So we stay quiet and wait, giving him the space to summon the courage to share this with Addie. I squeeze her hand, and she seems to understand, standing silently beside me, a gentle breeze swirling her hair in the cold air as she watches Colt patiently.
He keeps his back to us as he finally speaks, his voice low. “Frank beat on Mom whenever he got real drunk. I don’t know if he ever had much respect for women to begin with, but by the time Ann hit her preteen years, all women were worthless whores to him.”
“Why?” Addie asks. “What’s his problem?”
“Somehow, he got it in his mind that Mom had an affair with this guy named Jack Elliott. Frank was convinced she was secretly in love with him. And maybe she was.” Colt shrugs, his gaze still trained on the cracked paint. “Even if it was true, it doesn’t excuse what he did. But the idea ate away at him, and he got angry and bitter about it. He’d go through bouts where he’d say I wasn’t even his son, that I was just a bastard born to a two-timing whore.”
I turn to Addie. “We knew he wouldn’t have any qualms about going after our little sister if we weren’t there.”
Addie’s hand tightens around mine. “And... and if you were there?”
My gaze shifts to my oldest brother, as does Remi’s. Colt’s still turned away from us, but the tension in his big frame is unmistakable. I know he doesn’t want to relive it, but he wanted her to know, so this is where we’re at.
Remi speaks up. “It was on the front walk, right over there, that first time — wasn’t it, Colt?”
He glances over his shoulder and contemplates a patch of walkway in front of the house. “Yeah. I was, what? Eleven, twelve?”
“Couldn’t have been much older.” Remi nods.
Colt turns around to face us, his gaze trained on Addie. “It didn’t start all at once, you know. I remember days when he was alright. Good, even. He used to make Mom laugh. When I was real little, they seemed to have a lot of love between them. He’d get drunk sometimes, sure, but nothing like he did later. Over the years, I don’t know...”
Our oldest brother shrugs with a sigh and stares down at the ground. “He just rotted from the inside out. Started staying longer at the bars. Couldn’t hold down a job because he’d show up hungover, and then he’d drink even heavier after he got fired and spend more of the money we didn’t have on booze. We ended up poor as fuck, while Jack Elliott made his first million. That really fucking pissed him off. He was so damn angry about it, even though it was his own goddamn fault.”
Remi nods, his jaw clenched. “Every time one of the Elliotts were in the newspaper for some achievement or another, we knew Frank would go on a bender and he’d lay into Mom.”
Colt looks over at the remnants of the walkway leading to the front door, the cement cracked and choked with weeds. “Yeah, it was right there. Jack Elliott had just announced he was running for mayor. Frank was fucking livid. First time I coaxed that son of a bitch into hitting me instead of Mom.”
“Even then, you could hold your own,” I tell him.
Colt huffs and shakes his head. “Well, not at first, not until I was a little older and had bulked up. Those first few years, I got my ass kicked. But I learned how to fight. How to be faster than him. He was strong as fuck back then, before he wasted away into the sack of bones he is now.”
“Eventually, we all took our punches,” Remi says quietly. “But it kept him from hitting Mom as much.”
Addie’s looking at us, her eyes wide with shock and sadness, and I can feel her hand tremble in mine.
An anguished sorrow settles deep inside my chest, partly from the heaviness of reliving this shit and partly from wondering how she’s going to feel about us once she knows all the skeletons in our closet.
But there’s no turning back now.
“Did your mom work? Didn’t she have anyone she could have turned to—a co-worker or someone?”
Colt snorts and shakes his head. “Frank was too insecure to let her have a job and friends and life away from him. Said her place was at home, and she didn’t have any business being elsewhere.”
“But... how’d you guys make ends meet, then? Since he wasn’t able to hold down a job and your mom didn’t work?”
I purse my lips, remembering the days when we could barely scrape together enough to eat. “It wasn’t easy, but we made do. As soon as we could, we started working odd jobs. Just little things, like bussing tables at the diner for cash under the table or doing yard work for the big estates over on Belmont.”
