Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
T he next morning, while Madison snored softly next to him, Alex arranged for breakfast to be delivered. As phenomenal as last night was, they needed to talk, and he suspected the moment she was awake Madison would leave.
He had just finished pulling the different containers from large paper bags when she emerged from his room, one of the dress shirts he left in the closet draped over her delectable frame.
“What’s all this?” She smiled.
His gaze traced over her, his body heating. “It was supposed to be breakfast, but I think it can wait.”
She held up a hand with a laugh. “I’m starving.”
He pretended to be wounded. “So am I.”
Her shoulders shook with laughter. “You are ridiculous.”
Making their selections, Madison perched on one of the bar stools at the island to eat while Alex leaned against the countertop facing her.
Madison took a bite of a blueberry muffin and chewed slowly. Alex kept his face blank. He knew she thought she hid her thoughts well, but he watched a myriad of emotions cross her face. Finally, she cleaned her hands with a napkin and peeked up at him. “Can I ask you a question?”
He knew it was coming.
“Go for it.”
“James Bloom told me you run your family’s legal operations.”
Alex would bet the man said a lot more. He fought a smile. Madison didn’t seem overly bothered by the concept, just curious. And the fact she wasn’t afraid to ask him was a good sign that he was making headway with her.
“Bloom only knows who I am because of his own brother’s connection to me.”
“So… Why aren’t you in the family business?”
His brain raced, calculating and recalculating the different ways this conversation could go wrong.
“My father was a practical man. Time and enemies catch up with everyone in the end, and he wanted his legacy to go on.”
“That doesn’t sound practical. It sounds sentimental,” Madison pointed out.
Alex’s lips twisted. “Maybe it was a bit of both. He didn’t want his name, or what he’d earned, to be forgotten just because a rival had better aim. When I was in my early twenties, my father was still the pakhan , he decided he wanted to put the family on the path to legitimacy. He knew it wouldn’t happen quickly. He couldn’t turn his back on his enemies and expect to hold on to anything.”
Madison’s lips pressed together, and he could tell she was biting back a thousand questions. Finally, she gave in to her curiosity. “But why you? Why put you in the spotlight?”
Alex’s stomach clenched, but his voice stayed light. “I’m illegitimate. I can never challenge my brother for his position,” he added, when she looked confused. “In order for me to head the family’s financial position, I can’t be involved with the things my brother does.”
Her eyes dipped to the images on his bare chest, and she chewed her lip. “You can’t be involved with your brother’s… but you were in the past, right?”
Of course, she’d noticed the distinction in what he said.
“Have you ever...”
“Have I ever, what? You can ask me whatever you want. I won’t lie to you. But be sure you’re ready for the answers.”
For a long time, he didn’t think she would speak. He was taking a risk by being so open, but Madison was too intelligent. She would see through any lie or obfuscation.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Not counting the one I saw.”
“Yes.”
“More than two?”
“Yes.”
She stiffened, and for a moment he thought he made an error.
“Did they deserve it?”
Her question told him more than she realized, and he felt his shoulder relax. “I’ve never hurt anyone who either didn’t deserve it or didn’t know the risks they were taking with the choices they made for their life.”
He cocked his head.
“Do you want me to kill Felix?”
This might speed up the negotiations faster than he hoped.
She shook her head slowly. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
Her eyes flew to his, and he could see the battle waging inside her.
“Sometimes I think about it.” Madison picked at the muffin, leaving crumbs over the plate. “At night, or sometimes after I’ve dropped off Jax with him, I think about how I could get away with it.” Her cheeks flamed. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
He resisted the urge to put his arms around her. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Angel.”
“I literally just told you I fantasize about killing someone.”
He shrugged and popped a blueberry into his mouth. “Fantasy isn’t reality. You can do anything, be anyone in a fantasy… You aren’t hurting anyone.”
She looked thoughtful.
“Not to point out the tremendous hole in your logic, but you barely flinched when I told you what I’ve done. Why are you ashamed of your thoughts?”
Madison’s mouth fell open, and then her brow wrinkled. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I guess, maybe because I’m just a regular person, and you’re…” She snapped her mouth shut even as a pang shot through his chest. “I didn’t mean?—”
Alex forced himself to laugh. “Don’t apologize. You’re right. We aren’t the same.”
He turned away to pour another cup of coffee and to get the unfamiliar emotions coursing through him under control.
