The billionaires best friend

Chapter twenty one

Bens PoV

The room is stunned into momentary silence the only sound is from the woman beside me as she sniffs. I fear what I will see if I look at anyone's face. Then like a lightening bolt strikes, Rick roars "what!". I feel rather than see Layla stiffen beside me. Then on the contrary I see rather than feel Rick move because before I know it he's reached us and is standing in a very intimidating pose above us. "You better start talking before I have you arrested on the spot woman" he says in a tone so cold it could freeze water. Layla gasps and looks to me for help, this time though I'm powerless. I can barely breathe let alone think. Why? It's all I can say in my mind. Just, why?.

Knowing she's alone on this one she takes a deep breath and calms herself a touch so she can speak "I'm sorry, I swear the moment I heard him talking on the phone about what he has done and what he plans to do I escaped and got here as quickly as I could. You see, when we met he was so handsome and charming. I couldn't believe a church mouse like myself would find someone so perfect. We got together and he treated me like a princess. I basked in the attention. I never had a family, I grew up in an orphanage and I had no friends. Now I realise why he picked me, he knew that he could break me and he knew I would live through the bad days just to feel that love on a rare good day. It spiralled out of my control but I thought he loved me. He doesn't. I truly believed and continue to believe that the man is psychotic. I've been hit, raped and made to watch some truly disgusting and disturbing things in that house"

She pauses and looks away. I feel the shame, guilt and disgrace pouring from her and my heart softens for her again. She continues "he would buy me things so he could have the power of taking it away, I hated it but the worse was when he bought me a dog. I won't go into detail nobody needs to ever witness it, let alone hear about it but it was bad. I decided that was it. I tried to leave. He found me. He brought his friends around, they "taught me my place" his words not mine." She says the last part with a blank look as if she is reliving it for a moment. Good God this is stomach turning this man is a monster. Worse he's a monster and he's my father.

"After that I had no will to live. I gave up on the idea of leaving in fear of a repeat of that night. The days just stayed bad. Then a few years ago you, Rick, appeared on the cover of some magazines and he told me you were his son. Over time he would see all three of you on the news or in articles all praising how well you were doing and how you had made it big on your own. He would rant and rave about how "you ungrateful little brats stole his wife and left him with nothing. He said he would make you pay and that he deserves all that money not you three killers-" that pierced my heart in two, I interrupt "so this is my fault. I killed my mother and turned-" Rick is on me in one second flat. He pulls me into his arms and I cry.

"Do. Not. Finish. That. Sentence. You did nothing of the sort. He was the one who refused to bring mother to the hospital that day. I was there nobody else, I saw how she begged but he wanted her to prove how strong she was by "doing it the right way" again his words. I came down and begged right along with my mother, he backhanded me so hard I blacked out. When I woke you were on the floor covered in blood, mother was dead and he was beside her roaring to the sky "why? Why? Why?" Over and over. I was fourteen I didn't know what to do. I fixed you in a blanket and called the paramedics. When they got there they listened to him, even though I told the my mother wanted to go to the hospital, he told them to check her record she wanted a home birth. They checked and it was on there. He said she only asked for the hospital at the last minute and then she passed away. He hung around for the funeral but he didn't speak to us or feed us so I stepped up. After two weeks he simply looked at me and said "you can take them I can't do it" and he left. So Ben never let those words spill from your lips again because it makes sense to me now, he had that illness then but it's gotten progressively and dangerously worse by the look of it." He hugs me tight and I know I'm comforting him as much as he is me.

I feel Lorcan slip into our hug and the three of us give each other the time to feel the hurt that hearing about this major betrayal from our only other blood relative has caused. We need to hear the rest of what Layla has to say but for the minute we just need each other. I look over my shoulder to see Rob, Dar, and Noel comforting a broken looking Theo who sobs for the love of his life, for what that poor fourteen year old had to go through. Our family is hurt and I hate it.