“But Frank usually fucked that up for us,” Remi growls. “Even if we didn’t breathe a word of where we were working, it seemed like he’d manage to find us every damn time.”
Remi comes up beside us, and Addie holds out a hand to him. He takes it, looking down to watch their fingers intertwine.
Colt leads the way, the rest of us following him as we slowly make our way around the house to the backyard — or what used to be a backyard.
Now it’s just a tiny, forgotten plot of land, so choked with weeds and small saplings that it’s barely a clearing anymore.
“It got to be so that no one wanted to hire us,” Remi tells Addie as we walk. “Didn’t matter if it was eight in the morning on a Sunday, the son of a bitch would show up and cause a damn scene, drunk off his ass and cursing at us. We got fired a lot because of Frank.”
Colt kicks at the stalk of a tall weed and snorts. “Better yet is when he’d beat us until we told him where the restaurant manager kept the key to the lock box of petty cash, or the security code to the gate of an estate with a big shed of lawn equipment. Then he’d show up at two in the morning and rob the place.”
“Oh my God,” Addie says. “You didn’t deserve any of that. You were just kids. You shouldn’t have had that on your shoulders.”
“You’d be surprised how many kids go through that kind of shit,” I tell her. “We had it pretty bad, sure, but Tank’s dad used to take the belt to him and make sure the buckle dug in.”
Addie winces beside me as I continue. “Knew a couple other kids from school who’d show up with big bruises—not the kind you get just roughhousing with your friends. They’d get changed for gym class in the corner of the locker room in a damn hurry, hoping no one saw. We didn’t talk about it, though—none of us.”
“I always just thought it’d make things worse if I told anyone,” Colt admits. “Seemed like the thing to do was just keep our mouths shut. That’s what everyone else did. They’d look away real quick if they noticed the bruises, and pretend they didn’t see.”
“For me it was shame, pure and simple.” I look at my brothers and throw up a hand. “I mean, fuck. Do you remember my tenth birthday?”
Colt raises his eyebrows at me then nods at the big oak tree. “Yeah. Right over there on the swings Granddad put up.”
Addie twists to take a long look at the sprawling tree at the edge of the clearing, as though she’s trying to picture what it might have been like back then.
“Wes was so proud to turn double-digits,” my oldest brother says with the hint of a smile. “That’s what he called it — double-digits.”
I nod and give him a small grin. “I was so damn excited about that birthday. Frank had been arrested for being drunk in public and was supposed to be locked up for the weekend, so I managed to convince a few kids to come over that Saturday to play a game of football. Promised them lots of soda and birthday cake.”
“Oh, yeah? What happened?” Addie asks.
“Well, we got the game started,” I say. “Then Frank showed up. Released two days early, somehow. One of his buddies dropped him off, and when he got out of the car, he already had a bottle in his hand.”
“Sat on that swing, yelling drunken slurs at us. Called us pussies,” Remi tells her, pointing at the spot where two metal chains still dangle from the big oak tree.
The bright blue plastic seat is long gone, and the links of the chains are tangled with vines, but I know my brothers can see the
scene playing out just as vividly as I can.
“My friends were too scared to play and too scared to leave,” I tell Addie. “It was a fucking disaster. Finally, after like two fucking never-ending hours, Dad passed out and fell face first in the mud. Everyone scattered as fast as they could as soon as that happened, and, well... that was the last time any of our friends came out here. So yeah, for me, it was shame. Just straight up embarrassment. That’s why I never talked about it.”
A moment passes as we all stare at the chains in silence. I’d expected a tidal wave of anger to surge through me as those scenes played through my mind, but somehow, Addie’s firm grip on my hand help kept me grounded.
“What about your grandfather?” Addie asks. “Where was he? Why didn’t he help you?”
Colt grimaces a little and lets out a heavy sigh, staring at the ground as he drags a boot against a patch of weeds.
