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So they knew what Todd had done and were already doing damage control, including keeping her mother-in-law, who was prone to hysterics, sedated.
“Where’s Todd?”
She shrugged. “Mama didn’t mention him at the house.”
That meant he was still out looking for her. “Anything else?”
“The family is asking about you, girl. All over town… They’re ‘worried’ they haven’t seen you in hours. You have to get out of here. Change clothes.” Sadie shoved the bag in her hand.
Madison tore into it, stripping off everything except her undergarments, then donning a pair of black jeans, a baggy black V-neck shirt, and some dark sneakers. She shoved her dirties in the bag. She’d dump them elsewhere later. “Better?”
Sadie shook her head, sending her waist-length braids bouncing around her. “I still think what I thought the first time we met. You’re too beautiful not to be noticed and too delicate for this life. What the hell happened?”
“I can’t involve you anymore. It’s dangerous.” And Sadie was a twenty-one-year-old honors student with her whole life ahead of her.
She asked. “It’s already dangerous. Give me something.”
On the one hand, Madison didn’t want to put Sadie in the Pershings’ crosshairs. On the other, if the family found her before she escaped town, Madison feared what they would do. They probably wouldn’t kill her—at least right away. But they would make her life hell because she’d proven more than once that she wouldn’t put the family’s reputation above her morals. Since then, they’d used every means possible to minimize her. How long before they silenced her altogether?
“I went to Todd’s ‘love shack’ to demand a divorce. I found him. I watched him kill Brent. I caught it on video.”
Sadie’s jaw dropped. Her dark eyes threatened to pop from her head. “Are you shitting me?”
“I wish I was. I especially wish Todd hadn’t seen me and chased me down a stairwell with a bloody knife, threatening to kill me, too.”
“Damn…”
“I’d go to the police, but—”
“Don’t bother. The Pershings own tons of cops and every judge in town. You gotta run, girl.”
Exactly. “Where? I can’t hide forever.”
“Go where they can’t touch you.”
Madison scoffed. “Unfortunately, Mars is a little chilly this time of year.”
Sadie put her hands on her hips, her brown skin gleaming under the harsh lights of the bathroom. “I’m serious.”
“I am, too. There’s nowhere in the world their influence doesn’t reach.”
Sadie sighed. “Then go home.”
Madison gaped in return. “What the—”
“Not that fancy-schmancy condo Todd bought to be your gilded cage. Go to Louisiana.”
“That’s the first place they’ll look. And I don’t dare endanger Daddy.”
“He’s in a medical facility. He’ll be okay for now. But you gotta reach safety, and all those badasses you know—”
“Are now married and have children. I can’t put them in jeopardy.”
“Not all of them.” She raised a brow. “What about Matt?”
Madison rued the day she’d been lonely, imbibed too much wine, and spilled the deets about her weekend with the rugged cowboy. “As far as I know, he’s still single. But he didn’t want me then. He’s not going to want my trouble now.”
“Make it worth his while, girl. You two have unfinished business. If he’s not interested”—she shrugged—“he’s not. But I’m guessing he wouldn’t want you to die.”