“How do you run your company if everyone knows who you are?”
A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. The inquisition wasn’t over, and he decided to take her interest as a good sign.
“My family isn’t a secret. Anyone who searches for my birth certificate could find it. You found information about me. We simply don’t advertise the connection. We don’t socialize in public or attend the same events.”
Easy enough because Mikhail rarely left his heavily guarded estate except to go to his offices or one of his own clubs. “Think of me more like the shadow family.” He hadn’t meant to say that. “Remember, I’m illegitimate.”
“Does that still matter these days?” Madison scrunched her nose.
“In our world? Yes. My father always claimed me—allowed my mother to put his name on my birth certificate and gave me his name. I’m a Kovalyov, but understandably, my father’s wife and many family members didn’t exactly welcome me with open arms.”
“What was that like?”
Lonely. The unexpected word sounded in his brain like a gunshot. “It was delightful, Angel.”
His muscles tensed as he thought about the role he’d been forced into. Never quite accepted by either side of the world. Neither the Light nor the Dark.
“It couldn’t have been easy.” She insisted. “Probably still isn’t.”
Her insight stabbed at him, and he struggled to maintain his expression. Alex forced his lips into a smirk and threw his arms wide. “I’m not exactly suffering here.”
“Do you ever relax?” Her soft tone unsettled him.
“I was pretty relaxed after last night. Now enough about me,” Alex said, desperate to change the subject. “What about you?”
For a moment, Madison was quiet. “What about me?” she asked, allowing the topic change.
“I know you are in a custody battle with your son’s biological father. How did that happen?”
Madison eyed him carefully. “You know I’m not his biological mother.”
“I know he’s technically your nephew, but he was clearly trying to call you Mama when I saw him.” Alex shrugged. “You are the one raising him every day.”
Madison’s eyes filled with tears, and he was immediately alarmed. “What did I say?”
She wiped at her eyes with a watery laugh. “Ignore me. I’m just tired, and I think you may have broken my nervous system last night.” She sucked in a breath and held it for a few seconds before blowing it off in a smooth stream. “Just something Felix said when I dropped off Jax yesterday. About how I’m not his mother, but his new wife Mary is. She’s only known him for a couple of months.” Her face wrinkled in disgust.
“What’s the story? I saw he only sued for custody recently. Where has he been?”
Madison dragged a hand back through her hair. Alex hated the sad look on her face, but he had to get her to share her dilemma. It was the only way he could offer her his solution.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?” He nodded. “Apparently, he was in rehab for a while, and when he got out, he was ‘putting his life back together.’ He met Mary and started a new life in her rich daddy’s mansion.” Madison’s voice dripped with contempt.
“Did he know your sister was pregnant?”
Madison’s body stiffened. He’d found a raw spot.
“Yeah,” she whispered. Her mouth worked back and forth like she was thinking, and then she pushed her food away.
“I hadn’t spoken to my sister in almost a year when I got her call. We weren’t super close anyway, with over ten years age difference between us. Or, at least as she got older, we weren’t.”
Madison stared at something over his shoulder with a sad smile. “I adored her. She was my baby sister, but our parents… They aren’t what you’d call warm. When I left home, Opal was still in elementary school. I got busy with school, and then my graduate program, and then when I became a social worker, the hours were unreal. Somewhere along the way, I left her behind and lost her.”
“What does that mean?”
She exhaled a hard sigh. “I didn’t realize how out of control she’d become. My parents would complain about her acting out, getting in trouble at school, sneaking out, that kind of thing. When I would talk to Opal about it, she made it sound like it was normal, average high school stuff. I believed her, or maybe I wanted to believe her because I didn’t want to be bothered. I don’t know.
“Fast forward a few years, and my sister and her loser, on-again, off-again boyfriend from high school are full-blown addicts. My parents eventually kicked her out, deciding the tough love approach was the way to go.”
She shook her head. “I studied this in school. I should have known what to do, but nothing I tried helped, and eventually I had to cut her off.”
“What did she do?” Alex knew there had to be a reason. From his limited experience with Madison, he knew she was warm and loving. Anyone who spent five minutes with her and Jax could see that.
For a long moment, he didn’t think she’d answer. Madison's hands were white knuckled around the seat of her barstool.
“Madison?”
