“But you said you’d let me go. You said you’d stop if I told you the truth.”
I throw him across the room, cross the distance between us, and kick him repeatedly in the gut. “Yeah. I lied.”
It’s not much of a fight. It’s not a fight at all. I’m bigger and stronger, and more to the point, I am fucking incandescent with rage. I can’t see past the bloodlust, and I slam my fist repeatedly into his face, his belly, his kidneys. He’s coughing up blood, his eyes scrolling back in his head, not even trying to fend me off anymore.
I pull him up, drag him across to the mirror. I hold his face in front of it. He can’t focus or even hold his head up. Even his fucking eyes are filled with blood. “Take a good long look at yourself, you bastard. The last thing you’ll ever see is the fucked-up face of a rapist asshole.Rot in hell.”
With that, I smash him into the glass. It explodes, showering us both with shards, the blood from his ruined features spurting everywhere. It splashes across my own face, and I do not care. I drop him to the ground and slump beside him. He’s gone, and the world is a better place without him in it. If he’s this evil this young, what the fuck would he have grown into? A monster, that’s what. I killed a monster.
And I fuckingenjoyedit.
It’s that realization that bothers me. Not that I took a life, but that it was so easy. I scramble back, lean against a wall. My hands start to tremble and my breath is labored. I recognize it as an adrenaline comedown, a bit like after a football game. I look around at the wrecked hotel room. The smashed furniture. Blood, everywhere. Glass all over us. And a dead body, crumpled in a heap in the middle of the room.
Shit!The reality of my situation crashes in on me. I just murdered someone. I do not regret it. I will never regret it. But I also don’t want to end up in prison because of it. I made a lot of noise and a lot of mess. I crawl across the room to the phone, and do the only thing I can think of, I call my big brother Nathan. Mason would just think I was joking. Elijah would be too much. Drake is out of the country. There’s no way I can tell my Dad.
Nathan…Nathan will understand.
He answers straight away. “Maddox? Where the fuck are you?”
“I’m in Chicago. I…Nathan. I killed him. He’s dead. I need help.”
He pauses, but only for a beat. “Stay where you are. Don’t leave. Don’t speak to anybody. Don’t use the phone again. Understand?”
“Yeah. Thank you Nathan.”
I tell him the name of the hotel, hang up, go into the bathroom and look at myself in the only mirror that isn’t shattered. Fuck, I am a mess. My face is sheened in blood. My eyes are wild. My knuckles are cut to shit from the punching and the glass. I look like a stranger.
Or maybe I look like what I really am, deep inside. Maybe this is the real me. Maybe I’m also a monster.
I go back into the living room. There’s a fridge that has miraculously escaped the wreckage. I pull it open, find some of those little bottles of booze, screw off the lids, and gulp them all down—whiskey, vodka, gin, tequila, it doesn’t fucking matter what. The heat sears my throat, hurts in a way I welcome. There’s wine, too.
I don’t have the patience to use the corkscrew. I just slam the neck of the bottle against the corner and then swallow it down. I don’t care that the glass is cutting me. I like that the glass iscutting me. I need to drink. To switch off and shut down. To forget how fucking easy it was to kill him.
By the time the door opens, I’m halfway to shitfaced. A tall man with dark hair takes one look at me and tugs the bottle from my hand. “I’m Lorenzo. Your brother sent me. Looks like you’ve got yourself into a bit of a situation here, kid.”
Kid? I don’t feel like a kid anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever feel like one again.
Fuck, I miss my mom.The thought comes from nowhere and it ruins me. What would she think of this? What would she think about her baby boy not only being a murderer, but finding that it comes easy to him? She’d be fucking horrified, that’s what.
Tears fill my eyes, and Lorenzo looks at me sympathetically. “It’s tough, the first time. It should be tough.”
He thinks I’m traumatized by what I’ve done. He doesn’t understand that I’m traumatized more by how little I care. I nod.
“It’s all going to be okay. We’ll get you out of here. Get you cleaned up and on your way home. We’ll deal with all of this.”
He glances at the dead body lying in the center of the room. Nudges it with his foot, looks disgusted. “Piece of shit rapist scum. Nobody’s gonna miss this asshole.”
I look around at the carnage. “What will you do with him? How will you fix this?”
He places a firm hand on my shoulder, looks at me with intense eyes. “That’s none of your concern, son. Just know that we will.”
Chapter 29
Ellie
“Maddox, why do you have to leave?” There’s a pleading tone in my voice that I hate. He glances at me, sees how upset I am, and then closes the distance between us, taking me in his arms. “I’m sorry baby. I just do. I need to get back to New York. Something unexpected came up.”
He’s not lying. I don’t think so anyway. But he is evading—there’s something he’s not telling me, and it’s scaring me. I’ve got so used to Maddox and him sharing everything that this feels like a slap in the face. What’s so bad that he can’t talk to me about it?
