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“How resourceful,” Gavin drawled. “If you bring the cops with you, she dies before you even step foot inside the door.”
Arabella sucked in a sharp breath. Jesus, Gavin was truly insane, she thought, real fear settling in her bones.
“I’ll be alone,” Maddux bit out. “And if you fucking hurt her, you will die a slow, very painful death.”
Arabella’s heart was racing wildly in her chest, pumping panic through her veins, because she knew if Maddux arrived, he’d be nothing more than a dead man walking. That was Gavin’s entire plan.
“Don’t come here, Maddux,” she yelled out, loud enough for him to hear. “It’s a trap!”
Fury raged across Gavin’s features at her warning to Maddux, and he lifted the gun and pointed it right between her eyes, making her blood freeze in her veins at the thought of him pulling the trigger. “Shut the fuck up,” he shouted.
“Gavin, stop,” her father pleaded, his voice wheezing. “This is going too far!”
Ignoring Theodore, Gavin exhaled a deep breath, trying to regain his composure before speaking into the phone again. “Ten minutes, Wilder.
That’s all you’ve got before I start putting holes in your girl.”
He disconnected the call, and while he lowered the weapon, his dark, angry glare remained on Arabella.
She jutted out her chin, no longer caring if she irritated him or not. What did she have to lose? “You won’t get away with this, Gavin.”
“Ahhh, that’s where you’re wrong, Arabella,” he said, his dark, hatred-filled gaze focusing on her. “I’ve worked too fucking hard to get to where I am, and no one, not you, your father, or Maddux, is going to fuck it up for me. Which means tonight is all about eliminating anything and everything standing in my way . . . which is all three of you. And once you’re all dead, I’m going to burn this place down so there is nothing left except all of your ashes.”
Gavin’s rant was crazy and insane, but the most frightening thing of all was that Arabella believed every word he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Maddux’s stomach rolled as he broke every speed limit in the vicinity to get to the address that had shown up on the tracker he’d installed on Arabella’s phone the first night she’d spent at his place. He hadn’t been worried about her escaping, not when she’d given herself up for her father’s debt so willingly. No, the added security had given him peace of mind as to her safety at all times. He didn’t trust Gavin and knew the possibility existed that he might try and kidnap Arabella out of spite and to piss Maddux off.
His instincts had been accurate on one account . . . Gavin had provoked him to the point of rage, and the fact that he was using Arabella as leverage to lure Maddux in only made him feel twice as violent toward the other man. Without any hesitation or doubts, Maddux would voluntarily sacrifice his life for Arabella’s . . . but he was determined to make sure they both walked out of this situation alive.
He tried not to think about the tumult of emotions tightening in his chest, the ones that told him that Arabella meant so much more to him than the revenge he’d sought the night of the fairy-tale ball. Somewhere along the way, this woman had managed to charm him with her wit and smiles and the way she’d let herself be vulnerable with him. She’d gained his respect with her loyalty and somehow eased the anger and resentment he’d carried in his soul the past fourteen years. And even though he’d believed it wasn’t possible, she’d thawed the ice around his heart and made him want more with her . . . yet there was so much turmoil between their families, not to mention that by tomorrow her father would be sitting in a jail cell, which Maddux would have played a large part of. He wasn’t sure Arabella would ever be able to forgive him for taking down the only parent she had left.
But none of that would matter if tonight went to shit, and not knowing what Gavin had planned, Maddux had to prepare himself for any and every possible scenario. As he turned into a low-income, drug-infested neighborhood, he forced himself to calm down, knowing if he rushed in with a hot head and a vicious temper, he wasn’t going to be able to think clearly and was liable to make stupid mistakes. He needed his wits about him to assess the situation and to make sure that nothing happened to Arabella.
That was his one and only concern—her safety—because if anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself, since he’d been the one to start this particular war. Once he’d ensured her freedom from this terrifying situation, then all hell could and would break loose. Reinforcement wasn’t far behind him. He’d given himself a good fifteen-minute lead before making the calls that would ensure he’d have backup, but Maddux knew how careful and judicious a SWAT team was when it came to a hostage situation, and he wasn’t in the mood to waste hours on a negotiation that probably wouldn’t happen anyway.
Arriving at the address, he parked his car in the driveway, got out of his vehicle, and made his way to the front door. The entire front of the house was pitch-dark, and the curtains were drawn across all the windows, which made it look as if no one was home. He rapped his knuckles three times on the door.
“It’s Maddux,” he said, and a few seconds later, a dim porch light flicked on, and the door opened, with Gavin greeting him with a gun pointed at his chest.
It took every ounce of control that Maddux possessed not to bum-rush Gavin like a fucking linebacker—there was no doubt in his mind he could overpower the other man when Maddux outweighed him in pure muscle by a good thirty pounds. But not knowing what the situation was inside the house, and with Gavin holding a deadly weapon, Maddux needed to be smart and precise about every move he made if he wanted to get himself and Arabella out of this alive.
“Nice to know that chivalry isn’t dead,” Gavin mocked, a twisted smile on his lips. “Now lift your shirt and turn around so I can make sure you’re not hiding any kind of weapon. Then pull up your pant legs, too.”
At least he was being thorough, Maddux thought, as he showed the other man what he wanted to see. He’d expected the search and had brought nothing with him weapon-wise . . . besides his bare hands and a brute strength Gavin was no match for.
Once Gavin was satisfied that Maddux was clean, he opened the door wider and motioned him inside. Keeping his pistol trained on Maddux from a few feet away, he turned off the porch light and relocked the front door.
“Maddux . . . no,” Arabella said, drawing his attention to the adjoining living room, where she and her father sat on two chairs with their hands and feet secured. “You shouldn’t have come. He has every intention of killing you and us.”
The sound of Arabella’s choked voice gripped Maddux, along with the fact that she’d been willing to risk her own life to save his with her warning that this was a trap. It took effort not to react to that fear and anguish in her voice, to reassure her that everything was going to be just fine. Right now, he needed every single bit of his concentration on Gavin and finding the right opportunity to take him down.
“I can’t say that Arabella is wrong. Unfortunately, none of you are walking out of here alive tonight.” Gavin nodded toward where Arabella and Theodore were tied up. “Come on over here, where I can keep a better eye on all of you until I decide whose life I want to end first.”
And shockingly, one of those lives he wanted to cut short included Theodore, and Maddux couldn’t help but wonder how the older man had landed himself on the receiving end of Gavin’s madness. At the moment, though, the hows and whys didn’t matter.
Crossing to the living room, Maddux deliberately positioned himself a few feet away from Arabella’s side, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, because he knew if he looked into her eyes and witnessed her terror and despair for himself, it would gut him, and he couldn’t afford the distraction. He saw a bottle of whiskey on a nearby table, a quarter of its contents gone, and hoped Gavin had stupidly consumed the alcohol, which would make his reflexes not as sharp or precise.
