Maximus

by Riley Edwards

  “I don’t want to go,” Eli whispered.

  “Honey, you’re not going anywhere. No one is gonna take you from me. I promise.”

  Eli’s body shook in my arms, shattering my loose hold on my own tears. “Swear it, Elijah. No one is taking you or your brother. Not ever again, honey.”

  Elijah shoved his face into my neck, wet leaked from his eyes, blazing a path down my skin, scorching my flesh. Once again, my son was scared. Once again, he was crying. And again, it was because of me.

  My chest burned, my heart shattered, my stomach roiled, and soul ached.

  When did it end? Not for me but for my kids. When did they stop paying the price for my stupidity?

  “Did you guys decide on dinner?” Max inquired.

  His voice—rough and deep. I looked over my shoulder to find him with fresh clothes on, his hair wet. His face looked better, but not super. Arms crossed over his chest, fiery look aimed direct at me.

  Great.

  I appreciated him intervening and trying to change the subject, but damn, I didn’t need his attitude.

  “Not yet,” Liam told him.

  My son stared up at Max. I had him in profile but I could tell he was struggling with the news that Max was playing bodyguard. Or more to the point, that we needed a bodyguard.

  “Mom makes the best grilled cheese sandwiches,” Liam informed Max. “Maybe we can have those?”

  “The best, huh?” Max teased, smiling at Liam.

  Once again, Max’s mood flipped. It was seriously hard to keep up.

  “Yeah. They’re like, world famous.”

  “Well, now I have to try one.”

  Liam glanced over at me and looked hopeful.

  “Sure, honey, if that’s what you want.”

  Eli nodded his agreement into my neck. Liam smiled. Max just stared.

  Two out of three wasn’t bad.

  And really, Max wasn’t my problem. He could scowl at me all he wanted. As long as he continued to be nice to my boys, it didn’t matter.

  But it did sting.

  Chapter 10

  What the hell has Tex gotten me into?

  Fucking hell, when Elijah asked Eva if Jay was going to take him again, something inside of me snapped. The unmistakable fear in the little boy’s voice was enough to make me want to take Eva and the boys and hide them away so nothing could ever touch them again.

  Christ, the kid was four. Four goddamn years old and scared to death he’s going to be taken from his mother. That fear born from experience.

  And Liam, the ever-watchful son and brother. The kid was sharp, he picked up on everything. Sometimes it was hard to remember he was only six.

  Then there was Eva. I didn’t have the first idea how to deal with her.

  I needed to remember who she was and what she’d done. She was a liar—but was she really? At every turn, she insisted on telling the truth or the closest version of it the situation allowed for. She’d even fessed up about who I really was and why I was with them. Even though she knew that meant Liam would call her out on it.

  Now I was making excuses for her, spinning the lies she had indeed told to Bubba and Zoey, excusing them because she wasn’t as horrible as I’d thought. Or, maybe she was a better liar than I thought. Maybe this was what she was best at—manipulating people. She certainly had me twisted in knots and that was damn near impossible to do.

  “Let me help Max put a bandage on his shoulder, then we’ll start dinner,” Eva said.

  I suppose she was speaking to her kids, but she was looking at me.

  Perplexed—that’s what she looked like. She was trying to figure me out—good luck with that, honey— but I’d carefully blanked my expression. Something I was good at.

  “I’ll get everything ready,” Liam chimed in excitedly. “Eli, let go of Mom and help me.”

  There it was, Liam taking charge. Eva’s brows pinched and I wondered how she felt about her six-year-old playing sentry over his baby brother. Had that protectiveness been born into him, or had he learned that? My guess was Jay had taught him that the hard way.

  “You wanna help your brother or do you want to watch TV?” Eva murmured.

  “Help.”

  “All right.”

  Eva set Elijah down, ruffled his hair, and smiled the worst fake grin I’d ever witnessed. Thankfully, the boy didn’t pick up on it and walked to his brother, awaiting instruction on what to do next.

