“Do you see him?” Maddox asks, his tone reserved.
While swinging my hips in beat to thedoof doof doofmusic pumping around us, I inconspicuously nod. It looks like we’re getting caught up in the music. Only Maddox and I know different. The tension is so thick between us, it’s almost at the point it was when Maddox interrupted my homecoming dance kiss with Robert Flint. His unexpected arrival meant we never went past first base. I was fine with that. Robert was not.
Upon spotting the bob of my head, Maddox confesses, “He’s a federal agent.” When I stiffen, shocked I’ve caught the eye of a law enforcement officer, Maddox drags his teeth over the shell of my ear. “Keep moving. As far as he is concerned, we’re two friends from high school reminiscing about our teen years.”
When I follow his instructions to the wire, Maddox advises why I’ve gained the devotion of the dark-haired agent’s eyes. Even with his body plastered to mine, and his lips replicating a man hoping to devour me instead of shattering my very existence, it’s a terrifying few minutes, and the tragedy deepens when the reason for Maddox’s earlier quiet steamrolls into me.
“You believe him. You think Iknowinglysent those men to their deaths?”
I shiver through the sting of Maddox’s teeth sinking into my shoulder, then I shake some more when he breathes out a husky, “No.”
He’s lying. I don’t know how I know. I just do.
“If you leave now, he’ll most likely arrest you,” Maddox pushes out in a hurry when I attempt to break away from him. “Is that what you want, Demi? Do you want to face prosecution?”
I whip around so fast my hair slaps the faces of several club goers surrounding us. I wore it down tonight. That’s a rarity for me. Usually, I have it up and out of the way, so it can’t be used against me as it was in my teens.
“Haven’t I already been prosecuted?” I fire back, too worked up to let it go. “YouthinkI’m guilty. That’s all I need to be convicted, isn’t it? A jury of my peers to believe I’m a heartless bitch who sends men to slaughter with a smile on her face.” I thrust my hand at him, calling him out as my judge, jury, and executioner. “Stuff the truth. Don’t let that be shared because God forbid anyone in this town should be given a fair trial!”
I’m shouting at the wrong person, and I am lumping all my anger on the wrong person, but I can’t hold back. I thought Maddox’s sneaky glances the past three-plus years was because he found me attractive. I had no clue he was striving to unearth my hideous insides.
“I need to go.” I almost make a dash for it, but morals my father instilled in me before he died stop me. “I’m sorry for biting your hand, ruining your night out, and for anything else you seem to think I’ve done but most likely haven’t.” Okay, I’ll admit, the last part wasn’t needed, but I have a hard time being amicable when I’m unfairly judged. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Maddox doesn’t shout my name like he did earlier, but I know he’s shadowing my walk. Not only does his gasp hit my neck when an Audi A4 pulls up to the nightclub’s back exit doors within a second of me bursting through them, but his eyes also shoot to the agent he pointed out as fast as mine.
I don’t want to be witnessed sliding into my uncle’s car by a federal agent. I’m aware of the many reasons he’s being tailed by the FBI, but the silent opening of the back-passenger door doesn’t give me any other option. Col never sits in the front. He feels superior when he’s in the back. It’s where he wheels and deals, and more times than I care admit, where he punishes me for being disobedient.
Mercifully, only my ego has been walloped into submission since I reached womanhood.
Cheek slaps are reserved for special occasions.
“Demi…” Maddox whispers in warning when I step toward my uncle’s idling vehicle.
I keep my eyes forward, but I direct my voice in Maddox’s direction. “I’m fine,” I force out, issuing my go-to reply anytime I feel snowed under. “Innocent until proven guilty, right?”
The thud of my pulse in my ears could have me mistaken, but I swear Maddox gabbles out, “Not in his fucking realm,” a mere second before I slip into the back of my uncle’s car and am driven away for my second trial tonight.
9
Demi
“It went flat a little over an hour ago.”
Ignoring me, my uncle snatches my cell phone out of my hand before he plugs it into the charging cable dangling out of the door of his pricy vehicle. He may have stained our family name in dirt multiple times the past four decades, but that doesn’t mean he’s struggling to make ends meet. That hustle is left to the people below him—the shitkickers, as he likes to call them. The people like me who do everything he asks but get paid a pittance for it. I could earn more in hell than I ever will from him. It’s why I’m so generous with the tips I receive. Not one of the staff at Petretti’s is there because they want to be. They all owe my uncle in some way.
“Was that before or after I called?” my uncle asks, shifting his focus back to me.
I smile at him like a brainless idiot. Unlike the Walsh brothers, my uncle prefers docile, submissive women. “Was what before or after you called—”
He steals my words with a vicious backhanded slap. It reddens my cheek in an instant and has my molars crunching together, but since it was an open-hand hit, I act as if not even the faintest sting is creeping across my face.
“It was in my purse, so I’m unsure. P-perhaps it was after.”
The quick balling of his hands warns me he’s bordering on retaliating with more than a slap. I’d be worried if all my concentration wasn’t focused on the frustrating stutter of my words. Furthermore, I deserve to be punished. Maddox said half the men I’ve recruited into my uncle’s fighting syndicate were murdered within weeks of them signing the dotted line.Half.
I deserve so much more than an open-hand slap.
I should be hung.
