Helanie:
And she would have been successful, due to my emotions making lose control over my body, had soone else not arrived in ti.
"What makes you think you can abuse her, Mother?" Kaye hissed at her, his hand holding her. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
I’m pretty sure Kaye, always wanting her attention, had never raised his voice at her like that before.
"She called a piece of shit," she quickly complained, and Kaye looked up from her face to . It was the kind of look that didn’t need an explanation.
"What happened here?" he asked that ti as he stepped between and his mother.
"Nothing. I just want to go back to my hotel room," I said in a quiet voice.
I didn’t have a ho, so I always had to explain what I was calling "ho."
"Sure, you should go back to where you ca from. You shouldn’t have co here in the first place," she hissed at . "And don’t look at my son like that. He’s not leaving his brother’s rehearsal dinner for your ssy self."
She kept hissing and almost spit in my face until Kaye moved and blocked from her sight.
"And then you wonder why she called you sothing a little offensive," Kaye hissed back at his mother, who grunted.
I saw her step to the side so she could see her son’s face, staring at him with a confused look on her own.
"Now, tell what’s going on?" Kaye changed his tone, crouching down as he placed his hands on his knees to reach my eye level.
"I just want to—" I stopped when he refused to accept that excuse.
"Is there soone else you spotted in the crowd?" he shocked by guessing the exact reason I wanted to leave. I stared at his face with wide eyes and my mouth slightly open.
"So I’m right. Who is it? If you don’t know him, co with and point him out," he said in his rough and aggressive voice, his jaw silently clenching a little too many tis.
"Really? You want her to go in there and ruin your brother’s mont?" his mother jumped in, shocked to see her son interact with like that.
"A mont, when there’s a rapist among the people we’re supposed to sit and eat with?" Kaye straightened his back and turned to his mother, his eyes shooting daggers at her.
"Look at you, you’re acting completely different. Is that what she’s teaching you? To disrespect your mother?" she complained, barely glancing at .
"She’s not teaching anything. In fact, she always stands up for , worries about even when I don’t deserve her worry," his words made his mother gasp.
I don’t know what she was so shocked about.
"You wanted to be my favorite son, and now that you have my attention, you want it to die down because of her?" she slid in the idea of him being her favorite just to make him listen.
But Kaye shook his head. "Took so long, didn’t it? But Helanie never asked for anything from . She always stood up for , no matter what. I never had to beco a hero for her to defend ."
His words didn’t just make his mother cover her mouth—they touched my heart too.
"As for the mont, I’m sure Norman—" Kaye stopped mid-sentence when he saw his brothers co out of the mansion. Emt and Maximus seed to have been looking for .
The minute they saw us all together, the smiles disappeared from their faces. Emt rushed to my side, turning toward him and cupping my face in his hands.
"You’ve been crying?" he asked, and from the corner of my eye, I saw his mother’s reaction.
She looked horrified. That’s why she rushed between us and pushed us apart.
"Have you gone crazy? What was that?" she yelled at Emt for how he was behaving with .
"Helanie recognized one of the rapists inside," Kaye jumped in to shift the subject, because the way Emt was glaring at his mother made believe he was about to do sothing reckless.
Maximus and Emt turned to , empathy clear in their eyes.
I hated being in this situation over and over again. That awful feeling of "what if they don’t believe this ti?" hung in the air.
"Who is it?" Emt asked, while Maximus took slow, steady breaths.
"It’s no one. She’s ruining Norman’s mont," Darcy hissed, shooting a look that told to keep quiet. I wasn’t planning to say anything right then, but her trying to control my life pushed too far, and I blurted it out.
"Jessica’s brother."
They went silent before Emt grabbed my hand, ready to drag back inside.
"He’s not getting out of here alive tonight," Maximus agreed with his brother, and even Kaye started pacing right beside .
"No, I won’t let you all ruin your brother’s mont!" Darcy yelled, running to block our path. She stood in our way with her arms stretched wide.
"Your brother has done so much for you all. All his life, he’s spent every second thinking about you. And now, for once—on the one night that’s supposed to be his—you’re going to ruin it for him? Do you have no sha? No love for him?" she was hissing, tears forming in her eyes.
"So you want us to go inside and share a al with the guy who hurt Helanie?" Emt yelled back at her.
"I used to think you were selfish, that you only loved yourself. But I also thought maybe it was because you were naive—because you were desperate for affirmation, for proof that you were powerful and loved. But I was wrong. You’re just a cruel woman."
Emt’s words were harsh. They pulled a sharp gasp from her.
But I didn’t want to start a scene here, not among these rich people who would likely take that guy’s side right from the start.
"I don’t want to confront anyone right now," I said, and they all turned to look at .
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