Psycho (The Line Walkers #2)

23. Chapter 23 – Maddox

Chapter 23 – Maddox

A s soon as I opened the front door, I knew she wasn’t home. “Storm!” I barked, flipping on lights as I walked through the living space and down the hall. “Olivia!”

The nursery, the guestroom and the primary bedroom were all dark and empty. My heart raced in my chest as I dialed Chris, the man on guard while I was gone today. Luckily, he answered on the first ring.

“Where is Liv?” I snapped in greeting.

“With her sister.” He replied. “They left this morning.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” I roared back, walking back through the apartment on my way to my truck.

“Mack was on duty and reported it to me when I took over a few hours ago. She should have communicated that with you.”

“Got it.” I hung up on him and dialed Liv’s phone in the next breath, but as I shut the door behind me, I heard her ring tone in the other room. “God damnit.”

I dialed Dane’s number next. He had been with me most of the day, but never said anything about Liv and Peyton being together, which meant he didn’t know either.

“Yeah.” He answered.

“Liv there?” I punched the buttons in the elevator, pulling my truck keys out.

“Bingo.” He replied, and I heard Peyton’s melodic laugh in the background like he was walking away.

“She okay?”

“I mean,” He hesitated as I got to my truck, “There are ice cream containers in my trash and they’re watching Hope Floats. What did you do?”

I rolled my eyes, not a hundred percent sure what Hope Floats was or why that paired with ice cream would mean I did anything wrong. I found Liv eating ice cream at four am the other morning when I got home late. And she had tossed it to the side and rode my cock like a pro the second I walked in the room. “I’m on my way.”

“What did you do?” He repeated, and my nerves jarred against each other as my hand tightened around my phone.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I recommend you spend the drive reflecting on whatever happened the last day or two. Because by the looks of it, guard dog Peyton is on duty and you’re not going to be welcome if you don’t prepare before you get here.”

“Got it.” I snapped and hung up as the actual object of my anger stepped into the garage from the private entrance, almost as if my mood summoned her.

“Hey, Ren.” Mack smiled at me as she walked toward me. “Heading out again, didn’t you just get home?”

“Why wasn’t I notified that Olivia left today?”

She raised one brow at me, but I could tell my tone did not surprise her. “Peyton Bryce is on the approved list of visitors.” Her response was an answer, but not the answer to my question.

“Why wasn’t I notified she left?” I repeated with a lethal tone in my voice as the door opened again, and Chris walked out with two other guards who were on perimeter duty today.

She shrugged nonchalantly, crossing her arms over her chest, “I didn’t think—”

“It’s not your job to think.” I barked, “Your job is to protect her and notify me immediately of anything that goes on when I’m not here!”

“Why didn’t she notify you?” She cocked her head to the side, “Trouble in paradise, Ren?”

“Fuck you!” I sneered as the other guards got near, turning my attention to them. “If Liv leaves this building, I am notified immediately. Got it?”

“Got it.” Chris replied with a nod, eyeing Mack.

“What’s the big deal, Ren?” Mack put her hand on my arm, and I shook her off with a growl.

“It’s your fucking job, that’s what! You were hired to do a job and you’re to do it the way I tell you to, or you can get the fuck out. Period. That’s how it goes!”

“We got it.” Chris stepped in again, “It won’t happen again.”

I glared at Mack again as I ripped open my truck door and got in. When I got to Liv, I was going to redden her ass for leaving like she did.

And then I was going to get to the bottom of why she did it in the first place.

I tried using the drive to calm down, but it only took about ten minutes in the truck to realize that my anger wasn’t anger at all, but fear.

Fear of coming home and finding Liv gone.

Fear of not knowing where she was at that very moment.

Fear of not knowing what made her leave without telling me in the first place.

Fear.

A fucking foreign four-letter word for me.

I feared nothing before I met Liv, yet now, I was nearly crippled with it when I thought of all the ways the world could harm her.

And our baby.

Jesus, fuck. The world was cruel to grown adults, let alone, defenseless little babies.

By the time I walked in Dane’s front door, I was nearly vibrating with the need to wrap Storm up into my arms and smother her with my love. But when I found her, sitting on the floor of Peyton’s closet surrounded by a massive pile of ball gowns, laughing her ass off, as P strutted around in a bright pink fluff ball, I paused.

Dane stood at my side, leaning his shoulder into the door frame with a huff. “They’ve been at this for a while now.” Peyton did some Rockette’s style high kick and Liv cackled, clapping her hands as tears of laughter rolled down her cheeks. “What the fuck did you do, man?” He hissed.

“I. Don’t. Know.”

“Well, I’m no expert, but in the last few years being with P, I’ve learned two things.” He turned to look at me as Liv picked up a lime green frock and tossed it at P, demanding she put that one on next. “One,” he lifted one finger, “Everett women are notorious for keeping their feelings to themselves, but when they’re mad, they like to yell.” He rounded his eyes and raised his eyebrows, “But two, is that when they go silent, they’re past the point of mad and have hit a full raging inferno inside and there’s only two ways to put the fire out.” Dane dropped his hands and looked back over at the girls, “Groveling and sex. But the sex can’t be just normal sex, it must be one hundred and fifty percent all about her sex.”

