Chapter 2
MADDOX
My head is groggy as I try to hide from the shrill sound blasting through my room.
Burrowing my head into my pillow, I reach one lead arm out toward my nightstand and smack my hand around until I find my phone.
Only a handful of people know my phone number, so if someone’s calling in the middle of the night, it’s important.
I answer the call and grumble a rough “Hey.”
“Hi. I’m sorry, Dox. I know you just got home today, but it’s Noah.”
The fear in my little sister’s voice has me pushing up in bed, sleep be damned.
I blink to clear my vision and shove a hand through my hair.
The sky is dark through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line my bedroom, and when I pull my phone from my ear and look at the time, I see it’s just past 2:00 a.m. My stomach rolls.
“What happened?”
“He’s at Ralph’s.” Adalyn sighs, the sound shaky. “You know he won’t call Dad for help, and my car is in the shop. It has to be you.”
I’m already out of bed and stepping into a pair of jeans by the time she finishes.
In a few hurried steps, I’m walking through the penthouse, not bothering to turn on a light as I go.
Ralph’s isn’t a place for Adalyn. It’s a shithole bar for addicts and men I wouldn’t want within viewing distance of my sister.
The thought alone of her wandering around trying to find our brother is enough to have my blood boiling.
“When did he call you?”
“Only a couple of minutes ago. I called you once he hung up on me.”
“Okay. It’s good you called me. Go back to bed, Addie. I’m on my way.”
“Thank you. Text me after.”
“Will do.” I grab my wallet and keys from the dish on the kitchen island.
She’s silent for a beat too long. “Don’t bring him back home tonight. Mom doesn’t need to see it.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “He shouldn’t have called you. This isn’t your mess. Noah isn’t your mess.”
“He’s not anyone’s mess. He’s our brother, and I would rather him call me for help than stumble home and get hit by a car,” she snips, and I can picture the sharp twist of her mouth as she scowls at the phone.
“He’s barely twenty years old. It isn’t okay for this to be happening.
Mom and Dad need to take care of it. I’ll pick him up tonight and bring him home with me, but I can’t keep letting him piss his life away.
” A sniffle on the other side of the call has my steps faltering on my way into the private elevator.
Guilt rips through me, and I soften my voice. “I’ll handle it, yeah? I promise.”
“He was excited when he called this afternoon. Said he was playing a gig tonight,” she whispers.
I press the button on the wall for the main floor and exhale when the elevator starts moving.
Noah is a great musician. He has been since he was old enough to pick up his first instrument.
It’s just a shame he’s wandered from that pretty path and ended up in a pit of quicksand that keeps pulling him deeper and deeper every day.
At this rate, it won’t be long until he’s sunk so far he won’t be able to breathe. That’s the day I fear the most.
“I’m sure he was. I’m leaving the penthouse now. I’ll text you when we get back. Try not to make yourself sick worrying about us, okay?”
“I’ll try. I love you.”
“I love you too. Get some sleep,” I order.
“Yeah, I’ll try. Bye.”
“Bye.”
The elevator doors open as I shove my phone in my pocket and walk into the lobby. It’s quiet, empty besides the security guard leaning against the front desk, scrolling through his phone. He looks up and gives me a nod as I walk past, and I return the gesture, albeit stiffly.
I step outside the building and just stand there, right in front of the glass doors, as the warm breeze runs over me. My head falls forward, and I release a tight breath.
“What have you done this time, Noah?”
Ralph’s is a hole-in-the-wall bar in a part of town I wasn’t familiar with until the first time I picked Noah up here.
It’s on a deserted road littered with closed businesses, all of which have boarded-up windows and Keep Out signs plastered to the doors.
It’s a place you don’t go to unless your plan is to run away and hide from life.
And when it comes to my brother, he wants to hide from everything.
Not from fear like most assume, but because he just simply doesn’t want to be around anyone.
There’s only one person Noah has ever wanted to spend time with, and she lives across the country.
I lock my truck doors twice for good measure—even if it wouldn’t be hard for someone to break into it if they wanted to badly enough—and start up the sidewalk.
The drunks stumbling around outside of the brick building make my stomach churn as I brush past them.
The air stinks like smoke and vomit, and needles are scattered across the concrete. If Dad knew I was here . . .
“Uh-oooh, the fun police is here!” one of the men slurs as I push past him. He’s vaguely familiar, but not enough I can recall his name.
