Page 128 of Release

Chapter Thirty

Now

George gently brushes my tears away with his thumbs, but he’s crying, too.

I reach up and brush his away.

“So that’s one and two,” I softly say. “I know I’m not responsible for hers, but…”

He draws in a shuddering breath. “One is hearsay,” he finally says. “Inadmissible. Two… Well, that was self-defense.”

“Itwasn’t,” I whisper.

“Itwas,” he says.

“It was premeditated.”

“You were a minor, and he wasrapingyou, Case. I don’t give a shit how you protected yourself later, you werejustified. Fuckerneededto die.”

It feels like a weight rolls off my chest. “She never wanted you to know what she was capable of,” I whisper. “She was afraid you’d be disgusted.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not. I wouldn’t have been. I wish she’d told me. I would’ve told her how proud I am of her. And you.”

“She thought you were too nice to accept that part of her.”

He harshly laughs. “Case, I know you think I’m some sort of white knight, but I’m no fucking angel, seriously.” He rakes his fingers through my hair. “Sweetie, as long as you haven’t hurt any kids, or tortured animals, or anything like that, Ipromiseyou I don’t think there’s anything you could confess to me that would shake my faith or love in you.”

He hasn’t heard about number three yet.

Except his next question catches me off-guard. “Please tell me about the night you and Carter identified her. In the morgue. I want to know everything that happened.”

“Why?”

“Please, Case. I know you were trying to protect me. If we’re ripping this scab off, then let’s do it all the way. I want to know this. Iknowhow she died—I was sitting next to her. You need to let it out and tell me.”

We haven’t talked aboutthis.

We have, in fact, gone out of our waynotto talk about this. At least, I have. Not in any detail, that is. George and the kids know I officially identified her body and kept poor Chase from having to do that grisly task. That I’m the only one of our family who saw her like that. But George has never asked to know more, and I’ve never offered to tell him the dark and dirty deets.

Mostly because I know my girl wouldn’t want her Sir to go through that anguish.

That burden is mine alone to bear.

Because she wasmine.

I’m pretty good at it after all this time, at sparing George pain at my expense.

I know when Carter met George in the hospital after the rescue that Carter didn’t say anything to him about seeing Ellen…like that. Carter had been overseas still, hoping beyond hope for closure, and got to lay eyes on George even before Chase did.

In fact, Carter called me not long after George called me, crying happy tears over Susa’s rescue and apologizing for not calling me as soon as he’d heard there were more survivors. But he hadn’t known George was among them, at first, and he didn’t want to get my hopes up until he knew for sure who the others were. In fact, it was Carter’s phone George used to talk to me and the kids from that point, until Chase arrived with his new phone, because I gave Carter all of our numbers.

I was too damned happy to know George was alive to be upset with Carter.

I was also deliriously happy for Carter, that he—and Owen—got their girl back. Itwasa miracle.

Just not the one I’d prayed for.

Don’t fucking judge me. Ellen wasmygirl, and George was the guy who stole her. I’m human, despite what everyone else around me thinks. Am I glad George came back? Yes, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish it was him I’d identified in that makeshift morgue that stunk of death and decay, and that it was my girl who they’d plucked from that island.