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Linc, Parker and Jax, three of my four brothers and business partners, were on vacation with Mia. The four of them were in a relationship and had been for a while.
It was a relationship I had been wary of to begin with. At the time they got together, my sister had been through hell and was in a fragile way. I worried about her diving in with the three of them when she was so naïve and inexperienced with the real world. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my brothers to protect and care for her It was just that I knew how useless they could be with relationships and women. But they had surprised me and stepped up to the plate. The three of them were the solid foundation my sister needed to get her through the trauma she had endured in her life. They were there for her from the beginning and I knew she loved them. They made her happy and that was good enough for me.
I just wished they’d made their vacation a little shorter so they could get their asses back to the office and I could get to Maddie and Willow.
Nate was my other brother and business partner, but he was currently in the middle of a six month break from the business. His wife, Lola, had given birth to their beautiful son, Joshua, three months earlier and Nate wanted to take some time out to be with both of them. No way I was going to pull him back into the office.
So I was stuck where I was for the time being and I knew it. I fucking hated it too though.
I pulled Maddie’s cell phone from the top drawer of my desk and growled when I saw more texts from Edward had arrived in the hour since I last checked it.
His messages were getting increasingly threatening and I was seriously getting to the point where holding myself back from kicking his ass was no longer an option.
EDWARD
If you’re not home by the end of the day
I’m coming to find you and I’m taking
Willow!
EDWARD
You’re not fit to be a mother you stupid
bitch and I can prove it!
EDWARD
You’re a nobody. You can’t win if I fight
for custody, and you know it. Come back
now or you’ll be sorry!
EDWARD
You WILL regret ignoring me Maddie!!!
I growled again as I slammed the cell down on my desk and pushed my hands through my hair. This was what I needed to focus on. I needed to do whatever it took to get this asshole and his father, who was no doubt pulling the strings, off of Maddie’s back.
They had put her through enough bullshit, and I wasn’t going to allow them to continue. Hunter had sent me Maddie’s login details for an email she had set up.
Looking at the images in that inbox, earlier in the day had almost killed me. I knew that bastard was hurting her. I had seen bruises on her arms and bad cover up on her face trying to disguise the damage he had done. I saw the signs of abuse in her manner and in how nervous she had become when a client had risen their voice in the office. I knew he was hurting her, but I had no idea the severity of the abuse. If I had known, I would never have left her to make her own decision to leave. I’d have dragged her away from that sonofabitch in a heartbeat.
I was pretty sure I had seen every inch of Maddie’s body bruised and beaten between the many sets of images in that email. That fucker had beaten her black and blue, mainly in areas which could be hidden with clothing, again and again for at least the two years Maddie had been logging the injuries, and likely much longer than that. My blood had been boiling as I looked through them, my need to kill Edward increasing more and more with every click of the mouse. I wanted to inflict every injury he had on Maddie, on his pathetic body. I wanted to make him suffer as he had Maddie. But I couldn’t. The family was too high profile and I would never get away with it. I was no use to Maddie and Willow in jail.
Instead I had a more logical plan that I intended to enact at a political fundraiser Milite had been invited to that night. Even though I couldn’t mess that coward up, like I wanted, I could make sure he and his father stayed away from Maddie and Willow. It would have to be enough, for now.
***
I stepped out of my apartment later that evening, already pulling at the collar of my shirt and considering going without the damn tie that felt as if it were strangling me. I hated wearing a suit! That was why Park, Linc or Jax usually handled these formal occasions we sometimes showed our faces at. Well, the bullshit suit wearing and the fact that I wasn’t much of a people person. People in general just pissed me off, usually before they even opened their damned mouths. But this was for Maddie and Willow and I would do anything to keep them both safe.
I had printed copies of the images I needed along with a memory stick in the zip up leather folder under my arm and I knew exactly what my plan was. I’d have liked to have a couple of my brothers backing me up, but in their absence I had called in another member of my extended family.
“Looking good, Nico, as always,” Tyler started with his bullshit the second I walked into the lobby of the Milite building.
He was dressed in a Navy suit which fit him perfectly, and was no doubt made by some designer I had never heard of. Under it he wore a crisp white shirt, casually open at the collar.
