Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (20 page)

Confused as I was, when I got off of the
phone with her mother, I was very pleased by the result of our conversation. In
addition to Diana wanting to work things out with Valerie, she also didn’t seem
to be all that angry with me either. At the very least, she didn’t threaten me
and she actually spoke with me, even after I assured her that Valerie was safe.

At the end of the conversation, my
stepmother even went as far as to thank me for taking her in and ensuring that
she was okay.

I told her that she knew I would do
anything for Valerie and even though she seemed slightly weird about her
answer, she agreed that was one thing that she never had to worry about, which
made me happy, despite the strange situation.

Now that I had delivered the important
message that I had for my stepsister, I imagined that Valerie would want
nothing to do with me anymore, but for now, that was okay. At least I was able
to help her reconnect with her mother. That was something after all and I was
sure that once she stopped wishing that she could kill me with her glower, she
would find it in her heart to be somewhat appreciative.

Perhaps then, she would want to talk to me
a little bit, but after the fight that we had earlier in the afternoon, I
certainly wasn’t going to hold my breath. However, not too long after I finally
relayed my message to Valerie, there was a knock at the door.

Unless she got drunk and lost her key
again, I seriously doubted it was my mother, but at this point, I didn’t really
care who it was.

I opened the door without giving too much
care to who was behind it and as soon as I did, I felt a hard swing to my face.

Bracing myself against the door I
staggered backward, but before I could recover, I felt myself get pushed inward
and a guy quickly pounced on top of me.

I immediately knew that my nose was
bleeding, but before that could completely register, I felt hands grasp at my
shirt, pull me up and then slam me back down. “Where is she? What did you do,
you sick pervert!”

Immediately, I put my hands up to block my
face while I tried to see through watering eyes who it was that had attacked
me.

However, when I saw that the man was about
to hit me again, I quickly rolled my head away, andhe smashed his hand against
the floor.

I heard him yell and I took the
opportunity to force myself up and push the man back. I ran after him, grabbed
his shirt and got a good punch into the square of his jaw.

The guy’s head whipped to the side, but
when it swung back around, I could tell that it was Zachary.

Not wanting to really hurt him, or anyone,
I backed up and demanded, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Where’s Valerie?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, defensively
putting my hands up to cover my face. I wasn’t about to tell him anything about
her while he was acting crazy.

“Oh, don’t even try to lie, you piece of
shit,” Zachary screamed as he got back to his feet and began to come toward me
again. “Dalilah told me everything!”

“Dalilah?” I growled hatefully. The malice
that I felt must have distracted me though, because I was sure that I felt my
hands drop slightly, before Zachary pushed them completely out of the way and
hit me again, this time in the exact same place that I had smacked him.

He grasped my shirt again and ran me into
a nearby wall. I winced, but I didn’t want to yell out, because I didn’t want
to alert Valerie. I wanted to keep her away from this psycho, if it was the
last thing I did.

I took a deep breath and pounded my fist
into the side of his head. He staggered back slightly, but then returned with a
vengeance grabbing my fist next time I tried to get another hit in and twisted
it around, so that I had no other choice but to collapse onto the ground. He
put a knee into my back.

Suddenly, I felt as though I couldn’t
breathe. I tried to wriggle free, but he had a tight hold on me.

“Dalilah, you know, your ex-girlfriend
that you attacked, right after she found out what you did to your stepsister?”

“What? What the hell is wrong with you?” I
gasped for breath. “I never touched either of them!” I stopped to catch my
breath, before I wheezed desperately, “You’re delusional!”

“You’re the one who is delusional! Valerie
was just upset and you took advantage of her!” I felt his weight continue to
bear down on my back as he arched himself closer. “You hurt her and for that, I
am going to hurt you.”

“No!” I insisted. “Dalilah’s a liar!”
While I spoke, I continued to try to wriggle out of the hold that he had placed
on me, but since I wasn’t too good at fighting and it seemed as though each
time I took a breath and exhaled, his weight made it even harder for me to take
another one, it was to no avail.

I was still convinced that he was crazy
and therefore, I didn’t want to yell out. I didn’t want to draw any attention to
the fact that I wasn’t alone. If he didn’t know that Valerie was here, I wanted
to keep it that way.
 
But when he threw a
hard jab to my side, it caused me to yell out involuntarily, and the sound of
that incited a terrible sense of panic inside when I heard the bedroom door
open and Valerie’s voice call my name.

Chapter
33

Valerie

I stared at the phone for a really long
time. Even though I was excited about calling my mother, I was also extremely
nervous.

This would be the first contact I had with
her since I was thrown out and I really wanted it to go well, but I wasn’t
completely sure how I was supposed to make that wish a reality.

Regardless of whether or not Shawn was
telling the truth about my mother and what exactly it was that my mother said
to him, it was still sure to be awkward. However, I knew that no matter what, I
had to try to call her, because if he was telling the truth and I didn’t call
her, she would probably think that I didn’t want to talk to her. Then again, if
he was just trying to get me to call her to break the ice, things could be made
so much worse.

I continued to look at the phone, with her
contact information glaring back at me, just waiting for me to hit send in an
effort to try and mend our broken relationship.

I sighed and thought;
Shawn would never let his mother out of his life, no matter how hard
she tried to get away.
It only took a moment to look around at the dingy
apartment where I was staying in order to prove my point.
Maybe he is just trying to get me to do the same.

Then, again, if he was being genuine with
the whole thing, it would be terrible for me to lose time with my mom because I
didn’t believe Shawn, potentially worsening the situation.

