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She shook her head. “Of him. Of what he would do to you. He’s not the brother I grew up with. He’s mean. He’s violent. He said these people wouldn’t hesitate to hurt either one of us to get what they wanted from him. I’m not sure what that is. Usually people just want money. Not that I can afford to pay anyone else off. All of my spare cash goes to Mr. Markovich.”

“What?” Kent whispered.

How had he not known any of this was going on? How had he missed it all? She had a bruised wrist, for fuck’s sake. Clearly, her brother had been threatening her. Mistreating her.

And she hadn’t said a word to him.

Fuck it. He should never have left her that day. He’d known something was going on, but he’d never imagined it would be something like this.

“You’ve been paying off Max’s debt with Drew Markovich?” Ed asked incredulously. “Wait, is that why you were at the bar the other night when Eden was attacked?” He turned to Kent. “Markovich owns the Suck ’n Blow.”

Kent nodded, still unable to find his voice. He knew that. He also knew that Drew Markovich was a dangerous, ruthless bastard. And she’d been paying him off? Visiting the damn Suck ’n Blow every week? Anything could have happened to her.

“I go there once a week to give him the money. One of his goons approached me months ago. They forced me into a car and drove me to him. He told me that Max had used me as a guarantee on a loan. I tried to tell him he couldn’t do that. I mean, I’m not responsible for my brother. But he said...he said when he caught up to Max, he’d start taking off body parts unless we came to some arrangement. I believed him.”

“Fuck. Fuck.” Kent ran his hand through his hair. Why hadn’t he questioned her further about what she was doing there that night?

Maybe because he’d been too busy thinking about his own personal crisis. Which suddenly seemed so stupid in the face of what she’d been going through. He started to pace up and down, he had to do something with all the restless energy inside him.

“Luckily, he lets me pay it off as there was no way I could come up with the cash Max owed. Not without selling the house.” She rubbed her arms and he caught sight of the horrible bruise surrounding her wrist in shades of yellow and green and he felt ill. “Of course, I still might have to do that.”

“Markovich is threatening you,” he snarled.

“What? No. Well, not anymore. He’s actually quite a reasonable man to deal with,” she said.

“Never heard that said about Markovich before,” Ed said. “He must like you.”

He didn’t like the idea of that much either. He didn’t want her around a dangerous character like Markovich at all.

“No, it’s the other people Max owes something to. That night that Eden was attacked, when I was leaving work this man approached me in the parking lot. I’d just fallen over and he appeared out of nowhere. Said Max had something that belonged to his boss and they wanted to know where he was. I told them I didn’t know. He got so angry and I was scared he would hurt me so I said that Max called me each week and that next time he called I’d find out where he was.”

She rubbed at her head as though she had a headache. But he couldn’t offer her any sympathy or help until she got this all out.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Ed asked the question Kent wanted to.

Abby shook her head. “He made it clear I wasn’t to tell anyone. And I didn’t think there was much you could do. If I told you and he found out, well, I’m rather fond of my toes and fingers where they are.”

“He threatened to chop off your fingers and toes?” Kent roared, making her jump.

“Well...no...not in so many words. But isn’t that the way these things go? At least it always is in the movies.”

Kent had to bite his lip to prevent himself from pointing out this wasn’t fiction. It was real. Truth was, with people like the ones Max was obviously mixed up with, things could very rapidly escalate to violence.

“What happened after he threatened you?” Ed asked, making notes as she spoke.

“The first time?”

“First time?” Kent whispered. This just got better and better.

She gave him a guilty look. Oh, he so wasn’t going to like this.

“Yes,” Ed said, sending him a look.

“Afterwards, I went home, got changed and headed out to Suck ‘n Blow and, well, we all know how that went. Then a few days later, I came home to find the door ajar. Max had found my spare key and was inside the house. He got angry with me, because he thought I’d called the police.”

“Which you should have done,” Ed said firmly.

Kent scowled.