Hesitate

by Brooks, Anna

  “It’s a lot of money,” she whispers.

  My head rears back. “What?”

  “They offered me a lot of money. I could really use it, but I… I thought. I hired them to find you, but I also wanted to know about you. Your life and if you needed money. But that man… Q…” Just his name makes my heart stutter. “He only gave me your address. He said I’d have to pay more for him to dig deeper, but I don’t have any more money to pay him to find out about your financial situation.”

  “What?” I don’t understand what she’s talking about because he said he already knew all that stuff about me… He knew everything. Why didn’t he tell her?

  “My manager knows about you, and he… I’m retiring. They wanted me to see if you’d be willing to—”

  Bile rots away at the lining of my stomach, and I clench my T-shirt outside of my belly button as if to steady the erosion. “No…”

  “Just one. You look so much like me, and it would make them an insane amount of money. It could pay off any debt you have and set up your future. It could help both of us.”

  Oh my God.

  Q knew what she wanted from me; he knew she wanted to use me for her own gain. This is what he was protecting me from. He was protecting me from the fact that my mother was trying to pimp me out.

  The realization that I accused him of such terrible things and didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt when he believed in me is enough to make my bones liquify and my heart dry up. “I want you to leave.”

  “Maddy, I—”

  “Leave.”

  “Will you at least cons—”

  Calmly, I slide off the counter and to my feet. Somehow, I don’t collapse to the ground. I walk up to her, and because she doesn’t see it coming, and frankly, I don’t either, she screams when my open palm collides with her cheek. My hand is on fire, but I don’t let it show. I’ll never let her see on the outside what I hide so deep on the inside.

  She squares her shoulders back and presses her fingers to the red welt on her face and stares at me. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I hope it’s guilt. I fucking pray that she sees in me something she let down time after time yet again and feels like a terrible person. I wish that every time she looks in the mirror, she sees me, and it eats away at her that she lost her chance to have any part of her daughter’s life ever again.

  But she won’t. She never will.

  And she knows it because I don’t need to tell her to leave again. She does it on her own this time, head held high and her nose in the air like I’m beneath her, but I don’t care. All I care about is that she’s gone out of my life. I just hope it’s for good.

  Q

  One of the guys I work with is having a party for his son, and a bunch of people from Royal are here. I didn’t want to come to this, but we’re family, and unless I’m out of town or on an assignment, there really is no excuse not to show up for a birthday party. Although he would have understood if I would have told him that I couldn’t make it because I was staying close to Madeline.

  I’m glad I came, though, because it’s been a minute since I’ve seen Brinley. I’ve gotten close to her since she entered the fold a while ago. She’s dating Noble, who used to be a cop but now works at Royal. They have ties together through a traumatic past and came back into each other’s lives in a way that was unexpected to say the least.

  Knowing him, I never would have thought this girl would be the one for him, but as I’ve gotten to know her, it makes perfect sense. She’s great for him. And he’s exactly what she needs.

  I wish I could have Madeline with me, that she could meet everyone and see this side of my life. The real me. But it’s not gonna happen.

  And I only have myself to blame. When it comes down to it, I manipulated her for weeks on end, and it doesn’t matter why; I still did it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I’m already halfway there.

  After greeting everyone, I sit next to Brinley on the step, where she’s alone, and lift my shades to look more closely at her and study her expression. I haven’t talked to her a lot lately since I’ve been so busy with Madeline. “How are you doing? You look kind of pale.”

  “Well, that’s because I’m nervous as hell.”

  I drop my chin and offer her what I hope is a kind smile. This is the first party she’s been to with a bunch of people Noble works with, so I’m sure she wants to make a good impression. “If someone makes you uncomfortable, you can tell me.”

  “They’re not. I’m just…” She shrugs. “Me. I’m afraid everyone is being fake nice and secretly hates me.”

  “I can promise you that’s not the case.” And I’m not lying. Everyone is so happy for her and Noble, and frankly, they admire her strength for what she went through.

