Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Gage
T he way Zarah ran out of the café still shakes me, and I’ve thought about nothing else all day. Not through the workout at the gym down the street, or the run to exercise Baby, or when I threw in a load of towels.
I know her past six years have been hellish. Ashton Black selling her to high-end clientele, and the crazy story of Stella Mayfair switching places with her to let her go free, only to have her fuckhead brother and Black lock her up in Quiet Meadows and force every drug under the sun into her little body.
Hearing it didn’t do the story justice.
The haunted look in her eyes, the way she could barely hold a coherent conversation.
She couldn’t even order coffee for Christ’s sake.
Somehow during their short time together, Max had cut through all that and found a connection. That was Max, though. Kind and patient to a fault. I wonder what their first night of lovemaking was like. How long had she needed before she trusted him, how long before he taught her that sex could mean love.
Gnashing my teeth, I refuse to be jealous. A woman like her, she would need that kind of compassion. I don’t have it in me to be nice.
Quick and dirty is how I roll, and I’ve heard enough stories to know Zarah has had enough of that.
I can see why Max asked me to look out for her. I mean, kind of. She has enough family to help her through her recovery, but my brother was right about one thing—Ashton Black isn’t through fucking with her.
Zarah Maddox is never going to be the same carefree socialite spending Daddy’s money and partying all weekend.
Black stripped her of that joy, and I sincerely doubt she’ll ever get it back.
Especially now that Max is dead.
Baby’s ready to go, and she wags her tail. Pop’s downstairs waiting in the fake taxi and we’re going to stake out the soon-to-be divorcée one last night. At least I can tell him I did what I said I was going to do. I don’t like liars, and I hate people who have no follow-through. Walk your talk or shut the hell up.
She’s already in the car by the time I make it downstairs, and Pop’s feeding her fries out of a Dairy Queen bag.
“Told you not to feed her,” I grumble, sliding into the passenger’s side. “She’s gonna get fat, and all that grease makes her shit stink.”
“You look in those eyes and tell her no.”
I look over the back of the seat at Baby’s huge blue eyes she gets from the Husky in her. “No.”
Pop laughs. “Tough guy. I know she sleeps in your bed.”
“Ain’t got nothing going on at the moment,” I say, clicking my seatbelt in place and grabbing the bag of food Pop brought me. Double bacon cheeseburger. No one does ’em better.
“Your mom stop trying to set you up?” he asks casually, rolling out of the parking lot and into the street.
We drive over the bridge, and the Renegade’s dark except for the brightly lit cargo ships floating along. Because of the seizure of Black’s ship and the women they found in one of the containers, all ships go through a more stringent search before they’re granted permission to embark. The new mayor is determined Huxley’s memory will eat shit and die, no pun intended, though it is apt, and things are starting to turn around a little in King’s Crossing.
“She has, thankfully, decided her friends’ offspring are too good for me.” I crumple the burger wrapper and throw it into the bag, and I struggle to suck the thick chocolate milkshake he brought to go with my meal through the too-narrow straw. The malted flavor hits my tongue.
Zarah slams into my mind like an avalanche, and buried, I can’t breathe.
“Could have found a good match,” Pop says, navigating through the city.
Behind me, Baby farts, and sighing, I slide down the window to let out the smell before we die. “Told you.”
Pop huffs a laugh. “I’ve smelled worse, and so have you.”
I swear he coddles my dog more than I do.
“No one wants to put up with me,” I say, though not to find any sympathy. It’s just the truth. I’m a broke PI who works with his old man, lives in a loft apartment without a kitchen table (thought I was lying, didn’t you?), whose dog comes first. I can’t imagine any woman would want to sign up for that for the rest of her life.
I mean, sure, I date every once in a while. I need sex the same as any other man who’s not a stark-raving lunatic. I’m decent looking, some women even say I’m hot, especially if I don’t bother to shave—which I haven’t for a few weeks—but we all know when it comes right down to it, you don’t marry looks, you marry what’s underneath and right now all I got is a dog and a truck that’s almost paid off.
“You don’t want to settle down? You’ll be thirty-seven next year. Not thinking about kids?”
I jerk my thumb at the back. Baby whines. She knows I’m talking about her. “I already got one. And no, I’m not ready to settle down. How am I going to stake out rich divorcées if I get hitched?”
“You don’t. You get a real job. Put that badge to use.” He sounds sad when he says it.
“Didn’t like being a cop. So I stopped being a cop.”
Probably the best thing I ever did. I didn’t know the KCPD was so full of fucking bullshit. I read the paper. So many fucking dirty cops doing whatever the Blacks told them to do to earn a little extra money. The new mayor is having a fine time cleaning out all the scum.
“Besides, you need the company so you don’t fall asleep on the job.” I slap Pop’s arm as he coasts to a stop at the curb. He cuts the engine and the lights, and I slide the window up. The smell’s gone, and without the heat going, it’ll get cold in here real fast.
I suck up more of my malt and force down Zarah’s mournful eyes. She’s not my responsibility.
Fuck.
I slam my head against the backrest.
Pop takes my headbanging in stride. He’s used to my volatile temper. Baby whines, stands on the seat, and pokes her cold nose into my cheek. I turn my head and she gives me a little tongue. Maybe Pop’s right. It’s time to settle down so I can stop Frenching my dog.
Comforted, Baby lies back down and soon her snoring fills the car.
