Caidyn’s eyes pop up to mine when I race across the dusty lot at the front of Wallens Ridge State Penitentiary. I’m fuming mad, hormonal, and oh-so-devastated. Maddox…fuck. I don’t know how to explain what ripped through me when my eyes landed on him for the first time in weeks. Love was there—it will always be there—but there were so many other emotions attached to my response.
Regret.
Grief.
Fury unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
He was gaunt and pale, and his eyes were sunken as if pained by the sun’s rays booming into the window where our meeting was held. He looked sick, so you can picture how hard it was for me to un-wrap myself from him when the guards said our time was up. I wanted to scream my frustration into their faces. I wanted to demand to see the warden, then I realized only one person is responsible for Maddox’s pain, and for once, it isn’t me.
“Keys.”
Caidyn balks, steps back, then blubbers out, “Huh?”
“Keys, Caidyn! I’m driving.” He doesn’t get the chance to deny my request. I snatch the key for his Jeep out of his hand, climb into the driver’s seat, then crank the ignition. He either dives into the passenger seat or hitchhikes home. Those are his only two options.
He goes for the former a mere second before I plant my foot onto the gas pedal. The swivels of his tires struggling to grip the asphalt do little to slow me down. I’m on the warpath, so it will take more than a threat of a wreck to slow me down.
Not even four hours of nonstop driving dampens my annoyance.
It’s as blistering as the spit that seethes from my mouth when I find my uncle in his office at the back of his compound. “You are a lying piece of shit!”
Caidyn is denied access into my uncle’s private space by two goons weaponed up with machine guns, but I’m given a clear path. I find out why when Ezra stops me from beating my uncle to death after only three pounds of my fists to his chest.
It isn’t what he says that alerts me to the unknown term in Maddox’s contract, it’s what he says to one of my uncle’s men when he attempts to retaliate to my foot smacking into my uncle’s nose. “If you so much as ruffle a hair on her head, you’ll be dead.”
Ezra doesn’t issue threats he doesn’t plan to execute. If he tells you you’re a dead man, be sure to enjoy your last breaths.
The fact he keeps his word won’t have me going easy on him, though. I’m so angry, when he releases me from his grip, I shove him with enough force, he lands onto the chair opposite my uncle with a bang.
“You said he would be taken care of! That he wouldn’t suffer!” I thrust my hand at the door like the three men’s faces I mentally sketched onto my hit list five hours ago are standing behind it. “They’re starving him. He was so gaunt, I hardly recognized him.”
Caidyn is as shocked by my confession as Ezra. He pushes past the guards, preferring to risk a bullet wound than to leave me up at the plate, swinging the bat for his brother alone. After absorbing the truth from my eyes, he shifts on his feet to face Ezra. “You promised.”
With his eyes bouncing between Caidyn and me, Ezra tries to weasel his way out of a fucked-up situation with four little words. “I’ve kept my word.”
If my anger hadn’t made my mouth bone-dry, I would spit at his feet. That’s how much he disgusts me. “You are full of shit. You aren’t a good guy. You’re like every other man here. Evil and corrupt.”
When the heat of my uncle’s sly smirk burns the side of my face, I crank my neck to him so fast, my muscles groan in protest. The Petretti genes are undeniable when I discover my kick caused blood to trickle from his nose. It’s nowhere near enough to endanger his life, but it feels so good knowing I hurt him, I can’t help but replicate his smug grin.
It slips from my face when I remember what my visit is really about. Maddox is drowning, and my uncle owns the only life jacket in sight.
“Transfer Maddox’s debt to me.”
“He cannot negotiate with you. It is against the terms of his agreement with Ox.”
I shove my hand into Ezra’s face, shutting him up before redirecting my focus to my uncle. He is the most cunning fox I’ve ever met, so there’s no way in hell he’d fully give up his rights to me. He would have hidden something from Maddox during their negotiations so he can use it against him at a later date. It’s how he operates.
“If I can’t transfer his debt to me, it is only fair I’m given a chance to pay my share. I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what you left off the table.”
“We covered all sides. You can’t work for him,” Ezra interrupts for the second time, his tone confident.
It’s unfortunate for both of us that I know my uncle better than I let on. “You crave control as much as you do fear. You’d never give it all away.”
“He did,” Ezra continues, grating my last nerve. “Ox’s debt can’t be transferred to you, and your uncle can’t accept anyfavorsfrom you to reduce the liability of his debt.”
The way he says ‘favors’ has vomit racing up my throat.
After checking an official-looking contract he snatched out of his briefcase, Ezra quotes, “You cannot be put into the trade, strip, run drugs, or be your uncle’s personal assistant. Even Petretti’s Restaurant is scratched off the list of potential ways for you to contribute to Ox’s debt. We covered all bases—”
