The billionaires best friend

Chapter ten

Darius' PoV

I come around to the sound of Bens gentle voice for the second time in one day. I'm awake but I refuse to let them know. I need time to process this, my brother and sister are here. Right here, in my home. What am I supposed to do with this information. They let him call me those names, they watched silently as he degraded me and kicked me out of my home and away from the only family I had. I was a child for fuck sake. Eighteen years old and alone. I remember begging them with my eyes to stop him. He was always the matriarch of the house, using taunting words and threats, mostly threats, of fists to instil enough fear into us to ensure we behaved appropriately.

We had to let the world think we were a perfect family. We had to hang out with the right kind of people. In a nutshell, we couldn't be ourselves. Now you'd think he was a church goer or a respected minister with this description of the man, well you'd be wrong. He just believed he had social manners that we needed to follow. Oh he could say and do as he liked at home, name calling, hitting if we pushed too far, which wasn't often but outside of the home he was the fun father, the cool father etc. People like our friends would say "he's so much fun"  but for us we thought 'not always if you lived with him'. I won't say it was a twenty four seven thing, it wasn't, we did have fun, he did treat us from time to time but the joys of living with a man with depression were evident.

I simply crossed that social boundary too far in his eyes. But all I needed was one ally, one of them to say 'no don't do this or stop we'll talk about it' but sadly, when he was on one of his rants of rage, he still made us feel like little children looking at him ranting away, while, we wondered what was so bad about what we did or said. The perks of depression, as I've said. I knew my sweet mother wouldn't rescue me from the situation. My, oh so, sweet mother, too sweet for her own good. She never feared the man but she feared conflict. She would wait for the storm to calm and then gently suggest he think about what he's said or done. This was ok for her life but sometimes her children needed her to say 'no, your going too far'.

Of course I didn't realise what was happening at the tender age of eighteen. How could I know about the horror of depression it's ups, like fun days out or teasing each other over breakfast. Its downs, sadness, social anxiety, anger, most of which he hid from us but as I grow, I see now, how it was really effecting his everyday life. He went out less, wanted to do less things and then he would interact with us less. Oh I know now what was happening. Question is, can I excuse it because of my new found knowledge. Can I say, 'it wasn't his fault. It wasn't their fault they were probably as frightened as I was at the time. It wasn't my mothers fault she couldn't stand up to him'. I don't know. I simply don't.

"Ben?" I say and I hear them gasp because they don't realise I'm awake. I feel his soft touch on my face and I look up at him. He grounds me in this moment, the look in his eyes of pure love and concern for me makes me realise, he is there for me right now. I feel tears threaten to fall and he reads my mood in an instant. He leans down and kisses my lips before standing "I'm sorry but you need to leave. I have both of your numbers I promise to call one of you later tonight but Dar needs you to leave right now please" he announces to them.

"But we-" Ramos starts but Ben shuts him down "I love your brother, I have done for the last seven years, together or not and I'm telling you both that if you don't listen to me your ruining your chances of reconciliation. Now please believe me, if I say I'll call, I will call. Your only staying in town we can see what Dar wants and then arrange something ok" I hear Ramos sigh but thankfully they leave. I just lie there not having the will to move and Ben, my wonderful Ben doesn't even try to make me. He lies at my side and just snuggles into my chest, no words are spoken but I can feel it the pure love and confidence he has for me and in me.

My mind is a mess. Should I have sent them away, yes, because in this moment I don't want to let my emotions overrule me. If I did I would probably say something hurtful to my siblings and I don't want that. "Thank you, my beauty" I breathe out. "No problem, my hunk" he replies and that breaks the tension in the room as we both laugh softly. "You're a doofus, you know that" I tease him. He looks up suddenly "hey, that's not the way to treat the man you love you big oaf!" he exclaims. As he kisses me quickly.

The front door bursts open then and the troop come inside. Ben pushes me to my feet as they come into the living room and just like that I'm engulfed in arms. Rick is at my front, Theo at my back and Lor at my side. "Are you ok bro? We got here as fast as we could. Ben text me what was happening. Where are they?" Rick rolls out the questions. I laugh lightly but soon it breaks into sobs, my family is here to protect me. Even though we fought last week, even though I took their little brother away and scared them, they came running to protect me in my time of need.

I love my brother and sister, I really do and I've missed them but this is the kind of unconditional love and back up  I've never had from them. I'm sure they feel the same, I mean who had their backs, who could they turn too? They only had each other, their twin bond, as I often teased them about, kicked in. They needed to look out for each other and I was ok with that, except for the one time I wasn't.