“Eh... Granddad was... well, he was a good man,” Colt says, “but he wasn’t here much. He was career military. That was his first and only true love. Worked himself into a specialty position, and the army didn’t want him to leave, so he stayed on ‘til his health forced him into retirement.”
“When he was here,” I explain, “well, I don’t think he ever saw the worst of it. At least not for a long time. And maybe he didn’t want to see it, either, you know?”
“His visits were like a vacation for us,” Colt says. “Frank would be on his best behavior for a couple weeks, Mom would breathe easy for a little while, and we’d get to spend time up in the mountains, away from all this shit.”
“Besides, he was old school,” Remi adds. “You know what I mean?”
Addie nods slowly. “I think so?”
“Don’t know if I ever saw that man cry,” Remi tells her. “Not once in my whole life. He was tough as nails. Not the touchy-feely type. He wasn’t the kind to ask about things that happened behind closed doors.”
Colt nods. “Yeah, Granddad never really brought up that kind of stuff. But when we were up on his land, times were good, and we didn’t want to think about it, either, much less talk about it. But those last few years, he knew. And he gave us a way out, by skipping over Frank and naming us in his will, instead. By the end, I think he hated Frank a little—his own son.”
“You know, I think that’s the real reason he decided to build that cabin,” Remi says. “He’d had that land for years — it’d been passed down to him from his father — and hadn’t ever shown any interest in living there. I think he just wanted us to have a place to go. Helped Mom, too, when it came down to it.”
A worried expression comes over Addie’s features. “You don’t talk about her much, either. What happened to her?”
My brothers and I exchange looks, our shoulders heavy with the weight of that day. It’s Colt who speaks up first.
“It was Christmas evening,” he says, and as soon as he does, I feel Addie’s grip tighten on my hand.
Her eyes dart to each of us, fear in her expression. I wish she didn’t have to hear this. That it just never happened.
“Things had been good for a while,” Colt continues, a tremor in his deep tone. “Long enough that we’d all kinda relaxed a little. We were off school for the holidays, Granddad was here on leave, and everything felt... really nice for once.”
Remi nods. “Yeah. Frank had eased up on drinking, and he’d even managed to keep a steady job for a while at that point. Bills were getting paid, there were even presents under the tree, and Mom was smiling for the first time in years.”
The apprehension in Addie’s voice is palpable. “I’m guessing things took a turn?”
“You could say that,” I manage to get out, my gut clenched at the memory, my heart pounding in my chest.
I take a deep breath and try to steady my voice. “We were all in a pretty good mood that day. Mom had been baking in the kitchen all afternoon, making apple pies — it was one of her favorite things to do — and we had a big meal planned for Christmas dinner. Us kids, we were gathered in the living room around the tree, damn near giddy with excitement, cause Frank said we were allowed to open one gift each before dinner.”
“That’s when we heard the sound of glass breaking in the kitchen,” Colt says, his face twisting with emotion.
A beat passes before he continues. “At first, we thought maybe Mom had dropped a casserole dish or something, but when we ran into the kitchen, we saw her slumped on the floor, and there was blood everywhere.”
I swallow hard as Colt looks away, my hands growing sweaty in Addie’s grip as we revisit the story of the worst day of our lives.
Remi draws in a deep breath, the dark memory flashing in his eyes. He motions at the back of the house, where the kitchen looks out on the backyard. “He’d thrown her right into the window.”
“It shattered to pieces,” Colt says quietly, anger and grief in every syllable. “There were big slivers of glass sticking out of her face and neck.”
Addie’s face contorts with the effort to hold back tears, and she squeezes both our hands.
“He was just standing over top of her, staring down at her,” I say, shutting my eyes as though it’ll stop the knife in my stomach from twisting painfully. But the scene floods through my mind, and suddenly I’m fourteen again, watching the horror play out in real time.
“Ann started screaming, and that’s when he looked over at us. I’ll never forget the look on his face — no remorse at all.” I shake my head and open my eyes, swallowing hard. “And he hadn’t had a drop to drink that day. Couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol.”
