After propping his hip onto the desk, Agent Moses folds his arms in front of his chest. “Location?”
I slant my head to the side and arch a brow, silently mocking him.
He acts as if we can communicate without words. I can assure you we’re not that close. “By the docks. That’s right. It slipped my mind for a second.”
While pushing in my chair, I keep my eye roll on the down-low. He thinks he’s ‘cute’ when he acts daft. In reality, it makes the urge to punch him in the face ten times worse.
“Tell the guards to bring Demi in.”
My eagerness to see Demi for the first time this month is all over my face. Things have been a little rocky for us, but I’m confident they’ll settle once she realizes this is our life now. I’m stuck here. There’s no possibility of me getting out without making another deal with her uncle. Since I can’t do that and guarantee her safety, this is the only option we have. It isn’t close to the life I had planned for us to have, but it’s better than not having her in my life at all.
I’m just hoping like fuck she’s accepting of the new terms because without her in my life, everything I’ve done the past year will be worth diddlysquat.
My already tense jaw doubles when Agent Moses replies, “Your meetup is being held in the holding room near reception today.”
“What’s behind the change-up?” Shock highlights my tone. Today is my fifth private one-on-one meeting with Demi, and this is the first time the location has changed.
The knot in my stomach tightens when Agent Moses answers, “Demi tore a ligament in her ankle three weeks ago. She’s fine, but I didn’t have time to waste waiting for her to hobble down here.”
“Yet you have plenty of time to watch every fucking move I make.”
Aftertskinghim, I’m out the door before a single pathetic denial can leave his mouth. The distance between the entrance and our meet-up room would only be about three football field lengths. If Demi can’t walk that far, her ankle must be pretty fucked up.
Furthermore, I’m super curious to find out how she got injured. She’s untouchable, so if this was anything more than an accident, there will be hell to pay, and I won’t even need to leave my cell to instigate it.
12
Demi
When Maddox bursts through the door of a meeting room at the front of Wallens Ridge, sweating and out of breath, I push out in a hurry. “It’s just a sprain. I fell into a pothole. It doesn’t hurt.”Anymore.
Even with communication not being a strong point for us right now, I’m confident Maddox is still tapped into my inner-workings. After crossing the room at the speed of a bullet, he scoops me into his arms like he heard my unvoiced comment before he walks us to a desk in the middle of the blank-looking space.
The room we generally meet in once a month isn’t what you think when you hear ‘an intimate setting for two.’ There’s no bed, mini-fridge, or television. It’s basic and bland, its sole limelight reserved for the man fussing over me like I snapped my leg in two three weeks ago instead of partially tearing a ligament.
“Did you get it checked by a doctor?” Maddox places me onto the desk I imagine prisoners are usually shackled to before he drags a chair in close to inspect my injury. “That’s badly swollen for a three-week-old sprain.”
His eyes float up to mine when I mutter, “Kind of like your knuckles?” The bruises on his knuckles aren’t as noticeable as his first couple of months of incarceration, but there’s no doubt they’re fresh.
After remembering how well we used to communicate, I attempt to spark a conversation we should have had months ago. “How are you getting us this private time every month, Maddox?”
Anger steamrolls into me when he snaps out, “It doesn’t matter,” like my concerns aren’t important.
“It does matter, Maddox.Youmatter.” I’m a bitch for using his words against him, but I can’t keep denying the obvious. Sloane was right. There’s no doubt he’s getting perks, but I know as well as anyone thatnothingis given in this industry without a stipulation attached to it.
Not even love.
My voice comes out brisker than intended when I say, “If the thingsheis making you do are illegal, you will never get out of here. You know what Owen said. One more wrong move will see you stuck here for life.”
Reddish-blond hair is tussled in the woosh of Maddox’s head shake. My sneered ‘he’ must have clued him in as to whom I was speaking. “It isn’t your uncle. I haven’t seen him since we finalized our agreement.”
“Then who is it?” When his eyes subtly sling to the two-way mirror on our right—the same mirror he gawks at numerous times during our ten-minute visitation slots—I follow the direction of his gaze. “Are they in there?”
When I attempt to hobble toward the secret room hidden behind a mirror, Maddox seizes my wrist in a firm grip, then plonks my backside back onto the desk. His rough-handedness doesn’t annoy me as much as it did when Samuel grabbed me in the same manner, but what he says next most certainly does. “It doesn’t matter who they are. They’re giving me what I need.”
I stare at him like I don’t recognize him. The Maddox I knew a year ago wouldn’t have cared if you offered him ten million dollars. If it were illegal, he wouldn’t do it.
Boy, how times have changed.
