by Jessie Cooke
“Call me Viv.”
“Viv, can you tell me anything about why, or how Billy got released from jail after only serving a few months? Why were the assault charges dropped?”
Maddox could hear the anger in Viv’s voice when she started talking again, and he couldn’t blame her. She was this man’s victim, and she’d been sold out by the very people who were supposed to be protecting her from him. “Billy used to beat on me when he had too much to drink. At first it was a few times a year, then it got to be monthly, and then weekly. The last time he beat me up, he broke three ribs and punctured one of my lungs. He was arrested for that, and out on bail waiting for his sentencing when I filed the restraining order against him for stalking. He would call me, all hours of the day and night, and beat on the front door with his fists, until the neighbors called the cops. They always just ran him off and they were the ones that told me to get a restraining order. I told ’em no piece of paper was gonna do any good...but I did what they told me. It was just a few weeks after that, I was on my way home from work and I see this car right on my tail. I got scared and tried to pull over to let him go around and all of a sudden I was being pushed all the way off the road. I hit a tree. I wasn’t hurt, but I was trapped in the car because the tree had crushed the driver’s side door...and there was Billy, jumping right into the passenger seat, smelling like whiskey and a big-ass smile on his face. That might have been the worst night of my life. He sat there, drinking even more whiskey straight out of the bottle and telling me what my life was gonna be like. He told me that he wasn’t never gonna leave me alone, that if I didn’t want him, it was fine, but he wasn’t gonna let no one else have me. He told me if I even thought about being with anyone else, he’d kill him...or me...and then he laughed like a fucking maniac. We sat there for hours and every time I tried to go to sleep, he’d pinch me, or slap me, or pull my hair. The next morning, when he finally passed out, I got myself untangled from under the smashed-in dash and I climbed over the seat and got out the back door. I flagged down a car and had ’em take me straight to the police department. When they got to where the car was, Billy was gone. There was a bottle of whiskey in the car almost half gone and Billy had spilled it all over me through the night so I reeked of it. They started asking me if I was sure I hadn’t just had too much to drink and wrecked the car. I had been out that night, but I’d only had a couple drinks...I wasn’t anywhere near drunk. When they found Billy, though, he denied ever being anywhere near me. He told them he didn’t even have a car, which was true...I don’t know whose car he was driving that night, but I do know I’m not crazy and I wasn’t drunk...he was there. He got one of his loser whores to give him an alibi and I came away looking like the nutcase. For a few weeks, though, he left me alone, and I thought he’d given up...but then I went to dinner with a friend, and all hell broke loose.”
“A male friend?”
“Yes. But he really was only a friend. I worked with this guy for a few years and we got off work one night and he asked if I wanted to grab dinner. I had no reason to say no...but if I’d known what Billy was gonna do...” She hesitated and Maddox could hear the guilt in her voice when she said, “Billy followed us that night and when we came out of the restaurant, he was waiting at the car. He used a bat, and he beat my friend so badly that by the time another car drove in that lot and Billy ran off, well...he was not even recognizable.”
“He lived through it though?”
“Yeah, but barely. He had brain damage, and he ain’t never been the same since. Billy tried to deny that too, but when the cops told me there was a camera in that lot, I thought I’d lucked out. At first things were happening fast and the DA was preparing me to testify at his trial...and then it all came to a screeching halt. Turns out Billy had some evidence against this big-time drug dealer and his testimony would bring down the whole organization. He wanted immunity from prosecution for the assault in return, and the arrest record sealed.”
Maddox had heard about a recent bust in Mississippi that had taken down an organization connected to one of the large cartels in Mexico; that had to be the one she was talking about. The leader of that group wasn’t just suspected of drug trafficking, he’d been involved in sex trafficking and several murders as well. The Feds had been watching him for years but hadn’t been able to get anything to stick. He wondered how the hell a small-time loser like Billy knew enough to bring them down. “Do you know what evidence he had?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, “but years ago when Billy was working on this fishing boat down in Biloxi he came home one night, drunk as usual, and he told me that while he was unloading cargo from this boat he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to see. He wouldn’t tell me what that ‘something’ was, but he did say if anything ever happened to him I should tell the cops to check out a safe deposit box he kept in the city. I used to search his clothes every chance I got, looking for the key to that box. I wasn’t so curious about what he’d seen that day, but I suspected he was hiding cash from me too. Anyway, I never found it, but I guess whatever it was made the district attorney down in Mississippi happy. I hope some of that helps. As far as that girl goes, I hope they find her. But in all honesty, I doubt Billy was the one that made her go missing.”
“Why is that?” She obviously hated the man, and didn’t trust him, so why would she defend him over something like this?’
“He liked beating on me...but what Billy liked even more was that he was able to go out into the world every day and convince people he was this great guy. My family loved him, and I’d be willing to bet if he was dating this girl’s sister, she’d love him too. What’s that word they call people who lie so much that they believe their own lies?”
“A pathological liar?”