  “And honestly, Q, if someone did upset me, I’d tell Noble. I wouldn’t put you in the middle of that.”

  I nod but feel the need to reassure her. After all she’s been through, I want to make sure she knows she’s not alone anymore. “Yeah, but if you’re ever afraid to tell him something, you know I’m always here, right?” Brinley is gorgeous and has the most beautiful red hair I’ve ever seen. It’s not purple like Madeline’s, but a coppery red that’s totally unique to her. I don’t see her in anything other than a friendly, almost brotherly way… I feel for her the same way I do about my own sister Tessa.

  “I know.” Brinley looks at me like she’s studying me, and I’m about to ask her what the hell she’s doing when she asks, “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  I choke on my beer. This is not something I’ll ever discuss with her.

  “You’re a great guy. And you’re pretty hot. So where’s the girl?”

  After Madeline, there won’t be anybody. She had every right to be mad, but I hoped that she’d hear me out and let me explain, but she was too hurt to give me a chance, which I understood. She was unbelievably quick to kick my ass out with no emotion whatsoever, that it made me question if she actually did care about me at all.

  The worst part about it was that even though I’d have done everything in my power to make her happy and treat her like a princess and prove to her that she was it for me, it’d never be enough.

  Because me as I am, the real me, is never enough. The me that Madeline supposedly fell in love with was the type of man I knew she wanted. I acted the part because I knew everything about her. I knew what turned her on, what made her laugh, what made her cry.

  And I understand her being upset, I do. I knew it was coming, but I thought she’d at least see through all the bullshit and know that even though she didn’t know me, she knew me.

  But it’s once again been proven that when it comes to women, I’m never what they want. Madeline fell in love with a version of myself that isn’t true. And that shit stings.

  I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she’s still safe since I was the one who opened her up for more shit from her mother. And while I’m doing that, I’ll give myself some time to let the disappointment settle in, then plant it before I bury it and keep myself so busy that it’ll never have time to spread its roots.

  I stare off into the distance and ask myself the same question that Brinley just did. My girl? Madeline? She was never mine, and she never will be. “I don’t know where she is,” I tell Brinley, because I honestly don’t think she exists.

  Before she can reply or try to give me some lecture about relationships, Paisley, who’s the boss’s daughter and Royce’s woman, comes over. “Hey, I got you some cake.” She hands a plate to Brinley. “Sorry, Q, I didn’t grab you one. You can have mine.”

  “No, that’s fine. I’ll get my own. You girls have fun.” I tip my beer in their direction and get up, walking over to the guys. I do legitimately have a lot of work to do, so I make my way around and hang out for a little while, and then say my goodbyes to everyone before heading over to Royal to catch up on the large amount of work I have to do. I don’t for one second regret my time with Made
line, but being with her, having her be my entire universe, meant I forgot about the real world. The guys rely on me to get shit done, and I’ve neglected that, so I need to get caught up because as soon as that’s taken care of, I’ll be going back to the apartment. I hate being away from Madeline at all, but I needed a couple of days to clear my head and being next door would have been too tempting.

  I trust the men I work with. I’d take a bullet for any one of them, and they’d do the same for me. I also trust them with Madeline’s life, but she’s met Brodie before, so if something happened, I want someone familiar close. So he’s there while I’m taking care of things at Royal.

  And while I’m there, I get lost in the job. I have a stack of files on my desk of things that are waiting for some recon, and by three in the morning, I’m three-quarters of the way through. I want to finish them now so I can get caught up, but I can’t even keep my eyes open, so I go and plop my ass on the couch in my office and rest my hands behind my head.

  My body is used to functioning on little sleep, so it’s not surprising I wake up at seven. After taking a shower and putting on a clean change of clothes, which all of us have on hand, I go to the break room and grab an instant oatmeal cup and bring it to my desk with me when it’s done.

