by Sosie Frost
“Whoa!”
I panicked as Delta burst into the room, catching me with my hand in the cookie jar that was my escape. She dropped a teddy bear and slammed the door shut behind her.
“What the hell are you doing?” She nearly slapped me. “Get in that bed!”
“Delta, I need help.”
“You need to rest! You almost died tonight.”
“It wasn’t Maddox.” The coughing started to subside as adrenaline raged through me.
“Where have I heard that before?”
“I’m serious!”
Delta jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You better tell the chief. Everyone is on a rampage thinking Maddox tried to kill you and Nolan.”
“You really think I was sleeping with Nolan? I’m carrying Maddox’s baby!”
“Yeah, that part sounded wrong to me.” Delta forced me into bed. “Look, I’ll help you. Just relax. None of this is good for you or the baby.”
“I need to…” I tripped over my own words. “I have no idea. I have to get Maddox out of jail before Chief Craig does something horrible.”
Delta sat on the bed, eyes wide. “Like what?”
“Like hangs him from the ceiling with a sheet wrapped around his neck.”
“Are you serious?”
“Nolan went insane and tried to kill us. Now he must be working with the chief to get rid of Maddox once and for all.”
Delta ran her hands through her wet hair. She must have rushed to the hospital straight from her shower, tucking into sweats and only one sock on the way. “Josie, this is beyond us. We can’t take down the chief of police and the mayor ourselves.”
“I know.” I couldn’t think fast enough. The damn fire still puffed smoke into my brain. “What about the District Attorney? Maybe he can start an investigation? God, I don’t know.” I covered my face. “The chief probably has friends who’d protect him. Maddox was so worried about exposing him because he had so many connections.” I groaned. “Oh, no. The chief might do something to Chelsea.”
“Can you get ahold of her?” Delta bit her fingernail. “Maybe tell her to get out of town?”
I nodded. “If I can make her to leave Saint Christie, then the Chief can’t use her to control Maddox.”
The thought struck me so suddenly it caused a wave of morning sickness. Or maybe it was just fear. Delta was a champ and held my hair back as she helped me through the sickness.
At least the baby was okay, even if my stomach was in knots.
I fought the nausea and removed my IV. “We have to go. I have an idea.”
Delta didn’t like it already. “Please, stay in bed.”
No. No more waiting. No more secrets.
“All my life, I’ve played by the rules,” I said. “This whole town tricks you into thinking it’s innocent, and I was fooled. I said Maddox was out of his mind for wanting revenge, and he thought I was naïve for seeking justice.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going vigilante.”
“No. Chief Craig and Nolan caused these lies and conspiracies. I won’t live in a world where manipulation is the only way to solve problems and vengeance is the only real punishment. It ends now.”
I couldn’t leave in a hospital gown. Delta offered me her windbreaker. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m ending the corruption. We’re going to find Chelsea, and we’ll make her confess to the affair. Then no one can hurt her or Maddox anymore.”
Delta said it was a stupid idea, but she covered me as I raced to the door. We ran to the stairwell and busted out of the hospital through the side exit into the parking lot. She led me to her car and rooted through her gym bag for a pair of pants and a shirt.
I dressed in the car on the way to the motel. Delta drove fast, peeling out of a red light with as much displeasure as her accelerator could squeal.
“I should find Chelsea,” she said. “You need to be in the hospital.”
“You used to make me cut school with you.”
“Yeah, running out on your IV isn’t like skipping gym.”
“Chelsea might only talk to me. She was never close to Maddox. Hell, she only came around when she needed help or money.”
“Sounds like a great sister,” Delta said.
“She was his only family, broken as it was. He tried so hard to take care of her. I’m sure she’ll help him too.”
“Now who’s naïve? What if she runs? Or goes to Chief Craig?”
Then Maddox would be killed. I couldn’t fail. It wasn’t an option.
Delta pulled into the motel. Grit still coated my lungs, and I coughed all the way to the room. A light shone through the corner window. I knocked hard enough for the entire town to hear.
Nothing.
“Chelsea!” I shouted for her. “It’s Josie Davis. I need to talk to you.”
Not a sound.
I banged harder.
“Chelsea, please!”
She was content to ignore me, and why not? The town didn’t give her a reason to show her face. We pretended her family never existed. The town avoided them until I shoved Maddox into their lives and forced them to confront the problems that no one talked about. Drug use. Domestic abuse. Their parents were born rotten, but Maddox and Chelsea only shared a common name with them. They deserved better.
“It’s about Maddox.” My words hissed over a gasped breath. “He’s in danger. You’re the only one who can help him.”
The door opened partway, still connected with the chain. Chelsea peeked out. She guarded herself with a scowl, but her voice wavered over her brother’s name.
“Maddox is in trouble again?”
“This wasn’t his fault,” I said.
“Find that hard to believe.”
“It’s Chief Craig, Chelsea.”
The door nearly closed. I forced it open again. “I know what’s been happening. I know Maddox was giving him money to keep you safe.”
Chelsea groaned. “Why doesn’t anyone understand? John loves me. He wants to run away with me.”