Besides, there were so many questions I
was owed an answer to and since not contacting my mom had not answered any of
them, I figured now would be as good a time as ever to get some of those
answers, even if they initially hurt.

I finally decided that anything had to be
better than not knowing. Before I could change my mind, I hit send and put the
phone to my ear.

In the split second before it rang, I
almost chickened out and hung up, but I stayed strong and kept the phone
pressed to my ear.

“Hello?” I heard my mother pick up on the
third ring and tears automatically began to fill my eyes.

“Hi, Mom…” I said cautiously, hoping that
she would be as willing to work things out with me. “I just want to start with,
I’m sorry.”

I heard her gasp and when she spoke again,
her voice was shaking slightly. “Oh thank God you are all right!”

There was a part of my soul that was
immediately relieved. I was so happy that she was at least worried about me and
that also gave merit to what Shawn was saying. With hope, I thought that maybe
he was telling the truth.

That truth would incite a lot of questions,
but I could live with that. It was the fear of the unknown and being cut off
from my family that was driving me crazy.

I smiled. “Yes, Mom…I’m all right.”

“What happened? I couldn’t get ahold of
you and Shawn told me that you were given a note from me that told you to leave
with all of your stuff packed?”

Even though I knew she couldn’t see me,
force of habit caused me to nod before I answered, “Yeah, it was really weird.”
I pulled the note out of my bag and read it back to my Mom, explaining that it was
typed, not written.

When I was finished, I could tell that she
was crying. “Valerie, I didn’t write that.” She insisted, “I might have been a
little shocked and disappointed that you had given into temptation with Shawn,
but I certainly wasn’t all that surprised and once the shock wore off, I was
going to sit down and talk to you about it, but what you did was in no way
grounds for being kicked out of the house.”

At that, I thought I heard a scuffle
outside my door, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it, since I was too
involved with the conversation with my mother.

“This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t
understand.”

“Neither do I,” my mother answered
solemnly. “And why couldn’t I get in touch with you?”

“I don’t know. My phone was on the whole
time…”

“Wait a minute Are you calling from your
phone?”

“Yes,” I answered, covering my ear from
yet another bang outside of my door. I glared at the door and wondered what
Shawn was doing out there, but paid little mind to it.

When she spoke again, my mother’s voice
was uneasy. “Valerie, I believe that someone tampered with my phone.”

I felt my heart speed up a little. “Why do
you say that?”

“Because your phone number isn’t saved
into my phone, but I am looking at your contact right now…And the number is different.”

Wondering what could possibly be going on,
I told her, “Mom, I think you need to come over. We need to figure this out and
I don’t know how safe you are in your house. I’m getting a bad feeling.”

“Me too…” my mother said. “But I think I
am perfectly fine here. How about we meet somewhere and talk?”

“Can you come here? I think that Shawn
should be a part of this conversation too. Every little bit of input helps.”

“Okay,” she said, slightly hesitant.

With another thud and what I could have
sworn was the sound of Shawn yelling out, as though in pain, I assured my
mother quickly, “It’s just us here. Shawn’s mother is literally never home…but
he sleeps on the couch.”

“Honestly, we have far bigger issues right
now,” my mother said.

“I think we do,” I responded carefully,
now getting up and listening out of the door, hearing voices, but I couldn’t
make out what they were saying. “Hey, Mom, can I call you back with a good time
to come over?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you…” I replied, now beginning to
get worried. The sound of the voices were not pleasant and I was afraid that
something very wrong was going on outside the door. “I’ll call you back soon. I
love you.”

“I love you too. We will work this all
out, Valerie. We will get to the bottom of it, I promise.”

I smiled. “I know. It will all work out…Bye.”

Once my mom said goodbye, I hung up the
phone and pocketed it, in case I needed it, before I carefully opened the door
and called, “Shawn? Are you okay?”

There was a surprised silence that
infected the apartment now and when his voice came back, it was mixed with
another that I also recognized.

“Get out of here, Val!” Shawn answered,
sounding as though he was short of breath and in pain.

Instead of listening to him, I made a
straight course to Shawn’s aid. But another voice broke over Shawn’s and it
stopped me in my tracks. “Valerie? Wait! Don’t listen to him. Stop…”

Hearing Zachary’s voice automatically made
me angry, but when I came out into the living room and saw the blood, as well
as the position that Zachary was holding Shawn in, I started to panic.

“Zachary, stop! Let him go!” I screamed,
glancing around for a weapon.

“You’re safe now,” Zachary answered
calmly.

“I was safe before!” I exclaimed. “Get the
hell off of him!”

As I ran toward him, fury seethed through
me. All I wanted him to do was to let go of Shawn and get out of his mother’s
house. I had no interest in hearing a word that he had to say. Still, I heard
him as he yelled over me quickly, “Dalilah told me what happened! I am so
sorry…I came to get you away from this monster!”

I still had no interest in what he had to
say and so, I continued to run at him, until I was close enough to ball up my
fist and throw my weight into a punch that actually meant something.

I heard Zachary yell out as he barreled
backward and Shawn yell as his arm was twisted even further, before Zachary had
to release him.

Shawn quickly rolled away from him and got
to his feet while I continued toward Zachary and pushed him down when he tried
to get back up. I was so angry with him, that I could hardly even see straight.
I was wild with rage and so when I raised my hand to smack him again, he
covered his head, while trying to put his hands up in surrender.