The Long Road Home [The Final McCassey Brothers Book] Read Online Free Page A

Blackie's attention. “Dolan's dead? Are you sure?"
    Blackie picked up some other kind of tool she didn't recognize and threw that as well, waiting until after it dented the wall next to the office before he sat down again. Breathing heavily, and seemingly seething with anger, he said, “I'm sure,” as he clenched his hands into fists, relaxed them, then repeated the action several times. “Judd blew him up with an incendiary grenade last month."
    Georgia's gaze flew to Judd, the brother she looked most like. Their dark, loose and unruly, curly hair was the same color and length; their facial features very similar, as well. The first impression she'd gotten of him was that he was the least serious of the brothers. He'd done everything Blackie had told him without question, seeming happy to let the other two take the lead. He didn't seem like he had it in him to kill a man—especially his own father.
    Then again, she didn't really know these men; didn't know what they were capable of. They were Dolan McCassey's sons, after all, and each one probably had it in him to be just as violent as their father. Strangely enough, she wasn't scared.
    "Why'd you kill him?” she asked Judd.
    He looked her dead in the eye and took a long drag on the cigarette she hadn't even realized he'd been smoking. “Because someone had to,” he replied coldly, squashing any doubt she had that he wasn't as tough or serious as his brothers. “I was the one with the best opportunity, so I took it."
    Georgia suddenly felt relieved, as if part of the weight that had been resting on her shoulders the past four years had been lifted.
    Dolan McCassey was dead.
    He couldn't hurt her anymore.
    She was free.
    Although she was a little disappointed that he didn't elaborate, she understood why. They were talking about her, and she doubted Blackie was going to let the fact that she'd been raped by her father—their father—slide.
    "Then what?” Blackie demanded through clenched teeth, intense anger noticeable in every line of his stone-cold expression. “What happened after he raped you?"
    It wasn't just a question that Blackie had asked her, it was a demand. He wanted to know what she'd been through, and probably wasn't going to give up until he knew every detail of the last four years of her life.
    Talking about her experience—especially to the three brothers she'd adored from afar for so long—would've been completely humiliating if she hadn't lost all her pride and modesty years ago. It still wasn't her first choice as a topic of conversation, but compared to what she'd suffered through at the hands of her father, it'd be a piece of cake.
    "He never touched me again after that, if that's what you're asking."
    She looked up at him, but he remained silent, obviously waiting for her to continue.
    "He was living in southern Virginia at the time he took me, renting two adjoining rooms in a boardinghouse. When we got there, he introduced me to Bert as his daughter.” She paused and looked at them, but they just stared at her, waiting for her to continue. “Bert was the one who owned the place,” she explained, and was finally rewarded with a nod from Judd.
    "After the introductions were out of the way, he led me into his room and locked the door, explaining that since my mom couldn't repay her debt, I was going to have to do it for her. The next thing I knew, he tied me to the bed and ripped my shirt off. I thought he was going to rape me again ... until he turned around, opened the drawer beside the bed, and took out a large tourniquet. I'd never seen one before and had no idea what he was going to do with it. I thought maybe he was going to strangle me or something.
    "But the minute he tied it around my upper arm, I realized what was about to happen. I fought him, begging him not to do it; but all he did was laugh. My whole life flashed in front of my eyes when I saw him coming at me with that syringe. I was scared to death, but there was nothing I