always read his reports in that same tone, but this one held a note of warning. Of underlying anger.
Or was Savage’s rage feeding everyone’s? That could happen. They were going to lose him if something wasn’t done soon. Absinthe risked a look at him. Savage had his head down, one hand over his eyes, pressing his fingers deep, as if his head was pounding. Absinthe knew it was. He was angry on Scarlet’s behalf as well as at the fuckers who had taken a little boy and shaped him into a monster.
“What happened?” Lana was the one who eventually asked.
Czar snagged a bottle of cold water and handed it to Absinthe, who was standing almost directly behind him. Absinthe was careful to avoid brushing fingers.
“Holden tried to get her drunk. He must have slipped her some kind of drug. During her testimony, she said she didn’t remember how she got upstairs to the bedroom, but when she did, she didn’t object to having sex with Holden. He was her boyfriend and she liked him. She was very honest and open about that. She agreed she would have sex with him. Unfortunately, here’s where things get murky. Holden Jr. testified that Scarlet was freaky in bed. That she got off on him telling her what to do. She didn’t like regular sex. On the stand, when his lawyer asked if that was the truth, she admitted it was.”
Absinthe swore under his breath. That was private between two people, not something for a courtroom or newspapers. Naturally, Holden Sr. would make certain everyone heard that piece of information about a teenage girl. Now he understood why Scarlet was worried about his thinking she was weird for her wanting him to take the lead. It would also make it more difficult for him when he did explain more of what he needed from her. What fucking bastards they were.
“Holden claimed he was giving her what she wanted by bringing his friends, Beau Cabot and Arnold Harrison, in with them, and giving her orders. She freaked out when they were all over her. She began going crazy on them and when they tried to restrain her so she wouldn’t hurt herself, she pulled a knife from where one of the boys had it on his belt and slashed and stabbed at them repeatedly,” Code continued. “The doctor testified that she had defensive wounds all over her, severe bruises, that it looked as if they’d tried to tie her down, but she fought them off. She hadn’t been raped and she didn’t have sex with any of them, Holden included, because he’d been too eager to get his friends involved.”
“The jury didn’t believe him?” Alena asked.
“Holden’s doctor refuted the testimony saying the bruising was from the boys trying to restrain her when she went crazy from the drugs she’d been using that night,” Code said. “Her friends came forward and said she had never done drugs. Her teachers pointed out she was an honor student and well ahead of her grade. It became clear that Holden Sr. wanted her in prison, and he was going to get what he wanted.”
“Prison?” Master hit the top of the table with the flat of his palms. “Are you fucking kidding me? Not even the county jail? They’d send a kid to prison for defending herself?”
“They made her look like a sick freak who enticed these college boys and then tried to slash them to pieces,” Code said. “I think she’d still be there, but shortly after she was taken to prison, someone broke into her parents’ home and her little sister was gang-raped.”
Absinthe’s eyes closed. The rage in the room increased tenfold. He didn’t know if it was Savage or him or the combination, but it was lethal. He was lethal. This wasn’t something Scarlet was just going to come out and tell him any more than he was going to tell her how Demyan had died. The ugliness in the world never failed to shock him. He’d been born to that shit, yet he couldn’t seem to get over the shock of it.
“I wish I could say it all ended there, but it didn’t,” Code said, his voice heavy. “Priscilla, her little sister, hanged herself. Her parents came home, they’d been out for the night, and they found her. After cutting his daughter down, the father went into his bedroom, got a gun, shot his wife and then himself. The police found all three bodies together.”