Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4) - J.R. Ward Page 0,134

to make sure my mother never found out. Then dad saw me crouched down in the shrubs. He came over, hauled me up by the collar, and backhanded me so hard I spit blood."

As Butch smiled in a hard way, she looked at the uneven edge of his front tooth.

"He told me it was for being a spy and a snitch. I swore to him I was just looking, I wasn't going to tell no one.

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J R Ward: Lover Revealed

He clipped me again and called me a pervert. My brother... yeah, my brother just watched the whole thing happen. Didn't say a word. And when I walked past my mother with my split lip and the chip out of my tooth, she just held my little sister Joyce closer and looked away." He shook his head slowly. "Up at the house, I went to the bathroom and cleaned up, then headed for the room I was staying in. I didn't give a shit about God, but I went down on my knees, clapped my little hands together, and prayed like a good Catholic should. I begged God that this not be my family. Please let this not be my family. Please let there be someplace else I can go..."

She had a feeling he didn't know he'd switched into the present tense. Or that he'd reached up and was gripping the solid gold cross around his neck like his life depended on it.

His lips cracked into a half smile. "But God must have known I wasn't sure about Him because nothing came of it. Then that fall my sister Janie was murdered." As Marissa sucked in a breath, he pointed behind himself.

"That's the tattoo on my back. I count the years since she's gone. I was the last one to see her alive, before she got in the car with those boys that just... desecrated her behind our high school."

She reached for him. "Butch, I'm so-"

"No, let me get this out, okay? This shit's like a train, now that it's moving, I can't stop it." He dropped the cross and shoved his hand through his hair. "After Janie disappeared and they found her body, my father never touched me again. Wouldn't come near me. Wouldn't look at me. Didn't talk to me, either. My mom went crazy after a little while and they had to put her in a psych ward. It was right around then that I started drinking. I ran the streets. Did drugs. Got in fights. The family just limped along. I never understood the change in my dad, though. I mean... for years he beat me, then... nothing."

"I'm so glad he stopped hitting you."

"No difference to me. The waiting to get clipped was as bad as getting my ass slammed. And to not know why... but I did find out. At my oldest brother's bachelor party. I was like twenty by then and had moved from Southie-er-South Boston to here because I was starting as a cop with the CPD. Anyway, I went back home for the party. We were in some guy's house with a lot of strippers. My father was pounding the beers hard. I was doing lines of cocaine and sucking back Scotch. Party comes to an end and I'm buzzing out of control. I'd done a lot of coke... man, I was so fucking polluted that night. So... Dad's leaving... getting a ride home from someone, and suddenly I had to talk to the sonofabitch.

"I end up chasing him out into the street, but he's all ignoring me and shit. So in front of all the guys, I just grabbed him. I was beyond pissed. I started going off on him, about how I thought he'd been a real shitty father to me, how I was surprised he stopped cracking me because he liked it so much. I went on and on, until my old man finally looked into my face. I just froze. There was... total terror in his eyes. He was completely scared of me. Then he said, I left yah alone 'cause I couldn't have yah killin' any more of m'children, could I? I was all... What the fuck? He starts to cry and says, Yah knew she was my favorite... yah knew and that's why yah put hah in that cah w' those boys. Yah did it, yah knew what would happen." Butch shook his head. "Man, everyone heard it. All the guys. My oldest brother, too... My