Delta shared my glance. The poor girl was completely taken with a man who would destroy her.
“Right now, Chief Craig is saying Maddox tried to hurt me. He didn’t. If I go down there and argue with him, he’ll murder Maddox. I can’t do anything to help him.”
She touched the bruise on her face. “But what can I do? I’m nothing.”
“You have to come forward about the affair.”
The door almost closed again. Delta and I both pushed it open. Chelsea teared up and hid her face.
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“It’s for Maddox.”
“John will hate me.”
“Do you really want to be with a man who would threaten your brother? After everything Maddox has done for you?”
She picked at the paint on the door. “Josie, I’m a junkie. I’m a whore. No one in this town would believe me. John is the only way I can escape this life and become something more.”
“Will he actually help you?” I asked.
“I…he said he would.”
I didn’t believe her, and I knew she didn’t believe him. “Maddox and I will help you. But you’re the only one who can save him now. Please, Chelsea. I can’t do this without you.”
She shook her head, blonde hair falling over her eyes. The door slowly closed. Latched.
“No!” I pounded the frame. Delta pulled me back. “Chelsea, please. I’m begging you. I love Maddox. I’m trying to protect him. I won’t let anything happen to you, but you have to help me.”
“Josie…” Delta tugged on my arm. “Come on. We gotta get you back to the hospital.”
“Chelsea!”
“We can try again tomorrow. The doctors are going to freak out if you aren’t in your bed.”
I broke down. I couldn’t leave. I fought away from Delta’s arms.
“He won’t survive the night.” I coughed too hard, and the words tumbled from me in a blitz of fear. “The ch
ief will kill him tonight. No one would know it wasn’t a suicide. No one would care!”
Delta took my hand. I batted her away. “We’ll figure something out.”
“No! It has to be now! It has to be this. God only knows what will happen to him—and if Nolan…” I didn’t want to imagine it. I’d be sick thinking about it. “Nolan will come after me too. We’re not safe. We need—”
The door opened.
Chelsea shouldered a book bag and bundled a jacket in her arms. She hid the track marks, but the bruise on her cheek said more than the scars on her arm.
“He wasn’t really going to leave his wife, was he?” Her whisper broke my heart.
I shook my head. “No.”
“He spent the money Maddox gave him on a necklace for her. I saw it.”
I pulled her into a hug. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”
“How are we going to do it without…” Chelsea’s lip trembled. “John has a temper.”
Easy. We needed to expose the secret, and I worked for a newspaper. It wouldn’t be a Pulitzer Prize winning article, but it’d reveal the corruption.
“I’ll take you to my editor,” I said. “We’ll give him the story and bring down both Chief Craig and Nolan Rhys. It’ll be on the Saint Christie Reporter blog in the morning and printed in the paper by the evening.”
I led Chelsea to Delta’s car, squeezing her hand as she hesitated before the door.
“But what if John wants to get revenge?” she asked.
“We won’t let him,” I promised. “Because we’ll have justice.”
22
Maddox
The cell’s metal bars separated me from Chief Craig.
I didn’t know if they protected me or him.
The police denied me the hospital and elected for medical treatment at the station. That was probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, but I doubted I’d get a chance to talk to an attorney. We skipped the phone call. The finger prints. All due-process.
Whatever happened tonight wouldn’t be lawful.
The chief’s stare burned through me. I wasn’t intimidated. How the hell did a man as old and weak as him have power over me? He abused my sister. He took my money. We had nothing left to exchange except a resolution to a long-standing problem.
We both wanted the other dead.
If he stepped into my cell, one of us would die. My foot already was halfway in the grave. The other slipped in the puddle of blood that pulsed from my head.
I stood, even though the injury throbbed and my body ached. I didn’t need rest. If the chief had it his way, I’d get plenty from my long nap when I hanged from the bars.
The lieutenant stapled the last of my paperwork and turned off his desk lamp. “Chief, do you need any help?”
“No,” Chief Craig said. His hands lingered too close to his belt, to the Taser inches from his fingertips. “I got it from here, Ted. Thanks for the overtime tonight.”
“Gotcha.”
The lieutenant gathered his belongings. I studied the cell. I had nothing inside the cement walls. I’d have to defend myself from a man armed with pepper spray, a Taser, and a gun with only my trembling hands, scraped and burned from the fire.
But I had plenty to fight for.
Josie. Our baby. Justice.
Nothing was going to keep me from taking what was mine.
Nothing.
The lieutenant was leaving just as a call came in. He reached for it over the desk, answering with an exhausted grunt.
“You know Nolan Rhys abducted Josie Davis.” I kept my voice low. Not that it mattered. I figured the Chief already shut off the cameras facing the cell. “Rhys would have killed me and her.”
“That’s not what Mayor Rhys said.”
“Ask Josie.”
“I have her statement.” His eyebrow perked. “Looks like she sold you out again, Maddox.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be spending the night in this jail cell.”
“Will I wake up?”
He smirked. “Doubtful.”
The lieutenant frowned. He set the phone on his chest, muffling the receiver. “Hey, Chief? It’s Sean from the Reporter. He says he has a couple questions for you.”
