Caidyn clutches Demi’s wrist, yanks her away from me, then spins her around in one quick motion. As he drags her toward the exit, she fights him with everything she has, but since she knows he isn’t doing this to hurt her, her whacks are nowhere near as fierce as they’d be if it were me pulling her away.
I wait until they are in the clear in the parking lot before spinning around to investigate the ruckus behind me. It sounds as if someone is in the throes of battle, and I discover that is the case when my eyes land on the tablet in Agent Moses’s hands. Even if I wanted to plead innocence for the brutal beating of an undercover officer, I couldn’t. Agent Moses has footage of every sickening moment.
Fuck it!
7
Demi
The further Caidyn’s Jeep rolls away from Wallens Ridge State Penitentiary, the more my composure slips. Maddox was bloody and bruised. He had a swollen eye, a cracked lip, and an imprint of a boot on his cheek, and that’s just the damage I took in before Caidyn pulled me away. Who knows how many more bruises, nicks, and cuts his body is harboring?
If his father hadn’t taught him how to defend himself, he could have been seriously injured, or worse, killed. The thought makes me the most unhinged I’ve ever been, but since Caidyn is always one step ahead of the game, there isn’t a single thing I can do about it.
“You put the child lock on?” Caidyn doesn’t answer me. It’s okay. I don’t need his words to know his response. The faintest tug of his lips answers my question on his behalf. “I’m not a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.” He couldn’t have shocked me more if he slapped me across the face. “How could rolling out of a car at seventy miles an hour help anyone?”
“I wasn’t going to roll out.” He strays his eyes from the road to give me a stern, sure-you-weren’t look. “I wasn’t. I was going to make youthinkI was about to roll out, so you’d stop as I’ve requestednumeroustimes the past twenty minutes, then I would have hitchhiked back to Wallens Ridge.”
When he has the audacity to smile, I whack him in the arm. I’m not angry at him, but he is the only person I can take my anger out on, so he has to suck it up.
Within a couple of hits, I’m out of breath and ready to discuss the real reason for my fury. “He was hurting, Caidyn. I could see it in his eyes.” His silence speaks volumes. He’s only ever quiet when he can’t deny the truth. “He won’t survive five years in there, let alone a lifetime. We need to get him out.”
“We’re working on it,” Caidyn eventually replies, his tone solemn. “We just need to be patient.”
Patience. That’s the Walshs’ solution for everything these days. They think everything works out with time. In the world my uncle rules, time is often a disadvantage. You don’t have long, and what you do have is usually filled with memories you’d give anything to forget.
If Maddox is forced to stay in that realm for months on end, he will come out of it a shadow of the man he used to be. I can’t let that happen. I love him way too much to see him suffer like that. I’d rather lose who I am than lose him.
With a heartbreaking sigh, I slump low in my seat, where I spend the remainder of our five-hour trip to Ravenshoe contemplating ways to make the impossible occur ten times faster.
I won’t lie. It’s a somber and intensifying time that grows gloomier when our arrival at the Walsh family home has us stumbling onto both a moving van and Owen’s flashy sportscar.
The unnatural rhythm of my heart is heard in my tone when I ask, “What’s going on? They couldn’t have found a buyer this fast.”
Caidyn’s plan to sell the Walsh family home was approved during a second emergency family meeting the night Maddox was sentenced. Mr. and Mrs. Walsh were fast to accept his suggestion because they believed the money was going toward Maddox’s attorney’s fees. They have no clue their hard-earned assets will be handed to my swindling uncle.
Caidyn shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He flicks his wide eyes to mine. “But how about we go find out?”
Not waiting for me to answer, he throws open the door of his Jeep, then climbs down. His ride isn’t one of those old-fashioned Jeeps with a soft-top roof. It’s the size of an SUV and has all the fancy gadgets people want when eyeing their dream car on the lot.
I follow Caidyn’s weave through the men removing anything of value from the front living room. We find Mrs. Walsh supervising their hunt. Although it’s clear she’s devastated about losing antiques she has been collecting for over two decades, her expression is also happy.
“We found a buyer,” she says to Caidyn when we arrive at her side, doubling the teary glint in her eyes. “Acashbuyer!”
I take a step back in shock, flabbergasted. “How? The agent said this price bracket would take weeks to sell, if not months.”
Mrs. Walsh shrugs. “I don’t know. It all happened so quickly. The buyer didn’t even organize an inspection.” The stunned expression on her face switches to dismay. “His offer was a little lower than we were hoping, but it’s plenty for a good defense.”
When she hands me the paperwork for an immediate sale, my heart falls from my ribcage. Not only did the buyer slice thirty percent off the asking price, meaning I’m short a little over one point four million dollars to reach the amount my uncle believes he is owed, but the company name at the bottom of the check is also familiar. It belongs to my cousin, Dimitri.
“You can’t accept this offer.” When I push the paperwork back into Mrs. Walsh’s hand, her lips twitch in preparation to speak, but I steal the chance. “This deal isn’t any good. It’s not enough, and you can’t sell your home tohim.”
The way I spit out ‘him’ has Caidyn paying very careful attention to the document clutched in his mother’s hand. After a beat, he backs me up. “I agree. This amount isn’t enough.” He doesn’t mention that he hates the idea of Dimitri being anywhere near his family home, but the growl of his words expresses it on his behalf. “You have to decline it.”
“I can’t,” his mother argues. “It’s a cash sale. There’s no cooling-off period.” When she steps toward her son, petrified she’s made a mistake, her hand shoots out to caress his. “I thought this was what you wanted. That you’d be happy.”
“It is what I want. It’s just…” The willpower in Caidyn’s eyes falters the longer he stares into his mother’s tear-filled gaze. “You did good, Mom. This will help,” he says after accepting the check she’s holding out for him and shoving it my way. “We will get it straight to Owen.”