  I shoot Brodie a text, and he replies that there’s nothing to report, which is good.

  I do what I need to and finish up around noon. Satisfied I have everything settled for now, I head to Erik’s office and knock on the doorframe.

  “What’s up?” He looks up from his computer.

  “I sent out all the updates and synced everyone’s files so they’re all good to go, but I wanted to point something out to you. Pull up the Schuster account real quick.” I wait for him to open the file on his computer. “Go to financial, then click on the savings account labeled Violet. Now, check out the withdrawal history. See that? Once a month for ten months there was a withdrawal for ten grand. The next week, a transfer for a random large sum moved over to the checking account. And then the purchases that aligns with the transfers are for something ostentatious like a painting or jewelry that were given to Violet as gifts. Total cover-up, the prick thinks nobody will question the withdrawals since they transfer money from that account on a regular basis. And double bonus, he showers his daughter with love, so nobody would ever suspect he’d do something like this.”

  I step back from his desk and lean on the wall as he scrolls through. “Motherfucker,” Erik clips.

  “Yeah. Ten months, ten K… a hundred grand.” I wait for him to call me out and tell me I’m not thinking clearly or I’m projecting feelings from Madeline’s case to this one. But I’m not. Madeline has nothing to do with this aside from the fact that both she and Violet have asshole parents. And of course I dug deeper and got proof.

  “He’s gonna pay someone to kidnap his daughter.”

  Thank God, he doesn’t question me. “If he hasn’t already,” I add. “The election is in a few months… so he’s gonna go public with the kidnapping, then he’s gonna ride it out, get his name out there, spread far and wide, and make sure everyone’s talking about him. And then when he’s about to drop out of the race, she’ll miraculously turn up, and he’ll rake in the fuckin’ sympathy votes and win the election again.”

  Erik’s jaw clenches, and red crawls up his neck.

  “I scoured his phone, email, and text records and have everything you’ll need. So if we don’t want her playing a part in his sick fuckin’ game, we’ve gotta grab her before whoever he paid gets the chance to.”

  “Yeah. Once that’s done, I’ll personally deal with Schuster. What was he thinking?” Erik scrubs his hands down his face. “He knows our reputation, and that we do detailed backgrounds on all of our clients before signing. Did he seriously think we wouldn’t figure this shit out, but even more than that, did he seriously think we’d let his daughter get kidnapped on our watch?”

  “He hired us for security for his campaign tour, and that doesn’t start until next week, Erik. He didn’t hire us to be protection for his family. You guys need to roll.”

  He stands from his desk. “Fuck, you’re right.”

  I know I am, which is why every single client we work with goes through me before we sign contracts. Shit like this isn’t common, but it’s not nonexistent. I’ve found shady shit from a lot of people before, Roxy Rivers included, but never anyone who was planning on having his daughter kidnapped for votes.

  It took me a minute to realize what the patterns meant, but a lot of this job is instinct and experience. And I just know, and so does Erik, what’s about to go down with that girl if we don’t put a stop to it. Likely he wouldn’t cause actual harm to his daughter, just have her locked up somewhere for a few weeks, but it’s still fucked up and something we’re going to end.

  I step out of his office and start walking toward the gym when Erik calls my name. Turning around, I raise a brow. “Good work.”

  The chin lift I give him is the acknowledgment, and I continue the short trek to the gym and find Gio sprinting on a treadmill. Perfect. He’s the one with the most experience in the ring, being a fighter and all. “You got time to spar?” I ask him as I come to stand next to him.

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  “Sweet, I’ll go change real quick.”

  He presses the button to slow down the belt, and I head to the locker room to get out of my jeans. By the time I get back out there, he’s already dancing around on his toes, and I hop up, then slide on the gloves he must have thrown up here for me.

  “You good?” he asks as I’m putting them on.

  And he’s not asking about sparring. He knows what’s going on. Everyone does. But because we’re not women, we’re not gonna sit around and paint our nails and talk about feelings. So I lie, something I’ve become good at recently. “Yup.”

