revenge and help me process the things I needed to figure out.
I needed Jaxon’s help and the only way that was going to happen was to make him understand just what kind of a person his twin really was.
Jaxon
Olivia dashed her fingers under her eyes and lifted her chin. “Finding something on him, seriously anything, was important to me. I needed information on him that would help me. But, then, I found the door that led into my room. It’s like a passageway or something.” She lifted her hands and tried to explain it while showing me. “It’s like a closet with two doors. He had a box inside on a shelf and I emptied the contents into my bag. That’s where I got them from.” She folded her arms again, slightly bereft looking as if she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands now that the cards were dealt.
“Was this that night? I thought you thought it was me?” I blinked in confusion, holding the current letter from my mother to Braddox closer to my waist as I waited for an answer. I couldn’t focus on what the letters held. Not yet.
Because I couldn’t face that my brother had single-handedly torn our family apart and sent our mother to an early grave.
Olivia averted her gaze, leaving me more confused until she spoke. “No… I mean, yes, but this was a different night. He came into my room. I knew what he’d done. I knew what he was planning on doing and I was ready.” She lifted her chin and met my gaze with a challenge in her eyes. “He came in through the secret passageway and stripped off his clothes before reaching my bed.”
An icy calm spread through me. I inhaled, my nostrils flaring as I tried to avoid the truth. “He screwed you again?” How was this possible? Why would she trust him a second time?
She blinked and shook her head. “No. I wasn’t in my bed. I knew. I could feel in my gut what was going to happen. I had a knife from the kitchen and when he bent over my bed, I held it to his nuts.” She said it so calmly, it took me a minute to digest what she meant.
My jaw dropped open. “You held a knife on him?” The girl was amazing and I had no words. All I could do was stare at her in disbelief. “What happened?” A knife on Braddox’s nuts. How in the hell was Olivia sitting in front of me? Braddox could be cruel and vindictive. He wouldn’t have let her get away with that.
She shrugged. “I cut him. He had to go the hospital. While he was gone, I moved in next door.” She spoke so calmly, so matter-of-factly, it left me cold and hot at the same time.
After a minute she lifted her gaze to mine, her eyes plaintive and pain-filled. “I know he’s your brother. I know this. And I care about you, more than I have words for. I wouldn’t put you in this situation, if it wasn’t… if I…” She blinked and licked her lips. “I’m in danger. Every minute that goes by, he can try again to do what he already did. He might try to come in here and rape me. He could rape me in the bathroom. There is nowhere that I’m safe. Even with the cut on his thigh, by his dick, he had a hard-on, Jaxon. He’s not going to stop.”
“What do you want from me? He’s my brother. I don’t think he set out to do this stuff intentionally.” I glanced down at the letters. I needed more time to process everything I’d just found out. I needed to put the puzzle pieces together of the information I had and what Olivia had. Instinctively, I wanted to protect Braddox. It wasn’t something I could avoid. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not because I thought he was a good guy, but because I believed I was.
She jumped from the bed and stood over me, her arms akimbo as the tears she’d been fighting spilled over her cheeks. “I don’t want anything from you. I promise I won’t ask you again for help. But this? I need your help making him stop. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. And trust me. As much as I can protect myself, I’m terrified that he’s going to get to me again. I’m scared that the next time, he won’t stop. I took it to the next level. I cut him, deep. He’s going to want revenge on me. I need to get him before he gets me.” She closed her eyes and dashed her tears away with the tips of her fingers.
When she dropped her hands, she lifted her chin, her eyes sparking with ill-contained rage. “And if you don’t want to help me? That’s fine. But I want you to know I can’t be with you as long as he’s not controlled.” The fire in her eyes was a promise and one I didn’t want her to keep.
“Why? He doesn’t have anything to do with us.” I stood and reached out, putting my hands on her shoulders to study her more carefully. “He can’t hurt you when you’re with me. Stay with me.”
She laughed humorlessly and shook my hands off her. She thrust a finger toward my chest as she spoke, moving her hand to enunciate each word she spoke. “No. He can. He has. You’re twins, Jaxon. He already fooled me. Who knows what he’s going to try next? Your brother is insane and you’re enabling him.”
I stared at her, hurting more with each word that came out of her mouth.
Not because she was being mean, but because she was being honest.
If I could force myself to take a long, hard look at my life and the things that had happened, I could correlate all of the negative things down to consequences of Braddox’s actions and choices. Everything. As much as I still needed time to assimilate the letters, I didn’t need more information to believe Braddox was a product of his own choices. And unfortunately, my life was as well.
Did I really want to put Olivia through the stress of me protecting Braddox? No. Because I had to choose in that instance who I was going to protect. The plain truth was, how could I protect Braddox from his own decisions? I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right to anyone.
My shoulders slumped forward and I sighed. “Okay. I’m in. What did you have in mind?” I had to be open to just about anything. I resolved to at least hear her out, but I knew that was only the first step. The first step I’d agreed to make. It was all downhill from there.
>
“I want to show your father first. He needs to know what really happened to your family and to him.” Olivia bent over the bed, her anger still very much in evidence as she jerkily scooped the letters and envelopes back into the backpack.
I blinked rapidly, shaking my head. I bent over myself, stopping her movements with my hands. “No. Olivia, we can’t involve my dad. We can’t. No matter what Braddox has done, Dad can’t know about it. Braddox can clean up. He can change, but once Dad’s opinion of him has been altered, he can’t go back. He needs to be able to fix what he’s done. We have to give him the chance, do you understand?” I held Olivia’s gaze with mine.
After a few moments of silent contemplation, she slowly nodded, her eyes suspicious. “Fine. I won’t tell Trenton, unless it doesn’t stop. I won’t live like this.” She zipped the now-full bag shut and straightened from the bed.
“Let’s handle this between us. I think we can come up with appropriate punishments and scare tactics to keep Braddox honest, don’t you?” I reached out and brushed my thumb down Olivia’s smooth cheek. Touching her was something I never wanted to stop doing. I had a feeling that’s how Braddox felt on a shallower level.
She nodded, lifting her lips to mine. We sealed the deal with a kiss that was earth-shatteringly tender and desperate at the same time.
What if we failed? And what if Braddox found out? There was going to be a lot more to worry about then just rape. From the things I suspected, we had a lot to fear from Braddox and Donnie.
I just hoped Olivia understood what we were getting ourselves into.
Chapter 13
Olivia
Jaxon walked me down to the kitchen where Mom and Trenton sat, each nursing a glass of merlot at the dining table. Maybe he trusted me to keep my information to myself and maybe he just wanted to spend more time with me in a normal setting.
Forgiven: a bully romance (An Academy Twin Rivalry Series Book 3) Page 9