“Isn’t that the only kind of sex to have?” I deadpanned at him, and he pursed his lips and rolled his eyes.

“You would be a pleasure Dom.”

Liv heard him and looked over her shoulder, finally aware of my presence in the room and her smile faded as did her giggles.

Something in my chest ached, knowing whatever happened today was my fault.

“Hi.” I tried, feeling like I was balancing on a tiny piece of ice in the middle of the freezing cold ocean. One small move in the wrong direction and I was a fucking goner.

“Hi.” She replied, looking back over at P who in her own right glared at me. “Help me up, Pey.”

It felt incredibly unnatural to watch Peyton help Liv to her feet as I stood by idly, but it was obvious that she didn’t want me to touch her. Which fucking hurt.

Dane and Peyton lingered, adding to the unnatural feeling between us as Liv turned to face me. I tried to break the ice, “Can we talk?”

She didn’t answer right away but looked at the clock on the wall and sighed, “It’s getting late,” my heart sank into my gut as she glanced back up at me. Was she kicking me out? “Are you going home or back to work ?”

The tone in her voice when she said work grated my nerves even further.

“We’re going home.” I replied, holding her stare, almost hoping she would challenge me on it.

“Okay.” She stated flippantly and gave her attention back to her sister. “Thanks for today.”

“Any time.” Peyton replied firmly and then grabbed a large tote bag off the floor. “Don’t forget your bag.”

I eyed the change of clothes and toiletries sat on top of the bag, like she wasn’t planning on coming home with me originally. Silently, we both walked out of Hartington, and even though she let me help her up into the truck, Liv didn’t speak.

Liv was chatty on a normal day, referencing movies or shows I knew nothing about, commenting on random bits and thoughts she had and making small talk constantly.

But as I drove back down the long driveway, she stared out ahead of us with her hands resting on her belly, rubbing them back and forth over it.

I didn’t know how to break the silence, but with each passing second, the rift felt bigger, like it was growing and making my skin boil under the pressure of breaking it.

Opening my mouth to blurt out something stupid, she beat me to it with an audible intake of breath as she leaned to the side.

“What?” I looked over at her as her brows pinched together in the middle. “What’s wrong?”

“Just a twinge.” She whispered like she couldn’t let her breath out normally while she pushed on a part of her stomach. “I think he’s pushing on my spleen.”

She had taken to calling the baby he or she intermittently like she was trying them on for size, even though she still refused to open the envelope and find out what she was carrying for sure.

“Can I?” I held my hand out, hovering over her stomach as I drove. I couldn’t remember the last time I asked to touch her and our baby, but at that moment, it felt appropriate.

She guided my hand onto her bump where the pain was coming from and instantly the baby flipped and rolled around, pressing against my palm. “I think I ate too much ice cream and now he has a sugar high.”

Glancing over at her as I drove down the road, a soft smile graced her lips as she peeked over at me. “Maybe.” I held my hand against her belly even after she dropped hers because I ached for the connection. “Tell me what I did wrong, Liv.”

She peeked over at me and sighed, readjusting herself in her seat, dislodging my hand. “You didn’t do anything, Madd.”

“Then why did you leave today without telling me? Why didn’t you take your phone?” I looked over at her as she stared up at me. “And why did you take clothes with you when you left?”

She swallowed and looked back out the windshield, chewing on her bottom lip before finally speaking. “I’m lonely.”

I scowled into the darkness, “Lonely?”

Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed her shrug, “Yeah, I spend a lot of time alone, Maddox. It tends to make people lonely. Especially people like me.”

“What does that mean? People like you?”

“People who like to be alone but want people around at the same time. We get lonely in the solitude we create around ourselves.”

“You sound like Dane.” I deadpanned as I tried to mull it all over. “But I guess that makes sense. It’s not like I leave because I want to—I’m working.”

“I know.” She agreed calmly, “Doesn’t mean the silence doesn’t get to me at times, though. Therefore, I called P and had a girls’ day.”

I tapped my thumb against the steering wheel in contemplation as we drove through the wilderness. “Were you mad at me when you left?”

She was silent for a second or two longer than I would have hoped, giving me my answer.

“Yes.” She admitted, “But I think most of it was just in my head, made up by the silence and the distance between us when I went to bed and when I woke up again.”

She was right.

I was always gone.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” She replied instantly. “It’s part of our arrangement. I knew that.”

Why did her tone sound so accepting and so dismissive in the same breath?

Riding in silence the rest of the way back to our building, I replayed everything that had happened since the first day I met Liv, rescuing her from the Hell Eater’s Lounge and bringing her home with me.

Every single day since then, she had been told when, where, and how she could live. Sure, it was for her own protection, but the facts remained the same.

She was at our mercy, a woman who, before the Velvet Cage, had been independent and living on her own for years.

Liv was unhappy, even if she was trying to pretend, she wasn’t. And that was my fault.

But no more.