21. Chapter 21 – Olivia
Chapter 21 – Olivia
H ushed whispers woke me up, and I rolled over in a panic to find Maddox’s side of the bed empty. My heart raced in my chest as I imagined the voices coming from Damon or someone hired by him to find me. The anxiety was enough to choke the breath from my lungs as I swung my legs out over the bedside.
Maddox had been with me when I fell asleep, but he was gone, and I didn’t know where he was.
But I’d be damned if I just laid in bed and hid in fear, so I grabbed my bathrobe and tied it over my body and silently walked on tiptoes to the bedroom door. I held my breath and peeked out around the doorway towards the living space and saw a soft glow lighting up the space from the front door. Pulling back into the bedroom, I let my breath out and chewed on my bottom lip in contemplation.
More than likely, it was Maddox.
But there was a real possibility that it wasn’t.
What to do, what to do?
One of the voices rose loud enough that I could make out the words being whisper screamed at each other, and my heart sank in my chest when I realized it was a female’s. “Why are you even bothering to get involved, Ren?” The feminine voice hissed, “We both know you don’t want to be tied down. You don’t want a family.”
I finally recognized Maddox’s voice snap back at the woman, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
My stomach rolled as her words circled around in my head, there was no doubt I was the subject of the conversation.
Stupid me, always a glutton for punishment, I tiptoed out into the hallway, desperate to hear more. I also was desperate to see the woman speaking with my own eyes.
The female spoke again as I got to the end of the hallway and took a deep breath before peeking my head around the corner enough to just see the front door. She was tall and had the body of a swimsuit model, skinny waist, mile long legs, complimented with a nice ass and big tits. Great. She wore black leggings that hugged her body like a second skin and a gray long sleeve shirt that was fitted and cut deep over her breasts. Was she one of the guards that Maddox had hired? A female? She carried weapons like a guard.
She spoke again, “I just don’t want to see you trapped in something you didn’t think through completely, Ren.” She brought her hand up and laid on Maddox’s naked chest like she was saying something heartfelt in the middle of the night to a man that wasn’t hers. He wasn’t, was he? “You know how much I care about you.”
Jesus fuck. I had been so pre-occupied with studying the woman I didn’t even realize that Maddox stood in the middle of the hallway in only a pair of black boxer briefs, that showed off exactly what he was packing south of the belt.
And she was touching him.
And he was letting her.
Jealousy thundered deep in my gut as I watched him patting her hand, still pressed to his bare chest with his own before removing it.
“I’m sure.” He replied in a whisper. “I appreciate your concern, though, Mack.”
Even across the room eaves dropping I could hear the lack of conviction in his voice when he said, I’m sure . What I did hear in his voice, though, was affection, but only when he told her he appreciated her concern.
He moved back toward the door, and I hurriedly ran back down the hallway to the bedroom as the front door clicked shut.
I tossed my robe off and jumped back in bed, trying like hell to calm my breathing, but unfortunately, I was so fucking pregnant I got winded just talking these days. I turned away from his side of the bed and pulled the blankets up over me, hoping they’d cover up my gasps as my mind spun in a million different directions.
Did he regret getting ‘tied down’ with me?
Who was the woman and why was he so openly comfortable with her when with literally everyone else, even Dane, he was a dark mime who hardly even spoke if he didn’t have to.
What the fuck was I doing?
I bit my knuckle when I heard his soft footsteps come up to the bed before I felt his weight slide back into his side.
I prayed he wouldn’t come up behind me and hold me, or my racing heart and tense body would give me away. Yet, when he stayed on his side of the bed, choosing not to cuddle with me like he normally would, my heart sank a little further in my chest.
Maybe she was right after all. Maybe Mack knew Maddox better than I did.
I t took me hours to fall asleep again, and when I woke up the next time, Maddox was gone from the apartment completely.
I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t a sign, but pregnancy hormones were a bitch on a good day and today, they were wreaking havoc on my mind.
So I had sent an SOS text to Peyton, asking her to pick me up and take me to Hartington for the day to take a deep breath. Of course, there was a note about keeping it between the two of us.
And exactly one hour later, Peyton walked through the front door with a concerned, gentle smile on her face.
And a Starbucks cookie the size of her head.
The day was already improving.
“Come on,” She wrapped her arm around me, ignoring the oversized purse I carried with me stuffed with a change of clothes just in case, and led us out to the hallway. “Let’s go have a girls’ day.”
I had never left the building with Peyton before, and in a way, I didn’t know if I was even allowed to. But I had to try.
I needed to take a deep breath and get my head on straight, and I couldn’t do it surrounded by everything Maddox and this baby. I just needed to focus on myself for half a second, so I could think.
As we reached the elevator, she asked, “So, what kind of food are we getting on our way back?” However, I noticed her pressing the elevator code slowly and ostentatiously, then making eye contact with me before looking at the small camera in the room’s corner and continuing the conversation. “Mexican? Italian? Greek?”
“Uh,” I stammered, realizing what she was doing and memorized the six number code she used as I entered the elevator. “Italian?” Shaking my head to focus, “Cheesy Alfredo sounds great.”
“Done,” She went on as we rode the elevator down, both of us once again aware of the security camera in the elevator staring at us like a beady little eye of control. “We’ll order from Marco’s and pick it up on the way.” At the bottom of the elevator, there was another code to enter to make the doors open up again, and as before, she punched a separate six-digit code in, number by number, like she was trying to memorize it herself. And I memorized it in turn.
“Perfect.” I replied calmly as the doors opened up, revealing her car waiting in the loading zone, not even parked in a spot. Like she was planning a fast getaway.
Getting into the passenger seat, I tossed my bag in the back seat and wrung my hands together in my lap, struck by how eerily similar my escape was to the night they took me to Damon’s jail cell for my involvement in his scheme.
My heart raced, my stomach rolled, and my hands sweated as Peyton locked the doors to her top-of-the-line car and drove off through the underground garage. I half expected someone to stop us, one of the guards perhaps that I now knew lurked in the darkness. Did they not intervene because Peyton made it look so normal and casual?
But as we crossed through the final gate at the end of the building and out onto the crowded street, I caught a face staring at me from the shadows.
Mack.
She stood against the exterior wall, with a full uniform of weapons strapped to her and a smug smirk on her face as she watched us leave. Was she happy I was leaving so she could have Maddox to herself? Or was she excited by the idea of getting me in trouble with him and proving I was too much trouble in the end?