She means it.  I want to lunge and grab the gun from her, but I’m too afraid she’ll hurt herself with it in the struggle.  I can’t risk it.

I eye her carefully, thinking through my options, but then Camille steps forward, her shocked and frozen face finally moving to speak.

“My baby,” she croons, edging toward the bed.  “There’s so much that you need to know.  Please… put down the gun. They can’t hurt you now.  They can’t.”

Nora shakes her head.  “Step back, maman.”

But Camille refuses. “Nora, you need to know something… something I’ve never been strong enough to tell you.  Look at me.”

Nora pauses, but doesn’t look at her mother.  She keeps the gun trained on William.  “Just tell me.”

Camille’s tone is blunt.  “Nora, you’re not Maxwell’s daughter. Your contract will be void, not that it ever mattered anyway.”

This stops Nora cold, something that finally breaks through her concentration.  She stares at her mother in confusion.

“Not his?”  She looks at the two bloody men. “What do you mean?”

There’s the smallest tone of hope hidden among her confusion.

Camille stares at her, with love and fear and apprehension.

“You aren’t a Greene.  Maxwell Greene is not your father. That means that the contract you signed, which named you as his daughter, isn’t valid.  He can’t keep you with him.  He can’t force you to do anything ever again.”

Nora’s eyes fill and her lips shakes.   “That’s impossible.  How…”

Camille shakes her head.  “We’ll talk about it more after you put the gun down, my love.  Please.  Just give Brand the gun.  Everything is going to be ok.  I promise.  It will be okay. “

Each second seems to last a year as I watch Nora’s hand shake while she clenches the gun, as she finally turns her gaze toward her mother. The cold, blank expression is gone, and instead, her eyes are filled with hope.

“If you’re telling the truth… then…they aren’t… William isn’t…my uncle and….”

A tear breaks rank and slides down her cheek.

“I’m not…”

I speak up.  “You’re not used, Nora,” I tell her quietly.  “You never have been.  What they did to you was sick and wrong. And we’ll send them to prison because that’s where they deserve to rot.”

The gun shakes and drops to her side, and it’s finally safe for me to step forward, closing my hand around the barrel, and easing it out of her hand.

She rests against me, sinking into my arms, her head against my chest. 

“I hear your heart,” she says slowly, and I know what she’s doing.  I’ve done it a thousand times in combat. She’s removing herself from the situation.  It’s something a person does to survive, to block out the ugliness, to keep it from overwhelming them.

“It’s beating for you,” I answer, holding her close. “Only for you.”

I turn to Camille to tell her to call the police, but she’s already on the phone, speaking fast, pacing back and forth as she talks to a dispatcher.  I look down and find her shoes bloody.

Nora looks up at me, her eyes cloudy, distant, removed.

“You stand on a wall to protect what is yours.”   Her words are simple.

I nod.   “You’re mine.”

She closes her eyes and rests in my arms.

When the paramedics arrive, I refuse to let her go and carry her out to the ambulance myself.

Chapter Thirty

Nora

I’m afraid to wake up.  I’m afraid that when I do, it will all have been a dream, and that it won’t really be over.  I won’t be free.

But I open my eyes, and find Brand by my hospital bed.

He smiles, which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“Hey,” he says huskily, in a voice devoid of sleep.  “Welcome back.”

I look down to find my hand in his, and I look at the clock to find that I’ve been sleeping for almost twenty-four hours.

I blink, confused.

“The doctors gave you a sedative,” Brand explains, seeing the questions in my eyes. “You’ve been through a lot and you needed a chance to rest before you processed it.”

“You’ve been here the whole time,” I say it as a statement, not as a question. Because I already know. I’ve felt him here all along.

He nods. “Yeah.”

I look at him.  “You saved me.”

It was real.

He narrows his eyes.  “You were all set to try and save yourself.  The gun… Jesus, Nora.”

He closes his eyes for a second, then re-opens them.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  Why didn’t you trust me?”

I shake my head, clutching his hand.  “It wasn’t about trusting you.  It was about… being humiliated and entrapped and helpless.  I can’t explain to you what it feels like to think that my own uncle and father… made me… I was too dirty for you, Brand.  Too tainted. You couldn’t be with someone like me.“

I can’t go on and Brand squeezes my hand, lifting my chin to make me look at him.

“You are not dirty.  Or used.  You were forced. You didn’t have a choice. But now they won’t have a choice either.  They’re going to prison.  They can never hurt you again.  And that wasn’t your father. Or your uncle.”

It’s like he knows.  He knows that it makes such a difference.  Yes, I was still raped.  But at least I wasn’t raped by my own blood. 

“Who am I?” I ask him softly, staring into his blue, blue eyes.  “If I’m not a Greene, who am I?”

He shakes his head.  “I don’t know.  Your mom will be back up here shortly, she just left for some coffee. She has all the answers, Nora. But I can tell you this.  It doesn’t matter to me who you are.  Because I already know.  You’re beautiful and smart and brave.  And I love you.  I love all of you, no matter what your last name is.”

I suck in a breath and the tears start to fall, streaking hotly down my face, dripping onto my hospital gown.

“I love you too,” I choke, pressing my face into him, squeezing my eyes closed.