“Igor tormented you because he wasn’t you, Maddox. He knew the difference between good and bad, but he didn’t care. He had no morals… none. He killed because he wanted to. You did it because you had to. It was you or him…” When he shakes his head, I talk faster. “It was you or him, and you made the right choice when you picked you. He was a monster, so for all we know, you could have saved his daughter from a lifetime of suffering.”
In an instant, it is as if a lightbulb switches on in his head. I don’t know if my words switched it on or my bruised face. Whatever it is, it clears the remorse in his eyes even quicker than it lowers the severity of the groove between his brows.
“She could have been you,” Maddox whispers as his eyes float over my face. “She was his blood, but your uncle proves that doesn’t matter to those men. They take what they want, and they don’t give a fuck about who they hurt in the process.”
When he briefly touches the marks on my face like he did earlier in the car, a tear topples down my cheek. I hadn’t thought about Igor’s daughter’s life replicating mine during my reply. I was merely trying to ease Maddox’s guilt. But when I truly think about it, he’s right. Anytime I saw Igor’s wife, her chin never left her chest. I thought she was shy. Now I feel like an idiot. Keeping quiet on abuse is almost as bad as being an abuser.
If Igor hurt the woman he apparently loved, how cruel was he to the girl he was told he must love? I never doubted my dad loved me, but he loved my mother more. You can’t choose your family. You’re stuck with whomever you get. My relationship with my uncle is sure-fire proof of that.
“One man’s life ended tonight, Maddox, but so many more were most likely saved… including yours, the most important of them all.”
He chipped away a massive chunk of concrete from my heart on a freeway two nights ago when he told me I mattered. Now I’ve done the same for him. There’s just one difference. I truly believe what I am saying. I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t occasionally pretended to be a Walsh during my youth. I was too flabbergasted by Maddox to want to be his sibling. I simply wanted to be a part of something that mattered.
Maddox made my wish come true when he stood up for me in the second grade, then he completely knocked it out of the park when he took care of me while I cried. He didn’t do that because he felt obligated, he was there for me because he wanted to be.
Confusion blasts through Maddox’s greenish-blue eyes when I say, “I was wrong to run. I thought you wouldn’t get hurt if I left, that there was no way you’d miss me since we had only been together the one time. In the end—”
“You hurt me more?”
It takes everything I have not to let my tears fall when I nod.
Maddox gives me a moment to compose myself before he confesses, “You didn’t physically hurt me, Demi. You hurt me here.” He gathers my hand in his before he places it over his chest. “I had no clue where you were or what he was doing to you.” His eyes float over my face as he says, “He did that in less than five minutes. You were gone for hours.” I choke when he chokes. “I thought he had—”
I kiss him before he can say another word. It’s stupid of me to do. Things are tense, and he’s baring his soul to me, but I can’t take another second of wondering what went through his head when he walked into his empty room. It kills me thinking about how things could have ended if he hadn’t found Igor’s weak spot, so I can only imagine the torment he endured during our nine-hour separation.
“Forgive me,” I beg over his kiss-swollen lips after kissing him senseless. “I ran because I thought things were moving too quickly, that you’d be better off without me. I was wrong. Things may be new between us, but they were—”
“Years in the making,” Maddox interrupts, soothing the pain of my aching heart with four little words.
“Yes. Perhaps even decades.” As my eyes dance between his, I nod. “A second feels like an hour when I’m with you, but it felt even longer when we were apart. I promise to remember that the next time I get scared.”
“I’d rather you not be scared.” I nuzzle into his hand when he curls it over my unbruised cheek. “But I understand I haven’t given you much choice.” When confusion blasts through my eyes, he treks his finger across my lips. “You saw me kill a man. It’s understandable you’d look at me differently.”
The confusion on my face jumps onto Maddox’s when I shake my head. “I didn’t see what happened. I was behind the bleachers.” He sucks in a relieved breath that is quickly withdrawn when I add, “But even if I had, I wouldn’t have looked at you any differently. You’re not him, Maddox. You’re not a selfish prick.” I’m not against using his words on him if it helps him see sense through the madness. “He hates from the get-go. You do the opposite.”
He angles his head to the side, his smile too content for someone whose sanity was hovering above extinction only minutes ago. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Are you implying that I… l—”
“No, that isn’t close to what I’m saying.” It is, but it’s way too soon to let my ridiculous notions speak for themselves. “I’m just saying your wired differently than the men in my uncle’s industry. In a better way.” My last sentence is pushed out in a hurry from the raising of Maddox’s brow. “I don’t want you to ever become like them. It would kill me to see you like that.”
“I won’t ever become them, Demi.”
“How can you be so sure?” I ask like there was no actuality in his tone.
He pulls me in closer until it seems as if not even my soaked shirt is between us before he replies, “Because I have you, and they never will.”
22
Maddox
For the past six days, I’ve awoken coated in sweat. It’s winter, so I shouldn’t be as sweaty as I am. It just seems to be one of the penalties for being a murderer. Some mornings, I wake up on the verge of screaming. Others, I stare at the ceiling, wondering what went through Igor’s head in the seconds leading to his death. Did he know he was about to die? Or was he as shocked as me I could end someone’s life?
No matter how I wake, every single morning without fail, Demi is at my side, promising me it will be okay. She’s never once made me feel guilty about what I did. She barely brings up that night almost a week ago. She just curls her arms around my sweat-drenched body, burrows her head into my neck, then reminds me to breathe through the torment tearing me in two with shallow, perfectly-timed breaths.
That isn’t happening this morning because I haven’t awoken in a cold sweat. I’m clutching a tattooed hand, squeezing it so tightly, I’m certain I am seconds from breaking several bones. I don’t know if it was instincts that woke me in the middle of the night or the fact I’ll never truly settle until Col is dead, but whatever it is, I’m glad I stopped the stranger before his hand got to within an inch of Demi’s cheek. She promised me she’s never been touched sexually against her wishes before, and I want to keep it that way.