The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1) (6 page)

“No other soldier I know would have gone against my father. Especially, not for me.”

He shifted. Not good to be singled out or in cahoots with Jessie Bains. “I didn’t go against anyone. I simply left out personal details that didn’t pertain to my job report.”

“You still didn’t tell him everything. You did as I asked.”

Will hesitated. “How did you know he’d do all this?”

“Because my father will do anything to advance his career and his power. Anything
, Will. Don’t forget it. Don’t underestimate him. And never trust him.”

“But I should trust you?”

She dropped her head. “I know how I come across. You’re all about honor and integrity. I’m not. I’m about survival. You helped me with that. I would never betray you for what you did for me.”

“Why? Because you’re doing so well?” Will bit down on his tongue. Don’t ask. Back away. Turn away. Don’t ask for more details. What if she offers them?

“What? The senator? He just, you know, knows certain things that he threatens to tell my father if I don’t cooperate with him.”

Will stared at her and she looked up, unashamed. Unfazed. She didn’t seem to realize what she was saying to him, or what the senator was doing to her. He tightened his jaw to keep it from dropping. She thinks it’s normal to let an old pervert sexually blackmail her?

“Then threaten him right back. Threaten to tell your father on him.”

“My father wouldn’t care. He’d only care if I made the senator mad.”

“Did you not want that to happen just now?”

She shrugged.

“Then why didn’t you call for help? It’s rape if you don’t want it.”

“I can’t stop him. He’ll ruin my life even worse than it already is.”

Will let out a deep breath. Was she telling the truth?
He looked at her. Her face was down, staring at her own dress. “How old were you when it started?”

“Six
teen.”

“Are you lying to me?”

She didn’t even bother to look offended by his doubt. “It doesn’t matter, but I’m not lying.”

“Six
teen? That’s statutory. You hold all the power.”

“I never hold the power.”

“But—”

She suddenly smiled brightly up at him. “It’s fine, really. I have it all under control.”

Will watched her face go from dark to smiling. Was all that goading, rudeness, and obnoxious hatred for the military, as well as her father, real? Was she telling him the truth about the senator? About her father’s reaction? It didn’t seem possible to Will that any man would react in such a way towards his own daughter. Especially the man they were talking about. The general was the epitome of manliness to Will. He was everything that Will wanted to be.

Jessie didn’t matter to him. She was a job, and not his problem. But she was also the surest way to end his career.

Jessie finally let her shoulders slouch in defeat as she watched Will walk away from her. He walked like every other man she knew. His back ramrod straight, and his legs perfectly in step. She wondered if he practiced in the mirror to perfect his stride as precisely as a still picture with each step he took. It was part of why she hated soldiers. They were all the same, they looked the same, dressed the same, acted the same, and followed orders the same. And Will was the epitome of that description right down to his pointed, polished, black shoes.

Except Will didn’t totally follow orders. He kept some things to himself, for her. Why? She wasn’t sure. He didn’t particularly seem to like her, and never really warmed up to her. But he also didn’t look at her like every other soldier did: an easy lay. Or as the general’s other “bad daughter.”

She looked down when she felt the pain in her palm and opened her hand. The blade she kept tucked in her purse left only a small, thin thread of blood. She took out a tissue and watched the bright red drops spreading on the pristine white tissue. It was fascinating. Like watching ink spreading on a sheet of paper. Since it was her own blood, it only made it prettier. She released the pressure on the cut and told herself to relax. She made it through tonight, through the senator, and even through Will. She could last another hour until she could escape and go home. And then... What? What would she do? What was she trying so hard to make it through? To get back to… What? Being alone in pain? Memories? Her own agony?

So far, nothing helped that.

Except seeing Will. That did help.

Her father told her a few weeks earlier, after all the media died down, he wanted to throw a party and dinner in honor of Will. It was no shock to her that the press knew about her. Hadn’t the general done that himself? Did her father give her any credit? Or any thanks for making him the most famous general in the world right now? No. Not a word. He never even asked how she was.

