Page 13 of Beyond Repair, Part One (Damaged Duet #1)

Kai

" Y ou shouldn't be here!"

Fuck. I expected Will's reaction to us intercepting the pizza delivery man and showing up with their dinner unannounced, but I didn't prepare myself for the tantalizing scent of rose drifting from the open doorway.

She still smells the same.

A strangled sound erupts from my throat, but I rein myself in when Henry squeezes my hip.

"Will, please. We need to see her," Trev begs quietly with his hands splayed in front of him like he's trying to prove he's not a threat.

Will shakes his head. "No. You need to leave."

We don't move an inch. If anything, I’m eager to keep moving forward until I can finally lay eyes on my girl.

"Boys..." Meg murmurs, glancing behind her.

"Please, Mrs. Solace!" Ridge pleads desperately, trying to push Trev to the side, most likely to force his way into Nina's house.

My grip on the two pizza boxes tightens when Meg steps back with a hand to her chest and looking pale. Will stiffens and straightens his broad shoulders even more. Trev also glares at his cousin.

"Ridge," Henry whispers, tugging on our friend’s shirt to protect him from himself. Fucking hell, he scared Nina's mom.

I watch warily as Nina's dad takes a deep breath and unclenches his fists. "No. Seriously, you all need to leave. Nina's not ready for this."

Unable to hold myself back any longer, I swallow and say, "Sir?—"

Just then, a flash of brown darts behind Meg and disappears from view. "Nina!" I gasp, lurching forward with no resistance as Trevor and Ridge brush past Mr. Solace.

Stumbling after them, I'm slammed with a glorious wall of rose and coziness as I take in Nina's new home. The only problem with her space is that she's nowhere to be found.

"Where did she go?!" Ridge demands, turning in a circle in her entryway. He's flushed and flustered, clearly struggling with the concept of moving further.

Not realizing Trevor had disappeared too, I jump when he comes running back around the corner and takes a step toward the staircase to the right of us.

"Don't take another step young man," Will snarls, having stepped in front of Trevor the moment he realized where he was headed. "You're violating her space."

"We are not," Trevor growls back like a beast ready to go to battle for the woman he loves. "You know we love her. We would never violate her in any fucking way!"

Meg shifts out of the corner of my eye and it's then I realize Henry is already following Nina's mom. Does she know where Nina's hiding? Will's stopping Trev from going upstairs. Did she run up there?

Why was she running?

So many questions, yet Trevor and Will are still arguing over boundaries.

Meg slips behind the fuming alpha men with Henry shifting and maneuvering so Will doesn't notice. As much as I’d like to see where Meg's going, I don't move, knowing it will only draw attention to them.

If Nina's dad is going to keep us from her, and Henry is sneaking around to see if Meg can find Nina, I'll just have to wait.

Ridge, on the other hand, seems ready to throw up. I figured he would be the one to go in guns blazing and declaring his undying love for Nina, but since stepping into a space that so clearly screams Nina, he's frozen.

Henry's shocked question snaps us all out of vastly different trances. "She's under the stairs?!"

At that, I drop the pizza boxes as gently as I can, my priorities taking a turn. I bolt around Ridge and the other two men, my heart thundering in my chest. Meg kneels in front of the wall below the staircase with her mouth dropped wide open. "Gosh, Henry. You scared the daylights out of me!"

"Damn it! Out of my way," Will grumbles, then pushes me and Henry aside. Crouching down beside his wife, he reaches for the wall and fiddles with something until there’s an audible click.

I watch as this big protective dad takes a shuddering breath and opens the hidden door that can't be more than three feet tall. He cracks it enough to peek inside, then curses softly before closing it again.

Trevor makes a pained noise, also having snuck a glance over Will's head. "I can help her. Let me in," he says, almost begging now.

Will's head thunks into the door, shaking it sadly for a moment. When he leans back, he sighs. "You can't help her right now. Only Meg can. Go take a seat, boys. We need to have a conversation."

Now I want to throw up. What the hell is going on?

I feel them moving around me, but I can't take my eyes off the door Meg just disappeared into. She's in there; Nina's in there. Mere feet away and it feels utterly impossible to move an inch in the opposite direction.

"Kai. Come sit, brother."

Even glancing over my shoulder to see Trevor holding out a chair for me is painful. The anxious look on my fiancé’s face is what convinces me into that seat. Henry needs me, and fuck, I need him too. Especially considering Will looks like someone just killed his cat in front of him.

Nina's dad clears his throat and I swear my organs revolt. "We've told you Nina was missing for about two years, where she went after and when she came home. But you don't know what happened while she was gone."

"Tell us." Ridge sounds like he's dying, but still he stares Will down like he needs to hear every single horrific detail.

"Nina was forced to be many things in those two years and it's changed who she is. She's not the girl you used to know."

"Doesn't matter," Trevor states firmly.

Will stares him dead in the eye. "It matters more than you'll ever know. The Nina Meg and I have done our best to heal can't stand any sort of socialization. Noises and touch have to be monitored since she prefers the quiet and only prefers her mom to be near her."

Watching Nina's dad wipe away a stray tear scares me beyond words. Touch...sound...socializing. Nina was the loudest, most sociable, and physically affectionate girl I had ever met.

"She had rules. Clean, cook, and always do as she was told.

She was malnourished, and it's been a battle for me and Meg to get her to eat.

" Her dad seems to zone out as he rattles off Nina's horrors in a pain-stricken tone.

"Learning about the beatings and seeing all the scars should have been the worst part. "

We all stiffen. How could it get any fucking worse?! Jesus fucking Christ!!

"But to hear your daughter tell her mother how she was forced to scrub her own pools of blood out of that bastard’s rugs immediately following each whipping...That would break anyone."

"I'm going to be sick," Henry croaks and shoves away from the table, barely registering Will's pointed finger to the hallway where I'm assuming the bathroom is.

Trevor clears his throat, then swallows three times. "There's more, isn't there?"

Will nods. "That wasn't even scratching the surface, son."

Oh, Nina...