Twisted Scars (Comanche Sons Motorcycle Club Book 1) by Sophia Hampton Page B

was sixteen when my father beat him to within an inch of his life. He should’ve been taken to the hospital, but my mother…she wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her husband. Social services would’ve been informed. She didn’t risk that. My brother got better. He got a knife, and one day he killed them.”
     
    He jumped as if she’d burned him. “What?”
     
    “He plunged the knife in my father’s chest while the old bastard was snoring, drunk and exhausted after the beating he’d given me that day. Then, my brother killed my mother while she…lay on the bed, helpless, alone, as much a victim as the perpetrator.”
     
    “What happened then?”
     
    “I saw it all. After the beating I got that day, I’d actually hidden in my parents’ closet because that was the one place my father wouldn’t have looked. When he went on a rampage, he turned the house upside down looking for us, but he never thought that I would be silly enough to hide in his own bedroom. After the beating, I went upstairs and hid there in case he decided that he hadn’t given me enough punishment.”
     
    All the color had drained out of Chance’s face. He looked as if he would collapse. From shock? Or from revulsion? Her father was violent and her brother a killer. Surely, he was regretting the fact that he got involved with her in the first place. But now he knew, and she may as well tell him every damned thing.
     
    “The police came in the morning when I was brave enough to call. I was fourteen, but I was old enough to be a state witness. My brother was sent away. He was underage, so the punishment wasn’t as severe. He was sent away for seven years, because well, he was a victim of mental and physical abuse and the defense made a case that he was rendered temporarily insane.”
     
    “But he escaped the prison?”
     
    “No, he didn’t.” She hopped off the stool and went to the door as she heard the police coming in. “He got out and has been after me since because I was the one who sent him away.”
     
    She could see that he wanted to ask some questions, but the police officers came in and he’d to stop. After they gave their statements and handed over the knife, they were taken to the station so that she could file a complaint. “I already have a restraining order against him,” she told the police. “Took it out five years ago when he first attacked me.”
     
    “You didn’t file a complaint?”
     
    “I did. The first time he wore a mask, so I couldn’t tell who he was,” she recounted. “The second time I was attacked while I walked alone from work, and he talked to me, told me to set down my purse. It could have been an ordinary mugging, but I knew that it was him. I spent years with that guy in a house. Of course, I could recognize his voice.” She took deep, calming breaths, aware that Chance was listening to her statement as much as the police. “So I ran. That’s when I got the restraining order, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. He would always find me so I moved away, and I keep moving and moving so that he can’t catch up.”
     
    “But he did,” said Chance.
     
    She didn’t say anything. “Did you see his face today, ma’am?” asked the police.
     
    She shook her head. Of course, she didn’t. That’s why the lights had been turned off. He’d done something to the system. As long as she couldn’t positively identify him, the police wouldn’t do much. It could be anyone. But of course, she knew it was him. She recognized his voice, his scent, and his body. You couldn’t grow up with someone and not know that person really well.
     
    That was why she knew that he would kill her.
     
    All he needed was one perfect opportunity. She would have to be on her guard for the rest of her life.  
     
    “I didn’t,” she admitted.
     
    “But you could get his fingerprints off the knife. He wasn’t wearing gloves,” said Chance.
     
    She looked at him. Yes, she hadn’t noticed that. “I