“Yeah, that’s what he is, and he’s good at it. I thought he was gonna be the best thing that ever happened to me at first, and I tell ya, to this day my own family think I’m the one that did something to run him off. Billy wants everyone to love him, so he saves his anger and rage for the women in his life. It’s the girl he’s dating I’d be worried about if I were you. He’ll convince her he’s Prince Charming...but she’ll find out soon enough she’s been kissing a toad.”
8
“So, do you believe my father really doesn’t know where this girl, Brigette is?” Maddox had gone by the restaurant like Carmella told him to, just about the time she was getting off. He’d been exhausted when he got back to the hotel after a long day of talking to people and running into dead ends...but just seeing her reenergized him. She was sitting on the sofa in his suite now with her long, tan legs crossed and a drink in her hand. Her black hair was so shiny that underneath the soft lighting in the room it looked almost like she had a halo. Just having that thought made him mentally shake his head at himself. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he hadn’t had thoughts like that about a woman since Lizzie, and it was making him a little nervous. He’d definitely not been looking to get attached, and if he had been, the daughter of a mob boss wouldn’t have been on his list, much less at the top of it.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to believe at this point. What I know is that one of your father’s nephews was the last one to see Louis Breaux before he went missing, and I’d be my next year’s salary that there is a connection between Louis and Brigette disappearing. And then there’s Gianni...”
Carmella chuckled. “My cousin Gianni is an interesting guy, huh?”
“Interesting is a kind way of putting it,” Maddox said. “No offense to you or the rest of your family, but there’s something about that guy I don’t trust.”
“I don’t trust any of them,” she said, making him want her even more. “Not even my old man. I found out when I was about ten years old what he and my grandfather did for a living. My best friend’s old man had been beaten with a bat and put in the hospital and all of a sudden, she wasn’t allowed to see me anymore. It was months after it happened when my mother and I ran into her mother and
her at a store in Jersey. Her mother went ballistic on mine, telling her she was married to a monster and that if she condoned beating a man who was only trying to make a living, for not being able to pay ‘protection’ money, then she was a monster too. My mother got me out of there as fast as she could, but I couldn’t get that woman’s words, or the look on my former best friend’s face, out of my head.
“I had to pester my mother for weeks, but finally she told me the truth. My grandfather was the head of a mob family, and my father worked for him. She told me she didn’t like what they did, that she didn’t like knowing the details...and that I should just forget about it as well. She wanted to talk about all the things we had, the big house and servants and cars and toys and swimming pools, like any of that made it okay. That was the day I lost respect for both of my parents. Two years later my mother died of complications of a heart disease she had, and my father was all I had left. I tried to adopt her way of looking at things and just live in denial about who he was. When he moved out here to New Orleans, I was twenty-one years old and I could have stayed where I was...but he told me that he wanted to change, and he needed me close to him because despite all the cousins and nephews, I was the only ‘real’ relative he had...according to him. He also promised me things would be different here...and I thought they were, until now.”
Maddox got up from where he was sitting and went over to the sofa. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her and she said, “You should check with the store owners in the area where Louis went missing...if they’re paying my old man for ‘protection’ then there’s a good chance Louis couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and that’s why he want missing. As for Brigette, I can’t imagine my old man hurting a woman...but then again, there are a lot of things I’ve found out he’s done over the years that I would have never imagined he was capable of.”
“Well, like I said, I don’t have any evidence that he was involved with either disappearance. Blackheart and his club have spoken to many of the vendors in that area, and no one is admitting to any problems with your dad or his crew either.” She snorted out a laugh at that.
“Of course they’re not. Tell your friend Blackheart that if he wants them to talk, he’s going to have to make sure they know he’ll protect them...and even then, most of them won’t. I can’t honestly say I know for sure what my father would do to them if they did...but I can tell you that some of the things I’ve heard...well, it would be enough to scare me. Gianni, Frank, Vincent, all of them...they’d do whatever the old man tells them to, and I doubt there’s one full conscience between the three of them.”
Maddox could tell by the tone of her voice that she hated admitting she was related to people who could maim or kill without giving it a second thought. He felt badly for her, but it made him like her that much more. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.” She pulled her head up and looked at him. Damn. She was so pretty he could hardly concentrate on anything but that when she was so close.
“Did you pretend you didn’t know me today because you were afraid of how your father might react?”
“Partly,” she said. “I’m twenty-six years old, but he still thinks I’m twelve.”
“And the other part?”
“Because I didn’t trust you. I didn’t know what you were doing there and I hated the thought of you being involved with them...because, like I told you, I don’t date men who do business with my father.”
Maddox smiled. “Is that what we’re doing? Dating?”
She smiled back at him. He wanted to lick her pretty lips. “Right now, we’re just having a lot of sex. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
“Well, so far, we haven’t really had ‘a lot’ of it.”
She giggled. “Not yet, but as soon as I finish this drink I was thinking about climbing up in your lap and having my way with you.”