The lights in the divorcée’s house shine bright, and two cars are parked in her driveway. Pop checks out the registrations and they belong to two women who are also divorced. Either they’re forming their own First Wives’ Club, or they’re having an orgy. I’m not interested in either so long as the woman we’re being paid to tail stays put. We’ve been watching her for a month. She’s not seeing anyone.
Pop lets me have an hour of silence. “See your brother’s attorney?”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
Max’s lockbox key burns a hole in my pocket.
Pop leaves it at that. We’re both patient men. Have to be to do a job like ours. Ninety-five percent of it is doing exactly what we’re doing. The other five percent is digging up shit about people online.
I suck the dregs of my malt through the white and red striped straw, easier now that it’s melted.
Whoppers.
I can’t get Zarah’s sad eyes out of my mind. The petite frame of her body. Her tiny feet. Compared to my size, she seemed like a little doll.
Easily broken.
It will be impossible to wrap my head around the knowledge some fucker paid to hit her. I want to do more than bash Black’s face in for selling her. That he’ll rot in prison for the rest of his life isn’t enough.
He stole Zarah’s self-esteem. Self-worth.
I know shame when I see it, and it was all over her face when she ran out of the café.
I wish Max were here. To help her. To take away her pain.
I wish I could.
But me and her. I don’t belong with a woman like that.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Max asked me to do something.”
“Can’t be that bad.”
I stare at the divorcée’s lit-up house. “He asked me to keep an eye on Zarah Maddox.”
Pop blows out a breath. “They had a thing?” he asks, surprised.
I’m with him. When I found out—and I only found out when she and her brother stopped by the office and asked if they could go to Max’s funeral—I was speechless. Geeky Max who read War and Peace for fun in a relationship with Zarah Maddox. Most of the details hadn’t come out yet, and I didn’t know much about the nature of Max’s death, only that because of the Maddoxes, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Something that evening in the parking lot I had the satisfaction of reminding them.
Slowly, the pieces came together. Days of planning at the Crowne Royale, a luxury hotel near the Renegade. Romantic nights. Kisses and whispers in the dark as he helped her wade through the bog.
Jealousy burned swift and hot.
That my brother had the right to touch something as exquisite as the Maddox heiress.
“From what I can piece together, and from what the note said he gave to Mike McClennan to pass on to me.” I pull it out of my jacket pocket. I’ve been carrying it around, but I don’t know why. I guess because I haven’t fully decided if I’m going to do what Max asked. I don’t see the need for it. She’s been fine all this time. Zarah has plenty of people to look out for her, and Ashton and Clayton Black are locked up. High security. A strict—and short—list of visitors. She’s free of the Blacks. All she needs to do now is get on with the rest of her life.
Max was anxious and obsessed when he wrote that note.
Pop angles the notebook paper and reads it by streetlight. He wouldn’t turn the dome light on and call attention to our car. The streetlight is bright enough, and he makes quick work of skimming my half-brother’s request.
“He had it bad,” he says, folding the paper and handing it back to me.
I slip it into the torn envelope and shove it into my pocket. “Not hard to see why,” I say, and scoot deeper into my seat.
Pop doesn’t miss a thing. “Yeah?”
“Saw her yesterday and saved her from a pack of vultures.” I tell him about buying her a coffee, her anxiety over the choices. The shame coloring her cheeks when she ran away. Pop’s a man. I don’t have to tell him Zarah booked it the hell out of there because she felt the sizzle between us. Same as me.
I’m not Max.
“You like her?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I say, almost angrily. I have zero chance so why torture myself with something that will never happen.
“You’re not going to do what your brother asked?”
I can hear the disapproval in his voice. Last wishes are pretty sacred stuff, and one of the few things Max ever asked me to do.
My own shame burns my cheeks. I buried my head in the sand, not wanting to face Max’s death. Now coming to realize he’d asked me to do him an important favor, I’m lucky Zarah has been okay. Otherwise, I would’ve blamed myself for anything that had happened to her. “It’s already been a year. She’s been all right.”
Pop stares me down. “Max wanted you.”
“I don’t know what I can do, Pop. Follow her around for the rest of my life? Ash Black is in prison for murder, solicitation, kidnapping, sexual assault, and God knows what else. She’s free.”
“Your brother didn’t think so.”
Pop’s voice is mild. Maybe holding a little rebuke in response to my obstinance.
Hell. I don’t know why I’m being so bullheaded. It’s not like keeping an eye on her would be a big deal. A little boring because she does the same shit every day with the same people. I’d have to invest in audiobook stock. Driving from the city to their country house is a two-hour round trip. I could easily be on the road four hours a day. Nothing out that way, either, except farmland. I wonder if that’s why Zane bought the place. To keep his girls out of the city.
His girls.
Lucky bastard.
I sigh.
Baby whines. She hates it when I’m out of sorts. She’s worse than a woman.
Pop slides me a look. “Maybe that’s not what Max meant.”
“What do you mean?”
“Following her around. Maybe that’s not what he meant. You and he had the same job. You dig up dirt.”
I cock my head, considering. Maybe I was taking Max’s words too literally. When he said to protect her, I thought he meant physically from harm, but maybe that’s not what he meant at all. I finger the lockbox key in my pocket. Maybe protecting her means making sure everything is over and done.
“Seems easy enough,” I say, turning in my seat. “You in?”
Pop grins. “Wouldn’t miss it.”