  “Liam, set everything on the counter. I won’t be long.” Then Eva turned to me, the fake smile faded and she asked, “Ready?”

  “Yep.”

  Wordlessly, I made my way back to the bathroom. Eva followed me in and went directly to the vanity. Everything was laid out and ready to go. I pulled my shirt over my head. Now that the glass had been removed, the pain had subsided to a manageable throb.

  “Go ahead and clean it with the alcohol,” I told her and gave her my back so she could get to my shoulder wound.

  “Isn’t that gonna sting?”

  “Yep.”

  “I guess that’s better than getting infected,” she murmured.

  I heard rustling, and a moment later, she dabbed a wet gauze pad over the gash. Holy fucking hell. I clenched my jaw, ground my molars, and worked to block out the pain. Then I felt it, Eva’s warm breath blowing on the area she just cleaned, followed by a few moments of relief. In that moment, I didn’t care she’d just introduced all sorts of germs that could cause infection. I didn’t care she’d done the exact wrong thing. All I could focus on was that she was the first person in my entire life to ever try to dull my pain.

  I didn’t know what to do with that, so I shoved it aside and added it to all of the other shit I didn’t understand about Eva Dawson. A place inside of me that was quickly filling up with all sorts of bits and fragments of information that needed to be dealt with, but I knew I never would.

  Eva was a puzzle I didn’t want to solve because if I did, once the pieces came together the picture wouldn’t be what I’d thought. She wouldn’t be the lying bitch—the villain who tried to kill my friend. She’d be a desperate mother, a devastated woman who’d been taken advantage of, a victim in a game she wanted nothing to do with.

  I couldn’t deal with that Eva.

  For my own peace of mind, she had to remain the villain.

  Eva moved swiftly and efficiently, making fast work of gluing two of the incisions closed.

  “All done,” she announced.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  I heard the tension, the wobble in her voice, but being the asshole I was, I didn’t turn around. I also didn’t invite further conversation. This was in an effort to keep much-needed space between us.

  Mission. Focus on the mission. Eva is nothing but a job.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” I told her when she didn’t move.

  “Right.”

  I felt it the moment she left—physically felt her absence. My good buddy Tex had seriously fucked me over asking me to take care of Eva and her boys.

  I’d given Eva time to get the boys ready for bed. Tex had toothbrushes, toothpaste, pajamas, and a change of clothes sent over for Eva and the boys.

  Always on the ball—that was Tex.

  Except when he was screwing with my head by sending me to Eva. Then he was a devious ass and I’d be having words with him the first chance I got. Tex did nothing that wasn’t well thought-out. Life was a chess game to the cyber-genius. So I now had no doubt he’d put Eva in my path on purpose.

  I was unapologetically eavesdropping outside of the boys’ bedroom. Eva had no idea I was there and I didn’t want her to know.

  “You ready to say your prayers?” she said to Liam and Elijah. “Then I’ll tuck you in.”

  The woman was a mystery. Prayers? That shocked me. I wasn’t sure why, but it did. It was also something else my mother had never done with me, nor had she ever tucked me in.

  “Yep,” Elijah said.

  “I�
��ll go first,” Liam interjected. “Dear God, thank you for today. Thank you for Mommy and Eli and keeping us safe.”

  “Thank you for Mommy and Liam,” Elijah added. “And for us being all together.”

  “What else?” Eva asked.

  “Please keep Tex, Mark, and Zoey safe,” Liam added.

  What in the actual hell? Why was Eva having her children pray for Mark and Zoey?

  “And thank you for sending us Tex to watch over us,” Eli put in.

  “Blessings?” Eva inquired.

  “Grilled cheese sandwiches. Trains. And a fun day before…it wasn’t so fun,” Elijah muttered.

  “Thank you for sending Max to protect us,” Liam said matter-of-factly.

  A scorching burn filled my lungs as I inhaled. The left side of my chest went tight. And there was a huge, gaping hole in the wall I’d built to keep intruders from infiltrating my life.