He could feel his blood heat up just at the thought. “Keep that thought in the forefront of your mind,” he said with a grin. “I just have one more question. It’s about this ‘boyfriend’ of Brigette’s. Are you sure they were in some kind of relationship and he wasn’t just a friend, or an acquaintance?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m pretty in tune with people’s vibes and even if they didn’t spend half their time waiting for their meals with their tongues down each other’s throats, it would have been fairly obvious. When you work in a restaurant, you hear things. For whatever reason, they came here to hook up.”
“Fancy, costly place for a hook-up or two,” he said.
“Oh, it was a lot more than one or two. They were here at least once a week. I wondered if one or both of them were married. It might explain why they’d come here instead of doing it at one or the other of their places.”
“Well, Brigette undoubtedly didn’t want her brother finding out, but as far as why they didn’t use his place, you could be right. Do you know his name?”
She smiled again and slid her hand down into the pocket of her skirt, producing some kind of receipt when she pulled it out. Maddox took it and smiled when he saw what it was, a credit card receipt for the day before Brigette went missing. An expensive bottle of wine, dinner for two, and a name...Randy Barger. “You’re amazing,” he told her, and he really believed it. The last thing he needed, when he spent most of his nights dreaming about his dead wife and son, was to be in a relationship. The last thing he needed was to be in a relationship with a woman who had a crime boss as a father. What he did need was to find Brigette, and hopefully Louis too...and head back to California, and his life there. It wasn’t much on the outside looking in, but meeting up with the Skulls and becoming one of their honorary “brothers” had filled a void inside of him, one that had been aching since the night he lost his family. But despite knowing most men in the club had old ladies, Maddox didn’t like the idea of introducing a woman into that environment. The Skulls walked a tightrope between the right and wrong side of the law...and the Jokers lived almost outside of that rope completely. It wouldn’t be fair, especially to a woman who had spent her adult life fighting her own connection to organized crime, to bring her into that. He took his arm from around her, slid out his phone, and sent a text to Blackheart. It was late, but he doubted the president was sleeping.
While he was distracted, Carmella had unbuttoned the black silk shirt that she wore to work. Fire raced through his veins as soon as he saw her sexy cleavage peeking out at him. Tossing her long hair over her shoulder she said, “It’s hot in here.”
Maddox cleared his throat. “Yeah, it is.”
She slipped the blouse off the arm closest to him and while she was sliding out of the other, he leaned down and pressed his lips to her hot skin. She tossed the blouse over onto the chair next to them and Maddox’s eyes went to the thin black bra she was wearing. Her nipples were hard and pressed like large pebbles into the fabric, begging for attention. She smiled at him and reached behind her, unclasping the bra and letting it slide down off her arms. The rolling blast of heat when her smooth, brown breasts were fully exposed nearly suffocated him. He started to lean down and get a taste of them and Carmella said, “That’s better. You should take off your shirt...you look hot.”
Maddox grinned and reached for the hem of his shirt. “Baby, I’m not the one here who looks hot, trust me...but you’re damned near setting me on fire, sitting there looking like that.” He pulled off his t-shirt and her hot little hands were immediately on his chest.
“Mm...I like this,” she said, tracing the lines of his tattoo. “Does it mean something?”
Maddox looked down at his chest. He liked the way her hands looked and felt on it...and the tattoo did have a lot of meaning, but it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about at the moment. “Yeah, but maybe we can talk about that later.” Many of the women he’d been with since Lizzie died had asked him about the large tattoo that looked like six bulls, all attached by their bodies, but with their heads trying to escape in different directions, but
he hadn’t talked to anyone about it since Lizzie.
“Sure,” she said, leaning in to press her lips against it. When she did that, his hands came up and wrapped around her breasts and he squeezed the satiny-soft mounds of flesh while letting his fingers slide into the cleavage between them. With shortened breaths, she reached up and put her warm hands on the sides of his face. Her eyes were filled with desire and she pulled him down into a kiss that spoke volumes about what she was feeling. He loved her lips and the way they felt against his. He loved the expert way that her tongue wound his up, pulling him in deeper until it felt like they were two parts of one body. He felt like he was drinking in her very essence, and he couldn’t get enough.
The kiss went on so long that when she finally broke it, he felt lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. He heard himself whispering her name in a rough, raspy, breathless voice. His body was on autopilot now and the only live thing in his brain was this beautiful woman on the couch next to him. His hands were all over her, but his eyes were on her face. He felt like he could look at her forever, like he wanted to memorize every precious inch of her. He brought one of her soft hands up, turning it over so the palm was facing him and then pressing his face down into it. Still in a voice he barely recognized he whispered, “What on earth am I going to do with you?”
Carmella smiled. Her cheeks and lips were bright red from that kiss and her hair was falling down across her face. “What do you want to do with me?” she whispered back.
So many sensations were rolling through him. He wanted to do so many things to her, and with her...but she scared the living shit out of him because he was afraid that after only one night together, he was already too far gone to ever return to that comfortable place where he was before. He’d come to terms with his loneliness...and Carmella was threatening to open those old wounds all over again. Could he bear to let her pick them apart...only to walk away in a week?