“I was letting them stay with me for a few weeks. Opal had been arrested for shoplifting again, and Felix claimed he’d used the last of their money bailing her out. One night, while my sister was meeting her legal aid lawyer…”
She swallowed hard, and Alex felt a cold sense of foreboding creep up his spine. His body tensed, sensing the words that came next would change everything.
“Felix was high or drunk, I don’t know… Anyway, he made a pass at me, and when I told my sister she attacked me.” Her throat bobbed when she swallowed and then grimaced. “Only black eye I’ve ever gotten.”
Alex had to concentrate on keeping his breathing steady as a red haze crept over his brain.
“Obviously, after that, I told them to leave, and then I didn’t hear from my sister again until she called from a gas station after Felix had beat the hell out of her because she had decided to keep Jax.”
Fury ripped through him. He was going to kill that pathetic fucker. Not just for beating his pregnant girlfriend, though that alone was reason enough.
Alex saw right through Madison’s slick ‘he made a pass’ comment. Her knuckles had turned white, and her face was rigid.
Felix was going to pay, and Alex intended it to be painful.
Oblivious to the storm raging inside him, Madison continued her story. “I think that moment was her rock bottom. After that, she really made an effort to change.”
“You took her in?”
“She was my baby sister, and she needed help. Her addiction made Opal’s pregnancy more difficult, and it was easier to support her if she lived with me. She worked really hard to get clean for Jax, and she did. That’s why it’s so hard to accept that she drove herself out to some rest stop off the highway to get high.
“She was doing so well and was so optimistic about the future. Opal even mentioned moving out, though I have no idea how she thought she was going to pay for it.”
Madison finished her coffee. “Well, now that we’ve both laid out our proverbial dirty laundry, I really should go. I’ve got a lot to do today before I pick up Jax.”
Alex raised a brow, knowing an exit line when he heard one. He didn’t bother calling her out on it. Instead, he smirked. “While I’m sure you could stop traffic going outside in just my shirt, I think the responsible thing for me to do for my fellow Atlantans is to lend you a pair of sweatpants.”
“So noble,” she laughed, the bright sound piercing through the darkness inside of him. “Prince Charming strikes again.”
“I try.” He smiled, and putting his hand to his chest, he gave her a short bow. “I could save you, you know.”
“Oh?” she chuckled. “How is that?”
“You could marry me, and I could make all your problems disappear.”
Madison started to laugh but then stopped when she saw he was serious.
“Hear me out. Felix is playing the dual parent family card. You could do the same.”
She made a small choking sound before she cleared her throat. “Look, last night was unbelievable, and I like you, I do, but?—”
He held up a hand to hold off her outright rejection of the offer. “I’m not suggesting this because I’ve fallen madly in love with you at first sight, Madison. I have some of my own things going on with my business that having a wife would help with. You need a husband and endless finances to help you fight Felix. I’m just asking that you think about it.”
She stared at him dumbfounded for a moment, like she couldn’t tell if he was going to suddenly shout, “Just kidding.”
Finally, she sucked in a breath and said, “I’m going to get changed now,” before disappearing into his bedroom.
Madison had been breathtakingly sexy in the blue dress the night before, but Madison in his dress shirt and sweatpants, with the hem rolled over several times to hold it up and his socks on her feet, made his chest feel full in a way he didn’t recognize.
“My driver will take you?—”
“I already called a car. It should be almost here.” His brow furrowed. “Don’t argue with me, Alex. It’s been a lovely night and morning. Don’t ruin it by going all bossy alpha-male on me.”
Alex decided it wouldn’t be wise to point out that she’d enjoyed his bossiness very much the night before.
“If you insist,” he said, summoning the elevator.
They rode down in silence, and when the doors opened, he could clearly see her rideshare through the glass lobby doors.
“One more thing.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “This is an attorney I know, Amanda King. She’s a shark. Give her a call. Maybe she can help.”
“Alex,” she shook her head. “I can’t afford?—”
“She owes me a favor.” Alex folded her fingers over the paper. “Just call her.”
Madison frowned but stuck the paper in her purse. She paused at the door of the car. “Thanks for breakfast… and everything else.”
Alex smiled. “Anytime.”
A brief hesitation hung in the air before she nodded and slipped in, the door clicking shut behind her. He stood there for a long moment, watching the taillights.
As Madison’s car disappeared into the morning traffic, Alex slipped his hands into his pockets, a slow smile curving his lips.
She might think this was a one-time thing, but Alex was already plotting how to see her again.