  “Yes, Liam, I agree. We are blessed to have Max helping us.”

  What the fuck? Eva sounds like she means that.

  “In Jesus’ name we pray, amen,” Elijah finished.

  Liam and Eva echoed their amens, and I quickly turned to leave the hall. I’d heard enough. Fucking hell, I’d heard too much.

  More questions. More doubts. More truths about a woman than I ever wanted to know.

  I was sitting on the couch reading an email from Declan, my team leader, when Eva came into the living room.

  “If you’re not busy, I’d like to know what happened today.”

  I should’ve put her off—I was too raw, too overwhelmed. I needed space and time, two things my current situation wouldn’t allow for.

  Without waiting for my answer, Eva sat on the far end of the couch. She pulled her heels up to the edge of the cushion, curled her arms around her shins, and rested her cheek on her knees. She looked so damn small and fragile. Vulnerable within the protective ball she’d folded herself into.

  “Are you scared?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of me?”

  Why I’d asked her that, I didn’t know.

  “Yes.”

  She should be afraid of me—I was a dangerous man. I should’ve left well enough alone. But the thought of her being frightened of me churred my gut. Eva had enough of being scared to last three lifetimes—I didn’t want to add to that.

  “I’d never hurt you or the boys.”

  “I believe that.”

  “Then why are you scared of me?”

  “Maybe I’m not scared, maybe I’m more unsure of you. I never know where your mood will take you and when it shifts, it takes on a physical presence. It takes over the room, it fills the air, it presses against my skin, and it either warms me or chills me to my core.”

  “Come again?”

  “You keep me off-balance. You’re hot and cold. But I do need to thank you for being kind to Liam and Elijah. That hasn’t changed since you first met them. I’m grateful for that. The rest doesn’t really matter.”

  What the hell was her game?

  “Why do you have your kids pray for Bubba and Zoey?”

  Eva’s eyes widened before they narrowed. “You were listening?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was no sense in bullshitting. I asked her a question, one that I needed the answer to nearly as much as I need oxygen. And she’d never understand how desperately I needed her to answer on the right side of the truth.

  “Because what I did to them is horrible. We pray for them so every single night I have to hear my boys say their names and every single night, it hurts. It’s a reminder that I deserve that pain. My penance. But also because I believe in the power of prayer, so yes, we pray for their safety.”

  There was so much there to sift through, I wasn’t sure which part to dissect first.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “You know why.”

  She was correct, I did know why—Jay had taken her kids from her. What I didn’t understand was how the hell had the courts awarded the slimeball custody of the boys in the first place. Tex had been unable to uncover how Jay had done it.

  “Okay, then tell me how Jay was able to get the boys.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  That was something I wasn’t willing to answer.

  It shouldn’t have had any bearing over the mission and really, it didn’t change a damn thing about how I was going to keep her safe. But I cared, probably too much.

  Chapter 11

  This was not how I pictured my evening.

  I went back to the living room after the boys were asleep to find out the details about the explosion at the restaurant. There was also the small detail of my car. With the fleeing for our lives, and the safehouse, and Max being hurt, it seemed rather insignificant at the time. I mean, Max was injured and bleeding and he’d gotten that way protecting us.

  Not even I was naïve enough to think that an explosion at an eatery I happened to be dining at could be a coincidence. I liked to live in denial most of the time, like believing the best in people and not paying attention to huge red flashing neon warning signs, but I wasn’t dumb.

  “Humor me.” Max’s nonchalance pissed me right the hell off.

  “Humor you?” I spat. “Seriously, you want me to spill my guts, for what? Your entertainment?”

  “There’s not a damn thing entertaining about children being taken from their mother.” Every muscle in my body seized at his angry tone. “I need to understand how a judge awarded a drug dealing, money laundering prick custody of two boys—one of them not even his blood.”

  “Have you ever been to Kenai, Alaska?” I found myself asking.

  “Nope.”