But then again, she didn’t even try to stop him. She smiled and went along with the charade. She came to the farce of a dinner and was smiling, fine. She appeared just as her father needed her to be in order to get the attention he wanted. She had to be fine, otherwise it wouldn’t work. The general receiving attention after his daughter’s ordeal, made her father seem capable, kind, caring, and wonderful only if she were over it. The general receiving attention after his abused, scared, and terrified daughter had a nervous breakdown, on the other hand, would be a terrible, egotistical thing.

So she did what he expected of her. She smiled, and laughed her way throughout the evening. She flirted with the soldiers, as well as the politicians, and with all the men who expected it of her. Everyone except Will.

How could she look directly at him across a table of expensive food? How could she look him in the eye after he knew her so well? After he saw everything? For God’s sake, she even peed on him. It wasn’t like he could ever look at her and believe she was fine. Or normal. Or even sane.

She was supposed to be fine, but seeing him made it all not fine. How could her father expect her to keep up the act if the one person who knew the truth was watching her?

And Will did watch her. He watched her with utter disdain in his eyes. How did her father find the only truly honorable man in his ranks to come to her rescue? Will didn’t even look at her like she was a girl. He looked like she was, well, nothing. Nothing to him, and nothing to look at.

Her only problem was: he was everything to her. She thought about him all the time. When she was scared, tired, upset, exhausted, or terrified by her thoughts, she clung to his image, and his voice. Pretending he was there to rescue
her was the only thing that helped her sleep through the night. He rescued her in her dreams. He rescued her over and over from the dark, dank room. Sometimes he rescued her from herself.

“Jessie?”

Jessie turned at her sister’s voice. Lindsey stood back a few feet from her with a neutral expression. Her sister looked lovely tonight, as always. She was the good daughter, the quiet daughter, the obedient daughter. At eighteen, Lindsey had joined up as an ROTC. She completed her bachelor’s degree, and was now almost done serving her four years. She was the pride of the Bains family. Or at least as proud as the general could be for a daughter. The first thing Jessie and Lindsey ever did wrong for the general was not being born boys, which the general deserved.

“What do you want, Lindsey?”

“What did you say to Will to make him leave so soon?”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “It’s between us.”

“Why do you have to do that? Be so abrasive? Be so you? And to a man who saved your life. He doesn’t deserve your usual theatrics. Couldn’t you at least act grateful? Or gracious?”

“Gracious? For what? Will doing his job? Ask him
, that’s all I was to him, a job.”

“Ah, that’s what has you acting so bitchy about him. He’s immune to you, isn’t he? Just literally does his job. Never fell for your sex kitten act.”

“How do you know him?”

Lindsey gave her a tight, secretive smile. “I served with him. And if you weren’t so self- centered, you’d have served too, and gotten to
known people.”

“Shut up
, Lindsey, I’m not about to put myself through that just to earn Daddy’s love. Did it work for you? Does he love you yet?”

“Daddy loves me. I don’t have to prove anything to him. Why do you have to push him so much? Misbehave so much? What is he suppose
d to do? Condone it all? The sex tape. The drugs. The drinking. The DUI. And that doesn’t even include the soldiers you’re so willing to sleep with right in front of him. What did you ever do to make him proud of you?”

Jessie couldn’t argue, since she did all that stuff. She did it to wreak havoc in her father’s life. Lindsey was right about that too. “Don’t you ever wonder why we have to earn our father’s love? And his approval? What could I have possibly done that was so bad when I was six years old that he stopped approving of me? Or loving me?”

“Grow up. You don’t get to blame Dad for it anymore. Look in the mirror to see what is wrong with you.”

“What did you want anyway? I’m sure you didn’t come looking for me for another of your motivational sister talks.”

“Like you ever listened to a single word I ever said to you.”

“Like you ever said a word worth listening to.”

Lindsey glared at her before turning on her heel and stomping off. Jessie’s skin started to twitch again. She looked down, and saw the nails were turning the skin white again where she pressed into her palm. It helped. It helped her keep up the facade. She almost dug into her purse again.

