Made (Manhattan Ruthless #5)

Chapter 1

Maddox

Ialways used to love New Year’s Eve. Watching the fireworks, enjoying the party, running wild around the house as the excitement built.

Most of all, getting to stay up late like a grown-up and spend time with my older brothers.

My mom would kiss me on the forehead, ruffle my hair.

“You’re in such a rush to grow up, mi principito, but you’ll always be your mama’s baby. ”

It used to annoy me, at least if she did it when my brothers were around. But now…goddamn, I wish she was here to do it one more time. New Year’s sucks without her. Everything sucks without her. I don’t feel like a grown-up, or a prince, or that this new year is exciting. It just fucking sucks.

We’re all gathered here, in our family home, with my Dad.

He’s sad, like he always is these days. Sad, and a little angry.

I get that. I’m angry too. I want to kick the shit out of everyone I meet—kids at school, my teachers, people on the street.

It’s showing when I play football, too, this anger.

Making me feel stronger, pumping me up so I take more risks and cause more damage. Emotional steroids.

Coach loves the new me. I hate him. When we finally lost my mom, it hurt so much that something shut down inside me.

Now the only time I feel anything real is when I’m lying on the field bleeding or watching someone else bleed.

The alternative is feeling so much it’s like I’m going to explode.

Then all I can do is drink the pain away.

I stare at the glass in front of me. Dad’s precious Macallan. Premium Scotch is wasted on me. I’d drink the dregs from a keg if it got the job done. If it numbed this hurt.

I look around at my brothers. We’re all broken in different ways. Elijah and Nathan are the oldest, staring out the window at the fireworks, lost in their own world. Drake looks distracted, and Mason seems like he’s about to implode. He’s the one closest in age to me, and I know the signs.

“Does anyone else feel like it’s weird that it’s just us?” he finally asks. Unable to bear the silence, I guess.

“We could put the TV on. Watch the ball drop,” Elijah chips in.

God, no. She’d have hated that. Then again, she would have hated seeing us all like this as well. She was a fierce momma bear and she would have torn down the world to protect her cubs and the man she loved. What the hell are we all supposed to do without her?

Drake says no to the TV idea and reminds us that she used to think the whole ball drop thing was off by a few seconds anyway. “Remember how she’d always insist on using Great-Grandad’s old Navy diving watch to determine when it was midnight instead?”

I remember. The way she made us double check it, a stream of annoyed Spanish curses pouring from her lips.

Nathan frowns. “Where the hell is that thing?”

I know where that thing is. It’s in my hand, inside my pocket.

I snuck it in there earlier. No clue why.

Something solid to hold onto. Something real to connect me to her.

Tears sting the back of my eyes. I pull the watch out and show it to them.

This chunk of old metal she once touched is as close to her as I can get these days.

I hold in the tears. Even though we’re all feeling the same. Maybe it’s because I still feel the need to prove I’m not a baby. I’m sixteen for fuck’s sake.

“Jesus, it feels so weird without her here,” Mason says, choking down his Scotch. He’s up, pacing around, full of energy. “Like this house has no fucking soul anymore. Let’s get the fuck out of here and go somewhere.”

“Like where, jerkwad?” Drake asks.

“I dunno. A club or something. A place where there’s life.”

A club. Yeah, right. Much as I love the idea of getting shitfaced, that’s not gonna work for me.

I’m not old enough, technically. While I have a fake ID, I’m pretty sure my brothers wouldn’t actively condone me using it.

But I hate the thought of them going without me, though.

Of being left alone here with her ghost. With my own darkness.

“And what about me, dickface?” I ask.

Mason looks like I punched him in the gut and opens his mouth to respond.

He doesn’t get the chance, because dad finally steps in and speaks in that tone we’ve all learned to obey.

My dad is a good man, I know that. A good dad who loves us just as much as she did.

Except it doesn’t always feel that way. And since she died, he’s been closed off.

Lost in his own pain. I understand that, but I’m also pissed.

I need him. I need a way to deal with all this shit.

A way to feel safe again. The whole world went black when we lost her, and sometimes I feel like a little kid again, afraid of the dark.

“Nobody is going anywhere,” Dad barks, ending all other conversation. “So quit your whining and drink your Scotch.”

Whining? Yeah, that’s probably how he sees it.

Like he’s the only person who misses her.

God, I want to drink that Scotch. Then I want to drink the whole bottle.

Then I want to start the next one. Maybe head into the parts of town my Dad doesn’t know.

The parts where it’s not just booze on offer.

Maybe call Yasmin, the girl I met, who knows that world much better.

I shake my head to try and clear it. I just need to get through tonight. Then tomorrow, and the day after, and…fuck. It all feels impossible. Not to mention pointless.

Mason apologizes to our dad and slouches on the couch. He looks like a slapped puppy. He’s closer to our dad than I am. Maybe because he’s older, and because he had more time with Dad before our mom was ill and everything in the world changed.

I watch the mighty Dalton James gulp down his booze.

Despite my anger, I feel bad for him. I can see he’s struggling, trying not to cry.

It makes me blink away my own tears again, but it also makes me wish she was here to tell him to let go.

To tell us all to let go. To feel what we need to feel and not be ashamed of it.

She’s not, though, so we carry on doing what we seem to do best—burying that shit so deep inside us it can’t see daylight.

“I have a piece of advice for all you boys,” Dad announces. “You live by this, and I promise that you’ll never know a day’s heartache in your life.”

Huh. This should be good.

“And what’s that, Dad?” Elijah asks. Elijah, the oldest, who’s been more of a father to me recently than my actual pop.

We all stare at Dad, waiting for this life-changing wisdom of his.

He clears his throat, stares out the window some more. “Never fall in love.”

I down the Scotch, feel its burn in my throat. Fuck. That is the stupidest piece of advice I ever heard. It’s like he’s spitting on the memory of our mother, of the years they spent loving each other. Of everything she meant to us.

Yeah, he’s broken. When she died a part of him went into the grave with her—maybe the best part.

It was the same for all of us. I try telling myself to stop being a baby, that he’s doing the best he can, but I feel like I lost both my parents that day.

I’ve never felt right since, apart from when I’m tanked, on the field, or recently, with Yasmin.

Yasmin. I don’t know her that well, but she’s way different compared to all the other girls I’ve known. There’s a spark with her. I think about her a lot, want to tell her things I’ve never told anyone.

Is this love? I don’t know. But I do know that when my dad tells me to never fall in love, I’m pretty sure I want to do the exact opposite. He had the whole world with my mom, and now he wants to tell us to turn our backs on love? That is so many shades of fucked up.

I glance around, not sure how my brothers are feeling. Does this make sense to them? Is this kind of hopelessness something I’m too young to understand?

None of them meet my eye. We’re together, but separate.

Fuck, I need another drink.