Chief Craig waved a disinterested hand. “Tell him I’ll issue a statement about the fire in the morning. I need to get my facts straight first.”
“Like the identity of the arsonist?” I asked.
He snorted. “Why weren’t you DoA when I got there?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“Uh, Chief?” The lieutenant interrupted us. “He says it isn’t about the fire.”
“Then take a message.”
“He wants to talk to you—says it’s urgent.”
Chief Craig hissed at his officer. “What could be that urgent?”
“It’s pertaining to Chelsea Maddox.”
The fuck?
Chief Craig spun for me, launching at my neck through the bars. I leapt away as his lieutenant shouted, tearing the chief off the door before he ripped it from the hinges.
“What the hell did that little whore say?” He yelled. “What did you do?”
Hell if I knew.
Chelsea didn’t have the sense to go to the media about their affair. She was content to keep it hidden, just taking her beatings and working through her daddy issues with the drugs the chief gave her.
The front door chimed, and the lieutenant yanked the chief back to his desk. We all stared at the angel who greeted us with sugar dusted wings and a smile sweet as honey.
“Chief Craig…” Josie marched to the cell doors. “I’d like to amend my statement about what happened tonight. It was Mayor Nolan Rhys who kidnapped and attempted to murder me.”
Her eyes glittered with tears as she met my gaze.
“Andrew Maddox is innocent.”
23
Maddox
Josie wasn’t harmed in the fire, and the baby was okay.
It was the greatest news I heard since they gave me parole. Hell, it was the best thing that happened to me since the first time Josie whispered that she had feelings for me. That was also the first time I slept with her, and not many moments were greater than that one.
But what was the point of having a family if we didn’t make new and better memories? I wasn’t an optimist, but Josie made the world seem damn rosy, sugar-frosted and perfect.
I drew her bath when we got home from the hospital. Not something I normally did or ever thought I’d do for someone else, but hell. I was open to new experiences. And it had its perks. A bath relaxed her, softened her skin, made her goddamned cuddly.
I sat on the bed, welcoming her into my lap as she gave me a kiss. Whatever concussion or headache or bullshit plaguing my head faded the instant her lips touched mine.
She needed to rest. I needed to let her.
Instead, my hand snaked around the plush robe hiding her curves. She didn’t stop me, and I tugged on the belt until the hint of her beautiful, toffee-colored skin peeked from beneath the pink cotton.
She was naked, silky, and I hardened entirely too much so near her. The robe slipped from her shoulders. I stared at her curves.
A man could die happy with just a glimpse of her body.
But I wasn’t going anywhere.
Her lips parted, breathless even without my touch. I loved that I had that effect on her, but I loved more the timid mews I’d earn from those pouty lips.
I pulled her into my arms. My hands actually trembled touching her, like I had no idea how rough I’d grab or if I’d accidentally bruise her soft skin. Her fingers brushed my cheek. She smirked.
“What’s wrong?” Josie whispered. “You look so serious.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
The words came out too gruff. “You’re pregnant, Sweets.”
Her smile only grew. “Yeah?”
“I don’t want…you’re…”
“Maddox.”
&
nbsp; “I’m rough with you. I shouldn’t be.”
Josie edged closer, her breasts rising as she sucked in a breath. “What if I like it that way?”
“I don’t know how to be gentle.”
“I don’t need gentle. I just need you.” Her fingers traced my jaw. Her dark eyes glimmered, full of mischief and desire and…love. “I’ve always needed you. You’re completely untamed, Maddox. You’re wild and passionate, and I love feeling so safe in your arms, even when you’re being…you.”
I kissed her. The flick of her tongue flexed my cock. My hands tightened before I could stop myself. I dropped her on the bed, but I rested beside her instead of falling over her hips. At least this old dog could learn a new trick.
“If you only knew the things I wanted to do to you,” I grunted.
“Do them.”
“But you’re carrying my baby.”
Her eyebrow perked. Naughty. “And how do you think we made that baby?”
“Don’t tell me I’ve turned my good girl bad?”
Josie bit her lip. “Maybe?”
“Everyone was right…” I spread her legs, dropping to the bed to get close to her trembling, beautiful slit. “I am a bad influence on you.”
“I think you rubbed off a little.”
“Is that a hint?” My finger traced a gentle line over her folds. “That I just rubbed you off a little?”
Josie flinched as I flicked her clit. So sensitive. Every little quiver of those petals, every clench of her perfect tightness tempted me to do something worse. Something we both wanted. Something I couldn’t control if I took.
Her hips arched as I touched her. She drew closer, wanting more, murmuring so sweetly I’d have to be heartless to deny her.
I was the worst man in the world for her…but I’d fool everyone, even myself, if I had a chance to become hers.
She didn’t need my fingers over her slit, especially when they moved too fast. A kiss was safer. At least I could disguise my desire, my aggression, with the gentle weaving of my tongue.
Josie gripped the bed. My lips sealed over her clit, and I suckled too roughly. Her voice pitched high, and I withdrew.
That only made her cry out, empty.