Runaway Wolfes of Manhattan Three - Helen Hardt Page 0,46

said. “Just stop. We’ve been through this. You couldn’t have. Don’t you get it?”

“We can never truly get what you’ve been through, Riley,” Roy said.

“You’re right. Be thankful.”

He didn’t reply right away. I couldn’t blame him. Any of them. Sure, they could be thankful they hadn’t gone through the horror I had, but they’d all gone through shit at our father’s hands, and I wouldn’t deny them their right to hate him on their own terms.

“He just meant,” Reid said, “that we would have gotten you out of there. Come hell or high water—”

I shook my head vehemently. “I’ve thought about that. A lot. And I’ve concluded that you couldn’t have. Don’t you see? He wouldn’t have let you!”

They all gaped at me, as if the words I’d uttered were incomprehensible.

“Actually,” Roy said, “she’s right.”

“Wait.” Reid shook his head. “You just said—”

“I said we can never truly know what she went through, and I stand by that. You said we would have helped, and I agree. We would have. We would have moved mountains. But our father—he would have moved planets to get his own way.”

“Planets?” Rock scoffed. “You’ve gone off the deep end, Roy.”

Charlie patted Roy’s hand.

“I’m not being literal, Rock,” Roy said. “I’m only saying whatever we did to help Riley wouldn’t have been enough. Dad had all the power, control of all the assets, probably control of the authorities. If he wanted to keep abusing our sister, we couldn’t have stopped him. Look where your attempt got you.”

“Wait a minute—”

“Rock, please.” Lacey stopped him.

“Look where your attempt to stop him got you,” Roy said again.

“I was fourteen, for fuck’s sake. A kid. I had no control over anything, including my own hormones.”

“No, you didn’t.” Roy paused a moment. “That’s my point, entirely. Sure, you were a young hothead, but our father never changed. In fact, he became more powerful and more egotistical, if that was possible. He was a megalomaniac. Derek Wolfe got what he wanted no matter the cost. No one stopped him.”

“Roy is right,” I said quietly. “Only he said it better than I could. Trust me. You couldn’t have stopped him. Any attempt would have had you wishing you’d never tried.”

“Hey, I don’t wish—” Rock began.

“I know,” I said. “I know you don’t wish anything different. I know you’d do it all over again, and I know you two”—I nodded to Reid and Roy—“would have tried if you’d known. I get it. I’d do the same for any of you. But you wouldn’t have been successful, and he’d have made your lives miserable, just like he did to Rock.”

“We weren’t teenagers,” Reid said. “Roy and I could have—”

“We couldn’t have,” Roy interjected. “We’d have wanted to, and we’d have tried, but we wouldn’t have been able to protect her. I wish it were different, but it’s not.”

“So there’s no use in any of you feeling guilty for doing nothing when you didn’t know anyway,” I said. “Had you tried, he’d have made you pay. Big time. So please, give yourselves a break. You couldn’t have saved me, and I know you would have tried. Frankly, I’m glad you didn’t know. I can’t bear the thought of what he might have done to you.”

True words.

“Was our father a megalomaniac?” Rock asked. “Or a fucking psychopath?”

“He was a pedophile, for sure,” Reid said.

“Only with me.” I raised my hand when mouths opened to interrupt me. “Hey, he’s a sicko for sure, but he never touched another child.”

“Even in his hunting games?” Lacey asked.

“I didn’t know about that. All I can tell you is that there were times when I…” Nausea crept into me.

“It’s okay,” Lacey said. “You don’t have to tell us.”

“Except you do,” Rock said. “We need all the information.”

I nodded, gulping down the nausea. “Sometimes he…with others…and their children. Some of them shared. He didn’t. He never touched anyone but me and he didn’t let anyone else touch me.”

“I suppose there’s that,” Rock scoffed. “But just because you didn’t witness him molesting other children doesn’t mean he didn’t. That doesn’t make me feel any better, Sis.”

“Me either,” I said.

“The woman I saw who escaped appeared to be an adult,” Roy said. “She was young, for sure, but definitely through puberty. That doesn’t mean she was of age.”

“True,” Lacey said. “But if she and Zinnia are the same person, Zinnia had to be of age to sign a legal document.”

“And if they are one and the same,” Reid said, “years had passed between the two