Psycho (The Line Walkers #2)

6. Chapter 6 – Olivia

Chapter 6 – Olivia

E ight days.

Eight fucking days inside the perfectly perfect apartment that Maddox sequestered me to with a full stocked fridge and pantry somehow stuffed with every single food I could ever dream of. Plus, a streaming service overflowing with movies and shows I’d been planning to watch, and a bed—an exact replica of the unbelievably comfortable one I’d left two weeks prior, its plush comfort still vivid in my memory.

What more could a girl ask for, really?

Oh yeah, independence and autonomy.

Those were nowhere to be found.

Sure, Maddox hadn’t actually shown his face once since he left me in the loft that very first day, but I knew he was around.

He left me things.

On my doorstep.

Only because there was a kitchen chair and umbrella jammed under the doorknob to block the entrance, creating a makeshift barricade; the pressure of the wood against metal felt as stubborn as my resolve against his potential entry, even if he had the code.

Without it, I wasn’t sure he’d respect my space.

But every single morning, when I dared to take a peek through the peephole in the door, there was always something waiting for me.

The first day was food.

Sweets to be exact. Cakes, brownies, eclairs, cookies and even a still perfectly frozen tub of ice cream. As if he somehow knew when I would grab them off the welcome mat.

The next day there was a stack of DVDs. They weren’t new blockbuster movies, but they were oldies. 90s Rom Coms.

My guilty fucking pleasure.

The day after that, salty snacks. Pretzels, chips, popcorn and pickles. Which was trippy and weird, because the night before I’d been up for hours craving pickles.

And then there they were.

Like he was in my head somehow.

That morning, I sat in the center of the massive recliner, wearing just an oversized band tee, eating directly out of the jar of pickles as I watched You’ve Got Mail . It was that day that I realized what he was doing.

Maddox was taking care of me, just like he said he would. Even though I’d essentially told him to shove the offer up his ass that first day.

The day after that a cell phone was laying there waiting for me. I half hoped it would be a regular phone, like those used by regular people, but two seconds after powering it on, I realized someone had changed it for a prisoner.

I could only call out three phone numbers. Peyton, Dane, and Maddox.

As if I’d ever use the last one.

But it was nice to talk to my sister whenever she wanted to. Which was every day.

The days after that were even more spoiling. And every single day when Peyton would either come over to visit for a few hours in my solitary confinement or call and video chat with me for the entire afternoon, she’d giggle and excitedly ask what the gift of the day was, like it was the cutest thing in the world.

Because it was.

I just couldn’t figure out why he was doing it. One, it wasn’t like he was the most romantic guy in the world; I was sure. I mean, the man looked far more wild than housebroken, for one.

And two, I was pretty sure he had more than a few screws loose, thanks to my extensive history with insane men in the last few years.

Yet every day, more and more gifts came, like clockwork.

Blankets in the softest fabric I’d ever felt before.

Neon lights to decorate the space with, that suspiciously matched the ones I had around my apartment before it was taken away from me.

But the gift waiting for me this morning had set every alarm bell off in my head and my anxiety through the roof.

A pamper basket.

And it wasn’t just the basket itself that was alarming. The luxury bubble bath and soaking salts were incredible and when I first saw them, I almost ran straight to the huge soaker tub in the primary ensuite to jump right into a hot bubble bath with them. Hell, even the moisturizing face masks made my girly side tingle a little as I took them out of the basket.

But the item at the very bottom of the basket made my skin feel like it was on fire as I stared at it.

Cocoa butter lotion.

For stretch marks.

He knew.

Jesus fuck, how did he know? How could he know when I never uttered the words out loud one time since finding out myself?

Maddox knew I was pregnant.

And I was totally fucked.

A loud knock on the apartment door scared me and I stood frozen in the middle of the living room, staring at it.

I hadn’t put my homemade lock back when I grabbed my gift, which meant if someone knew the lock code, they could—.

“I’m coming in, Olivia.”

A second later the door opened, and Maddox walked in, eyes scanning the space until he found me in the dimly lit room. Why did he have to look so feral and so sexy, all wrapped in one?

His massive body was always in black. Black pants, black shirts, and black boots, without fail. They hugged his muscles like a second skin, and I found myself more than a few times wondering if his skin was soft and bare under the clothes, or if his manliness trailed under the fabric with a thick coating of hair. Was his chest hairy in a forty-year-old virgin way, or dusted in a rugged highlander kind of way?

“Are you okay?” His concerned voice cut through the mental daydream I was having about his body hair, and I blinked it away and tried to get my sex crazed hormones to stop controlling my brain.

“Fine.”

He shut the door behind him, eyeing up the makeshift lock set to the side, and grinned as he came deeper into the space. “I see you’ve gotten the things I’ve left you.” He mused as he put his hand on the blanket laid over the back of the chair I was obsessed with while he held my stare.

“I did.” I replied and then remembered what the fuck I was holding and dropped the lotion like a hot potato back into the basket. And then my brain finally caught up to the rest of the world around me and I remembered what I was wearing.

Or not wearing, I should say.

Booty shorts under an oversized shirt, and a pair of thick wool socks pulled up to my knees. Of course, I didn’t have a bra on, those were torturous lately, and I was far from being dressed for visitors.

I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to act tough as I faced him. “What do you want?”

The problem was, by crossing my arms, my tits bunched together and created even more for him to see through the thin white fabric, and his eyes flicked down with my movement, like they transfixed him.

I locked that tidbit of knowledge away for a later time as Maddox finally looked away from them and back to my face. He sat down on the arm of the couch and spread his feet wide, somehow seeming to take up even more room in the space now that he was shorter, and my brain went back to imagining his muscled thighs and what they’d look like naked and–.

