Dane, his face red with rage, shook his head. “No police,” he said. “Not for him.” Without another word, he turned. Danny had gotten home with Sally as Dane went to his door and pounded on it.
“Danny!” he called. “Time to dance.”
Danny emerged, without his shirt. “What?” he asked.
“Get your shit,” Dane said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Sam came out of the room then. “Dane, please, no!”
He turned, sighing. “I’m not going to hurt him,” he said. “But it’s either this, or we go to the police.”
Sam shook her head again, pulling his arm. Dane wasn’t going to be swayed however, and brushed aside a stray hair. “Alex, Sam, Danny, let’s go.”
He turned, followed by his siblings, Sam protesting the entire way. The drive wasn’t too long, and in the short time that it took to go over Alex had given Danny the gist of what had happened.
“That lying motherfucker,” Danny said. “That sneaky son of a bitch. I’m going to beat the fuck out of him.”
Samantha was full on crying now, almost begging. “Please, I just want to forget about all of this. Please let’s just go home.”
Dane was adamant, though, and made her tell him where they lived.
“Dane, don’t do anything rash,” Alex said. “You either Danny.”
“Fuck that and fuck him,” Dane said. She glanced over and saw that his knuckles were white he was gripping the steering wheel so hard.
“Dane, if you walk up and hit him, you could be arrested for assault,” she said. “We need to be smart about this.”
Dane glanced over and shook his head. “No. He doesn’t get a pass.” They pulled up to the house and hopped out, Dane and Danny striding purposefully towards the door.
Sam, still weeping, could only watch from the curb as Alex held her. “Please make them stop,” she begged. “I just want to go home.”
Alex couldn’t hear what was being said at the door, but Dane was standing talking to someone. “Stay here,” she told Sam.
Walking up, she saw that Amanda was in the doorway. As she approached, she saw the telltale signs of a fresh handprint on her face.
“Where is that motherfucker?” Danny asked.
“We just want to talk,” Dane lied.
“You need to go before there’s trouble,” Amanda said. “Please.”
Pastor Dan appeared then, coming downstairs and around the corner. “Dane, Daniel,” he said, smiling disarmingly. “What brings you here?”
“Come on outside you fuckin’ piece of shit,” Danny said.
“Don’t fuckin’ play coy with us. You know exactly why we’re here,” Dane said.
“Now, now,” Pastor Dan said. “The police are on the way boys. I wouldn’t do anything crazy.”
Alex shook her head. “This isn’t helping guys,” she said, pulling at Dane’s arm.
“Is that my little slut?” Pastor Dan asked, peering past them. Sam was crying a few feet behind them, but amid the shouts at him from her brothers, she stepped up the few feet between them and flipped him off.
“You lied to me you son of a bitch,” she said.
“Oh, come on, did you really believe all that stuff I was telling you?” he asked. Amanda was trying to get him back inside, unsuccessfully. “You really are that dumb I guess,” he said.
“Just come on outside,” Dane said. “We can talk about it like men.”
Pastor Dan laughed. “I’m not coming outside.”
Amanda still pulled at his arm and he shoved her off. She fell into the door frame and opened the screen door a little.
Pastor Dan saw the door open a little and his eyes went wide as Dane reached in and yanked him out, throwing him over the railing and into the lawn.
All four women yelled in surprise. Amanda grabbed Danny and was desperately trying to keep him off while Dane was being held by Sam and Alex.
Pastor Dan got back up and quickly went inside. “Get off of my property and leave my wife out of this,” he said.
The brothers relaxed, seeing that he’d gotten back inside.
“Just tell her what you did,” Dane said. “You lying, fucking snake.”
Pastor Dan raised his arms.
Amanda, tears in her eyes, finally said something worth hearing. “Please, I’ll tell her. Just calm down before the police get here.”
“Fuck you,” Pastor Dan said, shoving his wife back. She slapped him as she moved past him out the door.
He glared at her, enraged.
“She wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last,” he admitted. “Get that cunt off my porch,” he said, pointing at Amanda.
“He’s a deviant,” Amanda said, surprising the group. “He picks young women from the congregation and takes them under his wing. Eventually, he seduces them by telling them he’s getting divorced and currying sympathy from them.”
“I’ll admit that you were so much more difficult to convince than the last girl,” he said.
“We keep getting moved around by the Church, city to city,” Amanda said. “He keeps getting caught.”