Colt nods at me. “Wes lunged for the phone to call 9-1-1, but Frank grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the floor. Remi and I tackled him, and the three of us got into a massive brawl. Meanwhile, Mom was bleeding out right there on the floor, and Ann was huddled in the corner, frozen stiff with fear, crying.”
Addie’s shaking like a leaf beside me, her hand trembling in mine. Or maybe that’s me. Shaking with fear and disbelief and anger, just like I did that day.
“Granddad showed up in the middle of this,” Remi tells her. “He and Wes carried Mom out to his car while we fought with Frank.”
“I think it was Remi that finally knocked him out cold,” Colt says. “As soon as the car was out of the driveway, the two of us took off on foot, following them to the hospital.”
Addie’s holding her breath as she looks at us, her expression damn near petrified, tears on her cheeks. The question is in her eyes long before she summons the courage to ask, “Was... was she okay?”
I nod and give her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Yeah, Mom made it, but just barely. She was in intensive care for a long time.”
“The police put Frank in jail, right? That’s... that’s attempted murder, what he did.”
All three of us shake our heads.
“No. She told the doctors it was just an accident and made us swear not to say anything different,” Remi tells her.
“Why?” Addie cries in disbelief. “Why would she protect him like that?”
Colt shakes his head. “It wasn’t Frank she was protecting — it was us kids. Especially Ann.”
Addie eyes him. “What do you mean?”
“She was worried about us being split up,” he explains. “Ann would’ve been put in the foster system, and the guys and I would have ended up in at the boys’ home.”
“But surely, that would have been better than being under the same roof as your dad,” Addie insists, looking at us with a bewildered sadness.
“You’d think so, but no,” I tell her.
“Truth is those places weren’t much better than our home life, not when we were growing up,” Remi adds. “Our mom was terrified of what might happen to Ann if we were all separated. Seems a couple times a year, another foster home would end up in the news, one horrible thing happening after another, especially to girls, if you know what I mean. There weren’t as many safeguards in place back then.”
“O
h.” Addie’s shoulders heave with understanding, and her eyes fall to the ground.
“After that day, we knew Frank wouldn’t stop. We knew he’d eventually kill Mom, if she didn’t leave,” I say. “That look on his face when he was standing over her — it was sheer hatred. In his mind, she’d become the reason for all his problems. We knew he wouldn’t be the least bit sorry to see her dead.”
Wayward strands of Addie’s hair dance gently in the breeze as she looks at us. “So, what did you do?”
Colt shrugs. “We couldn’t do much — no money, no place to take her, no friends to turn to for help. But when she was released from the hospital, Granddad got her out of town.”
“He put her up with a retired Army buddy of his in Virginia,” I say. “He and his wife had a little farm in the country and a spare room. Mom didn’t want to go — she didn’t want to leave us, but Granddad put her on the plane, anyway. And he told Frank he’d cut his balls off if he ever went looking for her.”
Addie’s voice is soft as she asks, “Why didn’t you go, too?”
Remi frowns and turns a hand up. “Never really seemed like an option, to be honest. Maybe Granddad just didn’t know of a place that had room for a woman and four kids. Or maybe he felt we’d be alright, that with Mom gone Frank would calm down.”
“He was right, in a way,” Colt says. “After that, Frank went back to drinking himself stupid, but he stopped coming around. We’d hear about him getting arrested from time to time, or news of a skirmish he’d had at some a bar, but he rarely showed up at the house the last couple years we were here. Things were a lot quieter.”
Addie blinks in surprise, looking to each of us. “And you guys... the four of you just lived here by yourselves?”
“Yeah.” Remi nods. “And we did just fine. Better than fine, really, once Frank bailed on us.”
“Within a few years, we’d all made it through high school,” I say. “Then Ann left town, and the three of us moved up to the cabin. We never looked back.”
Mountain Cure (Stone Brothers Duet, #2) Page 14