  He doesn’t look convinced, but I don’t give a shit. We tap knuckles before we start jabbing, and it doesn’t take long for my hairline to become wet with sweat. “Rest of the party good?” I ask as I duck when he throws a left hook.

  “Yeah.” He bobs and weaves when I throw a one-two punch. “It was until Damien showed up with Bella.”

  I drop my guard, and he raises his fist in a protective stance.

  “Seriously? Your sister.”

  He bounces around, and I do the same, taking some punches and getting a few in, too.

  “My fuckin’ sister,” he finally confirms with a deadly growl.

  “What about her?” Another voice joins the conversation, and we both turn to see Damien strolling in from the attached garage.

  Shit.

  “Just tellin’ Q that you’re fuckin’ my sister.”

  Damien’s biceps flex when he crosses his arms. “You got a problem?”

  “Do I have a problem?” Gio laughs. “Yeah, I got a fuckin’ problem when a notorious player tags my sister and has the balls to grab her ass and shove his tongue down her throat in my backyard.”

  Damien tilts his head. “Thought we were over this after our words yesterday.”

  “Oh, no. This ain’t over. You see, yesterday I was havin’ a good day, relaxin’ after all this shit I just dealt with and didn’t have the time to really think on it. Then after I find out you’ve been with my sister for four months, I find out some other crazy shit. And I finally got the chance to sleep on it, and I woke up this morning in a cold sweat thinking about the fact that you’re fucking my sister!”

  “You wanna do this?” Damien drops his arms and hops up in the ring. He’s got a death wish. Gio is an ex-MMA fighter, one of the best there ever was, but it says something about the kind of man he is, doin’ that to prove Gio’s sister means something to him. My little sister is engaged to a good guy. He works for the city and he loves the shit outta her, not just because she’s awesome, but because he knows he’s gonna marry up. I don’t have to worry.

  “Oh, yeah.” Gio yanks his gloves off. “I wanna do this.”

  I grab my ph
one from the corner of the mat when it goes off and see a text from Brodie.

  Brodie: Roxy showed up but just left. She was only there for a few minutes.

  Dammit. “I’ve gotta take off. Don’t kill each other.” I respond to Brodie without looking at anyone else as I make my way to get my stuff.

  Me: You hear anything?

  Brodie: No. But it looked like Roxy got bitch-slapped

  The anxiety I was feeling lessens just a little, and I quickly get to my car and get back to the apartment unseen by Madeline. Brodie doesn’t get up from the couch since he’s watching a basketball game on TV. He’s also got four computer monitors scattered around and is keeping an eye on those, too.

  “All good?” I ask as I sit on the leather recliner.

  “Yeah. She hasn’t left since her mom did. We were right, she showed to talk to her, but I think that’ll be it. She looked defeated. When you watch the playback, you’ll see. You probably can bounce, Q. No need to be here anymore.”

  I sigh as I lean back in the chair, not wanting to explain to him that in my gut, I can’t walk away from her so quickly. Plus, it just doesn’t feel right, not yet.

  “What’s up?”

  “I dunno. I just can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something.”

  Chapter 14

  Madeline

  They say there are five stages of grief, the first being denial. I’ve been through that already when I tried to lie to myself that Q was just another asshole in order to protect my heart. And I was almost convinced of it, I was so sure that he was just a lying jerk, but then my mom came. In her twisted way, she ended up justifying why Q lied to me. However, it made her win the award for one of the worst mothers in the world. So that brings me straight to the third step, bypassing the second because I’m already angry. I’ve been angry for a really long freaking time, so I’m at three—bargaining is up.

  Who am I bargaining with? I have no clue. God? The man on the moon? My next-door neighbor who I share a wall with? I also don’t really have an idea of what the hell I’m bargaining either. Time back to fix mistakes, maybe. A second chance that I know I won’t get.