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“You can’t help yourself can you,” I say with a half-smile and shaking my head. She seems different this morning. Last night she seemed dejected, sad and her walls were down. Now though, the walls are back up, and she’s ready to fight.
I explain to her that I saw Eva coming out of Axel’s place, but not the two of them together. I also give enough detail about why Axel is being held downstairs but leave out any mention of names for now. Maddox fires daggers engulfed in flames at me from the breakfast bar the whole time.
“So, you think that Axel is in a relationship with Eva, or at the very least working with her?” I nod, and she frowns deeply. “If this is who he’s protecting then what?”
“That depends on who she is, Roxanne.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you who she is, but you need to promise no harm will come to her, and you need to tell me what the fuck was going on in Oxford Street yesterday.”
Maddox steps into her space, crouching to eye level with her. “I’m making no such promise, and as for what happened in Oxford Street, you best get used to it. Welcome back to the underworld, Roxanne.”
Rox leans forward, so she’s an inch away from his face. “And you best start giving me some fucking answers, Maddox, or this whole thing is off. My career is already over, so whatever you think you have on me is kind of useless now. I want answers about my mum and sister, and that’s all I’m here for.”
I watch their standoff, eyes focused solely on one another and setting the temperature in the room alight with sexual tension. From the corner of my eye, I even see Maria swallow thickly before leaving the room looking flushed and though she witnessed them fucking on the table not just having a conversation.
It’s getting fucking uncomfortable in my boxers watching, and I need to do something before I whip my dick out right here in the middle of the kitchen and jack off.
“Rox, you and I can talk about the shit in Oxford Street, but Maddox has some otherbusinesshe needs to attend to, so how about you just tell us who she is.”
At first, I don’t think either of them have heard me, but Rox eventually turns her head my way.
“You’re not going to like this, but you can’t hurt her. She’s not involved and doesn’t know anything.”
Maddox growls his disapproval but nods.
Taking a deep breath, Rox says, “Her real name is Eva Laskin. She’s Laskin’s daughter.”
The air in the room turns frigid and time stands still for a split second as her words permeate the initial shock and fully sink in.
“Oh fuck!” Is all I manage as I look to Maddox. His face is blank of any emotion, but beneath the surface, I know he’s seething. In the second I turn from Maddox and look to Rox, scanning her face for any clue she’s lying, Maddox is at the door to the cellar. It crashes against the wall as he throws it open, and I’m out of my seat in the blink of an eye. There’s no way I can let him near Axel now. He has somewhere else to be, and with the mood he’s in, Axel will be dead before his brain even warns him of the danger.
I reach him just as his foot lands on the first step, clapping a hand around his arm. “You don’t want to do this now. You have more important things to focus on. Rox and I will talk to him. Get out of here. Sort out the shit with the shipment,” I whisper the last part conscious that Rox is watching us and only a foot away from me having leapt up when I did.
His head turns a fraction, pupils dilated with fury, and I give him a second to make the right decision. A breath rushes from him, and he shrugs my hand away as he turns and steps from the stairwell.
“Hey, someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Roxy says, catching Maddox’s arm as he goes to pass her.
His eyes remain on hers as he speaks to me. “Zak, give her what she needs to get answers from Axel. When I get back, we’ll fucking talk.” He peels her fingers from his arm and yanks her to him, chest to chest. I hear her breath catch as he lowers his face to hers. “Stay in the fucking house, Roxanne.” He releases her and walks away before she can reply.
“Arsehole!” Rox calls out, but it’s pointless as the front door slams shut and not a minute later an engine revs before tyres squeal away down the drive. Rox walks back to the table and sits down, all the while muttering furiously.
I close the cellar door and join her. “How do you know about Eva?”
“Doesn’t matter how I know, the point is that Laskin doesn’t, and it needs to stay that way.”
“You’re telling me that Laskin has a daughter he knows nothing about. How the fuck is that possible, Rox? A man like Laskin would never let something like that go unnoticed.”
“Well, it’s true. And if you go digging around, all you’re going to do is put her life in danger.” She twiddles with the handle of her cup contemplatively. “And besides, you and I both know it’s entirely possible for a child to fly under the radar, and you also know the fall out when said child comes to light.”
I know she’s talking about herself and the situation with her biological father. Lord Chief Justice James Whitmore is nothing more than a sperm donor when it comes to Rox. She’s never received a fraction of the love and care a father is meant to willingly give to his child. The only thing he’s ever done for her is ruin what should have been a beautiful childhood.
Maddox and I both know how Rox’s mum, Tracey, ended up a worn-out junkie whore, and it wasn’t by choice. After Tracey’s affair with James, she fell pregnant, and despite buying her off with abortion and silence money, she managed to keep Rox hidden for years.
But the truth always comes out, and once he discovered Rox’s existence, he systematically destroyed everything Tracey had built.
Not wanting to dredge up the past, one I know hurts, and with the inevitability the conversation will turn toward questions about why she’s here, which I can’t give her answers to right now, I fill her in on Axel.
She listens raptly as I explain how Axel came to be where he is and what both Maddox and I have managed to ascertain from him. She interrupts a couple of times to ask questions or verify details. I don’t mention Bonner or the shipments. I’m not stupid and neither is Rox. She knows I’m not giving her the whole picture, but she doesn’t call me out on it for now.
