Training Their Mate [Pack Wars-Book 1] Read Online Free PDF Page B

hopelessly outmatched.
It was a good thing on many levels that Couch hadn’t tried to attack her because she couldn’t have done anything to
stop him.
    “Tell us about your mom’s
assault.” Trax’s tone turned deadly serious.
    She’d already confessed that
she wanted the man dead, so it wouldn’t do any harm to tell them the truth. “The
first time Harvey Couch raped my mother was twenty years ago. As a result she
got pregnant, but my brother was stillborn. She went into a postpartum
depression that caused my father to leave us.” She inhaled to swallow the rage.
“A few months ago, Couch returned. Only this time he didn’t seem content to
rape her once more. The bastard came back week after week.” Tears streamed down
her face.
    They exchanged glances, but
Trax was the one to continue the interrogation. “We’re terribly sorry. Do you
have proof it was Couch?”
    She stood, retrieved her
purse, and pulled out her mother’s diary. “Yes. Last week, my mother committed
suicide because she couldn’t take it anymore. I found this in her drawer.” She
was proud she was able to state that fact without faltering. “I’ll read a
little bit to you if that’s okay.”
    “Please do.”
    She inhaled to muster the
courage to go through the horror of that night. “This is dated twenty years
ago.Dear Diary,
    “I don’t know if I can go on.
The absolute worst thing in my life happened last night and I can’t tell
anyone. Not even Brian.”
    Liz closed the diary for a
minute but kept her finger in the spine. She hesitated to read farther, but the
men wouldn’t help her get Couch unless they heard the whole story. “Brian’s my
dad. If my mom wouldn’t even tell him, it must have been bad. My father said in
the beginning of their marriage, they’d shared everything.”
    Trax nodded to the book.
“There’s more I trust?”
    “Yes. A lot.”
    She opened the book again and
read.
    “Brian was out of town on
business, and I was in bed reading when I heard a noise in the kitchen. I
thought maybe he’d come home a few days early. When nothing else sounded, I assumed
it was my imagination so I went back to my book. That’s when the nightmare
started. A tall shadow appeared in my doorway. It was Harvey Couch grinning at
me like I was some prize. I pulled the sheet up over my chest and asked him why
he was there even though I knew. The man was pure evil.”
    Liz swallowed hard. “The next few pages detail
the rape. It’s horrifying.” She slammed the book shut as tears streamed down
her face. She cried not only for what her mom had gone through but also because
her mother had suffered the cruelty and degradation by herself. Liz sniffled
and decided to paraphrase instead of read. The memory of her mom became too
alive when she saw the words. “My mom wrote that because Harvey Couch was so
wealthy, she believed if she went to authorities to turn him in, his lawyers
would say she instigated it. After all, they’d spent weeks together while she
showed him homes.”
    Liz shut her eyes and
imagined how horrifying that must have been for a woman alone. “Couch might
have been pissed at my mom for some reason, but whatever the alleged offense,
rape wasn’t the answer.”
    “What did the diary say about
the recent attack?” Dante asked.
    She sniffled. “The entries became
more sparse, but she named Couch as her rapist again.” Liz opened the book.
“The bastard came again and raped me. Couch laughed and said if I talked he’d
ruin Liz and anyone else I care about.” She closed her eyes. “The entries are
blank for the next two weeks, but then she wrote, ‘He’s here again. This is the
third time this month. I’m not sure I can take much more of this.’”
    She shut the book one final
time. “My mom killed herself a week later.”
    Both men came over, sat next
to her, and rubbed her hand. “We’re so sorry,” Dante said. “Couch is a bad man,
but killing him isn’t the answer.”
    Easy for him to