Unbroken Hart (The Hart Family) by Ella Fox Page B

do to pedophiles in jail.  I hope they fucking destroy you." 
    Of course I hadn't called the police.  I wouldn't allow pictures of my sister's naked to become evidence for other people to look at.  But it was important that he think I'd called them, because I knew that his addiction would demand to be fed when his anxiety spiked.
    He went white as a sheet as he trembled like the little bitch he was.  For all his evil and his violence, he wasn't so fucking tough when it came to his personal safety. 
    I shut the door after me and waited half an hour before going back in. I knew he'd be drugging himself up but good and I knew once he was out of it, I could do what needed to be done.  Fate had a different plan.
    When I went back in, he was sprawled out on his couch with a needle in his arm and a bunch of empty pill bottles in front of him.  He'd clearly chosen to overdose rather than go to jail but, when I walked in, he was still alive.  Barely, but if I'd wanted to, I could have saved him. 
    In no way did I want to.
    Locking the door, I sat in a chair across from him and watched as his breathing got shallower.  I didn't leave that room until I was positive that he was dead, positive that he'd never again taint my sister's with his evil.  I chose to let a man die rather than save him.  I'd played judge and jury, and I made the decision.  The fact that I didn't have to strangle him didn't mean shit.  I'd still been the architect of his demise, whether my hands were involved or not.
    For years I lived my life as a prisoner to the choice that I'd made to protect them.  It made sense to me that I wasn't worthy of love, wouldn't ever have a girlfriend or a wife.  No one would be able to love me if they knew that I wasn't as honorable as I pretended to be.

Chapter Two
     
    All of that changed, ironically, on the anniversary of my mother's suicide.  I'd been short-tempered and edgy for weeks, knowing that the date was closing in.  Every year I'd sit down and re-read the suicide note that she'd left me, wondering when the rage that she had within her had been allowed in.  According to her letter, it happened when she met my father.  I knew better than anyone how evil he really was, and it was the knowledge of what he had done, more than anything else, that had me keeping people at a distance. 
    The morning that everything changed, I was sitting at my desk with the newspaper spread out in front of me.  I was trying to read it, but my eyes were focused on the date as memories went through my mind.   My father had been the one to find her, but he'd neglected to tell me that she was dead when he told me to go into their bedroom to wake her up.
    I knew something was off about that , because none of us had been allowed into their bedroom, and seeing any of her children wouldn't be the way she would start the day.  When I hesitated, he told me he was going to make Dominique or Delilah wake her.  They were only three at the time, and my mother hated them.  There was no way that I was going to put them in a situation where she could get her hands on them.  Instead, I grudgingly went to their bedroom and went to wake her up. 
    I'll never forget the things that I saw that day.  She was long gone, a totally different color that left no doubt about her condition.  Her eyes were open, and even in death I swear her eyes reflected her hatred of me.  When I turned to run, my father was at the door laughing.  "Aw, look at the little baby, fucking afraid of a dead whore."
    I wasn't afraid of her, but I was shocked that he'd let me look at her like that.  There seemed to be no limit to his cruelty.  I'd never liked my father, had known that he was a terrible man. My mother had been the one that was really violent.  My father liked to dole out punches and lashes of his belt, but he wasn't as scary as she was.  But that day, I saw something in his eyes, a reason to be scared of him from then on.  It was like when she