Free The Silencer: A Bad Boy MMA Romance by Aubrey Michelle Page B

before her due date and my little brother had to spend the first months of his life inside of an incubator. Because of the beatings he gave her, he was born disabled. He wasn’t mentally retarded then, but everything was much more of a challenge to him.”
     
    “But he seems much worse off now. What happened since then?”
     
    “My dad always yelled about Casey not being his, despite the fact that he looks just like him. He didn’t care that he was disabled, either. He’d beat on him the same as the rest of us. Anytime I thought he was going to give it to Casey, I’d step in and make sure I got his attention. It meant that my dad fucked me up even worse, but at least it spared my brother. When Casey was twelve, my dad got more than a little carried away and knocked him down a flight of stairs. It broke my brother’s neck and compressed the nerve.”
     
    “Oh my God, that’s terrible.”
     
    “Yeah, but that’s not even the worse part. Those two pieces of shit didn’t call for an ambulance or take him to the hospital. They were both afraid of what kind of trouble they were going to be in. I was 18 at the time and just happened to come in and found him in the basement. I called 9-1-1 and had my dad locked up while my brother was sent to the ER.”
     
    “So what happened to your parents?”
     
    “It was a long process but the judge sentenced both of them to fifteen years in prison. They’ve still got over a decade to finish their time and so help me God, if they ever come around him—either one of them—I’ll kill them both. I made a promise to myself that I’d never let anything happen to my brother again. That’s why I’m so particular in the care that he receives.”
     
    Nobody could ever say that Jason Stark didn’t love his brother. I’d never realized that either one of them had it that bad, and honestly in my entire career, it was the most heart wrenching story I’d ever listened to.
     
    I was beginning to understand the reason behind his fights: it was a way to take out his anger and aggression on his opponents. Almost as if he were getting revenge for his brother. It was no wonder why he hardly lost. Jason was one of the best in the biz.
     

CHAPTER NINE
     
     
     
     
    Shelly
     
     
     
     
    I liked the fact that Jason had been willing to open up to me. It takes a lot for someone to truly open up to someone and let them in, especially when they’d had such a horrific childhood. My heart broke for him. I wished that I would have been able to tell him that I understood but I would have been lying. I came from a loving home so hearing about what went on in his was devastating for me to hear.
     
    When you grow up in a community such as mine, with families always out and about doing things together, you are naturally shielded from some of the things that others have to go through. I always assumed that my family dynamic was normal and that everyone else had the same kind of love and affection in their own homes. It’s kind of a wake-up call to find out about how the other side lived and what they had to go through.
     
    Even though there was no way I would ever be able to relate to things that Jason and Casey had to endure, I assured him that I would always be there for him if he needed someone to talk to. I could tell that everything he told me had been weighing on him for years. I didn’t ask but I was positive that I was the first person he ever shared those stories with.
     
    I was exhausted when I walked into work the next morning but I was ready to do my job. Of course, a normal day would be nothing more than wishful thinking. When I got to the nurse’s station, Candace went out of her way to avoid eye contact with me. I thought that was odd until Angie rushed out of her office as soon as she saw me.
     
    “Shelly, I’m going to need to see you in my office at 11:00,” she demanded.
     
    “Okay, is something wrong?” I questioned.
     
    “I think you already know that there