  “Picture this, the prettiest little town you’ve ever seen. Cook Inlet and all its beauty. The Kenai River so blue-green you wouldn’t believe. Except at sunset, when the Kenai turns pink. Mount Redoubt in the distance, tall and proud, a beacon of splendor. Beauty all around you, Mother Nature at her finest. The whitest of whites. The deepest greens and yellows. Eagles soar, whales play, salmon run, trout plentiful. Glaciers and brilliant, vivid wildflowers in bloom, the contrast is mind-blowing.”

  “It sounds beautiful.”

  Beautiful didn’t begin to describe the majesty. Nor could I begin to explain the magnitude of the pain that had sliced me to shreds while living amongst all that magnificence.

  “It is. There is so much to love about Kenai. About Alaska.”

  Though there was way more for me to hate.

  “I’m not understanding how that has to do with—”

  “Population under eight-thousand,” I interrupted. “Now, that sounds like a lot of people, but it’s not. Not when you’re involved with the criminal underbelly. Jay had a knack for collecting favors. But he was better at collecting dirt. And once Jay had something on you, you were screwed. He played the long game, he’d bide his time, hold his cards, and wait for the perfect time.”

  And when Jay found his perfect time, he brought me to my knees.

  “So he blackmailed someone,” Max surmised.

  “A lot of someones.”

  “What happened when you were arrested?”

  Whoa! That was a cold hard slap.

  But of course he knew. He knew everything about me and I knew nothing about him.

  And the way Max framed his question annoyed me—he sounded so casual, like he was asking about the weather, not one of the worst days of my life. Yet surprisingly, his tone didn’t hold any of the disgust I felt for myself.

  Disgust and shame seemed to be the running themes of my life. I swallowed down the humiliation, cleared my throat, and with my palms sticky with sweat, I explained.

  “Jay set me up. Start to finish. He played me, but it began long before I was arrested. When I met Jay, I was eighteen, pregnant with Liam. He was just some guy who came into the sporting goods store where I worked. Looking back, I see it; he went out of his way to be nice to me. Every time he came in, he asked me how I was feeling, then after Liam was bor
n, he’d ask about him, too. But of course he knew who I was—who my parents were—so I’m positive he saw me as an easy mark.”

  “Who are your parents?”

  My arms tensed around my legs, pressing my knees tighter to my chest. My heart pounded so hard I felt the beat against my thighs as I curled into myself.

  Hell to the no! I would never tell him about my parents. Max already thought I was trash, but he had no idea how right he truly was.

  White trash.

  Trailer trash.

  A gutter rat.

  That was all I’d ever been.

  “That’s a story for another time,” I told him. There was only so much I could take, and adding my parents’ dysfunction and abuse to the stupidity of me falling for Jay was more than I could bear. “This went on for almost two years. Then Jay made his approach and asked me out. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. He was sweet, funny, good looking, and I was none of those things. A single mother trying to make ends meet. Six months later, he said he had a job offer in Anchorage and he asked me to go. I wanted out of Kenai but I was hesitant. Then he asked me to marry him, said he wanted to give me a better life, that he loved me and Liam. He said he’d waited so long to ask me out because he’d wanted us to be friends first. I fell for it. Like a fucking idiot.”

  “So you moved.”

  “Moved, married him, and got pregnant with Elijah. Now, you see, he had me trapped. That was when he let it all hang out. He showed me exactly who he was.”

  God, it hurt to even think about how dumb I was. I’d never forget the first time I’d witnessed Jay sell drugs from our house. Liam had been asleep in his bedroom and I was in disbelief. I don’t know what I found more shocking; my beautiful baby boy being in the other room and Jay not giving a shit, or that Jay was selling drugs. Something that up until that point I hadn’t known, yet I should’ve because all the signs were there. Jay had told me he was a day worker on fishing boats, picking up jobs from the dock when they were available. That was how he explained always having cash, but he always had too much of it. Yet, I didn’t question him.