I nodded again.

Brock kept on with his story and I knew we were hitting the hard part when his eyes got dark.

“She had an older cousin and when I say that, he was a second cousin nearly old enough to be her father. Like my family, hers was close. I knew them all and I did not like this fuckin’ guy’s vibe, never did. Bree was immune to it. To her, family was family even if they were weird, nuts, or off. That was the kinda heart she had. She let everyone in and didn’t ask questions.”

Oh man.

“By this time, I was out of school, went to the Academy, and was an officer with the DPD workin’ toward detective. She had graduated, workin’ full time but still goin’ to school at night to get her master’s degree. One night, he shows outta the blue, and she lets him in.”

“Brock,” I whispered when that darkness in his eyes intensified and his fingers dug into my flesh and didn’t loosen. “Maybe you should stop.”

“Can you handle it?” he asked.

“If you need me to,” I answered.

“That ain’t a good answer, sweetness.”

“Then, yes, I can handle it.”

He examined my face. Then his fingers loosened.

He carried on. “He fucked her up, Tess. We’re talkin’ bad and that shit’s bad anytime but hers was worse. Violated her and laid her out. Beat the fuckin’ shit outta her before he raped her and he didn’t do it once. He spent all night with her and did it repeatedly. She was so fucked up, she reported it took her half an hour to crawl to the phone after he was gone. She was in a hospital bed two weeks. This guy fucked her up and this guy was fuckin’ whacked. When I got him and we finally got his DNA, it showed Bree was his fifth or at least she was the fifth who reported it.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered and he nodded.

“Compulsion,” Brock told me. “Uncontrollable. That was why he fucked up and went after family. In interrogation, they broke him. He’d had his eye on her for fuckin’ years, beat it back. That night, whatever broke in him broke and he couldn’t beat it back anymore.”

“So,” I said hesitantly, “you got him?”

He nodded. “Wasn’t my case ’cause I didn’t have cases. I was still in uniform. Levi and I went to go see her, took some time ’cause her fuckin’ jaw was wired shut, but she finally got out the basics of what went down and I took leave because he’d gone to ground and they couldn’t find him. He knew he fucked up. He was in hiding, preparin’ to bolt. I hunted him down and we’ll just say when I found him, I did not exactly follow procedure.”

Damn.

“You hurt him,” I whispered.