She should have been able to talk to her own sister, who was good and kind to everyone else. Everyone loved Lindsey, from her father down to every soldier who ever crossed her path. They all loved Lindsey. They watched her like a delicate glass sculpture they didn’t want to shatter. They listened to her, and treated her with kid gloves. They never once would have dared look at the virgin, Lindsey, like they did her lusty, little sister. No one would ever look at Lindsey like they did Jessie.
The other sister. The bad sister.

And the man responsible for first starting all of that was her own father.

Jessie turned around with a stomp of her foot and started down the hallway until she found an exit she could escape through. Once outside, she fell against the cold, brick exterior. The dark surrounded her and she closed her eyes. Her tears burned hot and stinging on her cheeks, like smoke caught in her throat. But she could not let them fall. Someone might see her. Order one from her father was: no one could ever know, and no one could ever see her. After so many years of screwing up, disgracing him, ruining his reputation, and his life, couldn’t she do this one thing for him? Couldn’t she pretend to be okay? Or just act okay? Couldn’t she finally give him this one thing to make him proud of her?

After telling her father a watered-down version of what the kidnappers did to her, she agreed to comply with her father and say nothing happened.

She could still picture him, sitting in his chair, behind his massive desk, the flags proudly displayed behind him. This hero, this man of honor and valor, directly asking her if Will knew what happened to her. She sensed something already. If she told her father she was raped and tortured, she knew he didn’t want to hear that. So she replied that no one knew. Just him. Her father. And what did Daddy do with that information? Knowing what his own daughter had to endure? The commander of the Army just smiled a small, knowing smile, and said, “Good girl then. No one will ever have to know. No good could ever come if anyone knew.” But good would be forthcoming if everyone thought she was fine. After all, the media was already having a field day, so why not turn it into a positive experience?

She obeyed him, but inside, a black hole opened up and ate what was left of her soul. Now all she had to do was be sure to hide all the evidence.

As the daughter of an Army general, Jessie spent her life discovering new places. Every few years, there was another move, a new post. She had already lived in fourteen different places before she came to Fort Bragg. Of course, she was old enough to be on her own now, no more traveling, no more new places, no more new people. Her only problem was: she didn’t know how to do that. She didn’t know how to fully extract herself from the family she hated. She couldn’t explain why she found it so hard to leave them.

She followed her father inside the house the Bains family were temporarily in custody of. As usual, the house was military. Another house, another post. More of the same. They rode home from the dinner in silence. Lindsey lived alone in an apartment nearby.
So it was just Jessie and the general.

Jessie bypassed her father as soon as she cleared the front door and disappeared into her room. It looked like a room any girl might have. It was still messy from her previous preparations. The general would have her
ass if he saw how she left her room. She was required to keep it as he expected his soldiers to keep their dormitories. Neat. Clean. Precise. Totally faceless. She tried, but it didn’t come easily to her. She never even noticed the few items she misplaced, or the errant clothes she left on the floor, until the general happened to check her “quarters” and from there, the yelling started. And the belittling. Why was she so lazy and stupid? So thoughtless and careless? Why couldn’t she do even the simplest thing like cleaning her room?

Why couldn’t she? She never had a ready answer. She didn’t know why she couldn’t be like Lindsey and do everything right, much less how not to incite the general’s wrath. But no matter what she did, inevitably, something went wrong, or she forgot something, and the general
then “disciplined” her. Only it wasn’t ordinary discipline. It was his special brand of discipline that he saved only for her. She couldn’t please him, or make him stop. She learned long ago that no matter how hard she tried, she could never actually do anything right.

Jessie fell on her bed. She let the tears she was holding back fall. God, she couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t keep pretending, or maintain a happy face to the world. She wished she had someone, somewhere just to talk to. To confide in. She wished she could call Lindsey. Or her mother.

But her mother was dead. She died when Jessie was ten. From then on, her life was never right or easy. And she did nothing but fail.

What did it matter anyway? There was no one to share her life with, no one who cared about her. There would never be anyone who cared that one night she was destroyed.