“Other people have reported it?” Alex asked incredulously. “Why the fuck do you stay with this piece of shit?”
She lowered her gaze, not having an answer that would satisfactorily answer that question.
“We’ll just tell the cops what happened then,” Danny said. “He forced her, right?”
“I have it all on video,” he spat. “You think I’d take any chances? It’s all consensual. I never forced her to do anything.”
Dane and Danny were still obviously wanting him to step outside.
“You made her suck off strangers,” Amanda said.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” he said.
“When she took care of him multiple times in one day, it was actually a couple of his friends that were coming to his office to take part,” Amanda admitted. She looked defeated and scared.
Sam, her face red and tears flowing freely, fell to the ground in humiliation. The police drove up then, and quickly diffused the situation.
“Are you pressing charges?” the office asked Pastor Dan.
“No,” he said. “They’ve got nothing on me. It was all consensual. I’ll be the bigger man.”
The office rolled his eyes and turned. “Look, I’d like to help you, but he’s right. From her own admission,” he said, pointing at Sam, “It was consensual.”
“So there’s nothing that can be done?” Alex asked. “I mean he obviously hit his wife.”
The officer shrugged. “Unless she’s willing to press charges, I have no proof that it was him. No one here saw it, and she’s not saying it was him. They could just as easily say it was one of your brothers.”
Alex swore softly. Another officer was talking to the brothers. She walked over to Dane as he looked up. He shook his head.
Amanda, still very upset, was sitting on the porch alone.
“You have to get out of this,” Alex said. “He might not technically done anything illegal, but he’s a piece of shit, and so are you if you knew about it and did nothing.”
Amanda shook her head. “He had a temper,” she said quietly.
“Then press charges!” Alex said. “Fuck!” Apparently Pastor Dan wasn’t just coercing younger women and lying to them, he was also abusing his wife and forcing her to collude in his scheme.
“I just wanted to be with her,” Amanda said. “I knew it was wrong but I thought maybe something good could come out of it. He wasn’t always like this” She looked up at Alex, almost pleadingly.
“Do you actually believe that?” she asked.
Amanda lowered her gaze again, not having an answer.
Alex shook her head and turned. The two cops were now both talking to the brothers and Sam.
“I’m very sorry,” one of them said. “I really wish we could let you boys handle it on your own. God knows I would if I were you.”
“That would mean assault charges though,” the other officer said.
“So he gets away with it?” Danny asked.
The officer looked around the neighborhood then. “I’m thinking that this isn’t the first time,” he said.
“Take it to the church,” the other one said. “See that he gets fired.”
Dane, still upset, shook his head and turned, looking at Dan. “Cops or no, you come near my sister or my family ever again and I’ll beat you into the fucking ground.”
Pastor Dan ignored him, heading back into the house. Amanda stood and looked sadly at Sam, who was sitting in Dane’s truck, sobbing into her hands. The police waited long enough for Dane and his siblings to get into the truck and drive away before they drove away themselves.
Alex sighed, feeling so bad for her sister and wishing there was something she could do. Sam was clutching at her shirt like she was a little girl again, weeping and burying her face against Alex. Alex brushed a tear away, truly wishing that she could assuage Sam’s anguish and shame.
“I’m so sorry,” Dane said. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you,” he said, tears in his own eyes. Sam shook her head and leaned over, sliding up under his arm, fresh tears flowing as she wept.
Alex truly didn’t know what to do.
*****
Samantha
Three months later…
She knelt down and picked up some trash and then pulled a weed or two from the grave of her real mother, Stephanie. Her real mother and father had been killed in a freak accident at an airshow exactly eighteen years ago today. From what she’d heard, they’d been invited by friends and were watching when an older WW2 era fighter plane had had an engine failure and crashed into the crowd, killing both of her parents, along with the pilot and a few others on the ground.
She’d only been a baby at the time, and obviously didn’t remember. Apparently her mother was going to bring her, but her Aunt Claire had offered to keep all three of the infants, her, Toni, and Alex so that she and Carl could go relax and the babies could play together.
She had pictures of them, keepsakes, old clothes and her mother’s engagement and wedding rings. She smiled and kissed her fingers and then placed them on both tombstones.
“Love you guys,” she whispered. She turned and walked back over to where the rest of her family was waiting quietly. Claire, her mom’s sister, had already said a few quiet words to her little sister and was dabbing her eyes with a tissue.