“I think it’s time we talk.” Maddox cut through my daydream again, and I tried to focus, even as my face heated in a blush. Sometimes I hated being a redhead.

“I already told you; I’ll handle my mess.” I repeated for the umpteenth time since he, Peyton, and Dane had all tried to get information out of me about what I did with the Hell Eaters before they tried to kill me.

“Is that what you’re calling your unborn child?” He cut in and my heart seized in my chest. I had somehow forgotten his little clues to knowing while his muscles distracted me, but there was no denying it now that the words hung in the air between us. “A mess?”

I stared him down, unwilling to wilt under his intense stare as he dared to accuse me of that. “How did you know?”

“Does it matter?” He tilted his head to the side and then nodded to the couch behind him, “Sit down, and talk to me.”

“No.” I shook my head, blinking away even though I wanted to do exactly what he said. “I can’t.”

“Liv.” He replied and the gravel in his voice when he said it made my knees want to buckle under pressure from it. “I told you; I can’t protect you if you won’t let me in.”

“I didn’t ask you—”

“Enough.” He commanded in a loud voice, and I instantly shut my mouth and stared at him with wide eyes. Not once had he moved quickly or spoken loudly in our previously brief interactions. Truth be told, he frightened me with it. “Please,” He almost pleaded and held his hand out toward the couch again. “If you won’t talk to me, at least sit down and cover your body up before I lose my fucking mind.”

“My—” I stammered and once again his eyes fell to my tits that were essentially bare now that I had dropped my arms. “Oh.”

I moved over to the chair and grabbed the blanket he bought me off the back, covering my legs and holding it to my chest as he rubbed his hand over his face and turned to sit down on the couch, facing me. “Better.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Now, if you don’t want to talk, then listen.” I scowled at him, but he kept going on, “Tell me about the Velvet Cage.”

All the blood in my face dropped and my stomach clenched tight as my brain processed his words. “The—what?” He couldn’t know. No.

“The prostitution ring you ran with the Hell Eaters.”

Fuck, he did know.

Was it stupid that the disappointment in his eyes as he said those words hurt more than any physical blow I took over the last few months?

“I didn’t run it.”

“Then tell me what you did do.” He implored, waiting and staring at me as I tried to figure out what to say.

Telling him the truth would be a death sentence.

But it seemed I was already toeing the line as it was, given the bounty out on my head.

Either way, I was going to die for what I did.

I took a deep breath and said it out loud for the first time. “They blackmailed me into scamming the Johns out of more money than agreed upon.”

His eyes tightened around the corners, and faint lines showed in his skin. “The Hell Eaters blackmailed you?”

“Damon did.” I clarified.

“What does he have over you?” Maddox questioned, but I waved him off.

“It doesn’t matter. Either way, I gave into it.”

“The prostitutes that work in The Velvet Cage aren’t cheap, are they?”

“No, they’re not.”

“Making the Johns, influential men.” He surmised. It was kind of nice not having to explain it all to him, one detail at a time.

“Yes, they are.”

“And you stole from them, essentially.” He sat upright.

“That’s how Damon spun it when he got caught.” I admitted, “And I suddenly found myself on the shit list of about thirty different powerful men that I couldn’t pay back.”

“Because you never saw the money, did you?”

“Never.” I sighed, “I just worked on the computers to move it from them to him.”

“How’d they find out?”

I shrugged, “The same way the bad guys do when every shitty plan falls apart. Greed. He took too much, too many times, and they connected the dots.”

“Why did he kidnap you, then?” He ran his hand over his beard, “Why not just hand you off to them?”

I scoffed and smiled for the first time in a while, “Because I’m really fucking good at what I do. If he gave them his tool , they’d use it against him. And he’d be the one left out in the end.”

Maddox sat up and I watched that missing piece fall into place for him. Dane and he had found out about the Velvet Cage but couldn’t figure out why Damon held me prisoner instead of just killing me. “He was going to sell you to the highest bidder.” With a curse, he ran his hand up and down his thighs. “He was going to use you.”

“Bingo.” I whispered, “And now he lost the only thing that was going to keep his own head on his shoulders.”

His stare darkened, and he leaned forward again, staring right back at me, “He doesn’t win this, Olivia. He doesn’t get to hurt you anymore.”

“You don’t get it though,” I stared back at him, “It’s not just Damon Kirst that’s after me anymore. There are dozens of men; powerful men, hunting me down. They all either want to kill me or use me. If I could, I’d sever Damon’s head myself and throw it in a fucking shoe box and deliver it to the next most powerful man on the list and work my way up, but I can’t!” I shook my head as that same overwhelming sense of dismay washed over me. “I’m toast.”

He slowly rose to his feet and towered over me, so I had to lean all the way back in the chair to stare up at him, “No, you don’t get it, Storm.” His phrase sounded like a pet name, and my stomach fluttered at the idea of being important enough to someone to have one of those, even if I didn’t understand it. “I told you the very first day right here in this living room that I’m the worst monster out there. And now you’re going to write me a list of every man that is after you.”

I shivered under the intensity of his stare and the power I felt in his words. I’d spent years around dark and depraved men thanks to my stupid desire to play with fire, but Maddox had a different aura around him than any man I’d ever met before.

Maddox didn’t fight or pretend to be powerful and dangerous.

He just fucking was.

“And then what are you going to do?” I asked, licking my lips as I fought through the fear and the arousal fighting for control over my good senses.

His obsidian black eyes fell to my lips, and he licked his own, like he could taste them that way.

“And then I’m going to let my psycho loose to save you.” His eyes fell to my stomach under the blanket, “And your baby.”