His bony fingers wrap around my wrist before I can create enough distance between us, and I slowly look down at where he’s holding me before moving my eyes up to his. “What are ya gonna do? Arrest me? I remember you from last time.”
“I doubt you remember what you ate for breakfast this morning.”
I get a good view of him when he steps closer, shaking slightly. His pupils are black dots the size of one of the needles on the ground, and his lips are cracked and bloody. It’s hard to keep my face neutral, but by some miracle, I do.
“Let go of me,” I say calmly.
“Where’s the please?”
I tense up when someone else moves to stand beside me, but a brief sideways glance is enough to know it’s Noah. Still, I don’t relax. I won’t until we’re far from this place.
“Let go of him,” Noah orders gruffly. His voice is cold enough to make me shiver. He’s detached, more so than normal.
“We’re leaving.” I rip my arm from the drunk and start to shove my brother down the sidewalk, away from that damned place. He doesn’t fight me on it. He never does. “Where’s your guitar? You don’t have it.”
“I smashed it.”
“You smashed it?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“I just did.”
I halt on the sidewalk a few yards from the truck, my mind reeling. Noah notices I’ve stopped walking and turns to face me.
It’s my first real look at him since he popped up beside me, and the distant look in his eyes makes my heart ache.
His black hair is long, curling at the ends that brush the sides of his tattooed neck.
It’s pushed back and out of his face by a white checkered bandana.
There’s a slight flush to his cheeks, and his eyes are bloodshot.
“What are you on right now? Are you drunk?” I ask.
He stares at me, unblinking. “I never asked you to come here.”
“Don’t start, Noah. If you start this conversation right now, you won’t like how it ends. Tell me what you took.”
Finally, he blinks. “Our sister worries about me too much. She shouldn’t have told you anything.”
“She’s eighteen, Noah. The last thing she should be worrying about is her brother getting fucking stabbed in some shithole bar because he’s gotten high and picked a fight with the wrong person. What did you expect her to do when you called her for help at two in the morning?”
My pulse is racing, straining against my throat. This isn’t normal. This isn’t what should be happening to my brother. How did we even get here?
“I never asked her for help. I only called to tell her I was coming home. She texted me too many times tonight asking if I was okay, and I wanted to settle her.”
“If that’s the case, then you’re an even bigger fucking idiot than I thought. She knew something was wrong the minute you called her. Now, get in the truck. We’ll talk about this in the morning.” I press the button on the key fob, and the truck’s headlights flood the street.
“I smoked pot, and I’m a bit drunk. But I’m not an addict. The hard stuff doesn’t appeal to me,” he says. In a swift movement, he pulls a small baggie from his pocket and shakes it between us. A dark green, herby substance jumps around inside.
I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans and lean back on my heels. He seems sincere, so damn sincere. I’ve never seen my brother take hard drugs, but hanging out in places like this and making risky choices . . . it makes it hard to believe him.
Noah has always been quiet and reserved. He wasn’t a happy kid, and he only got worse when he hit puberty. I’ve seen him smile a handful of times in my entire life, and not one has been aimed at me.
“Put that away. And I’m trying to believe you, Noah, but fuck,” I manage to say.
He puts the bag back in his pocket. “I was here for a gig.”
“Addie told me.”
He darts his eyes to the opposite side of the street. “It went fine. I hate it here, but it was a gig.”
I nod. “Why did you smash your guitar?”
Suddenly, he’s staring at me again, more focused than before. Fear flashes across his face when his eyes travel to the street behind me, and a feeling of desperation floods my system. I don’t want him to close himself off from me right now.
He shakes his head, narrowing his eyes on something behind me. “Let’s go.”
“Tell me why you smashed your guitar. Please. Don’t shut down now,” I beg.
“Get in the truck, Dox. Now,” he snaps.
Confused at his change in demeanour, I turn to follow his line of sight and curse under my breath.
There’s a Hulk-sized man storming toward us, his snowshoe-sized hands balled into fists and long blond hair blowing in the breeze like a goddamn supermodel. One look at the fury on his face is enough to have me making a beeline for the driver’s side of my truck.
“Noah Hutton!” the Hulk-man growls, his voice suddenly too close for my liking.
As soon as I spin back around to look for him, I find Noah shoved up against the hood of the truck, his shirt bunched in the man’s fists.
“Get your hands off of me,” Noah snarls.
I rush toward them, fear making me move faster than normally possible. I’m a big guy, but I’m nothing compared to the guy pulling my brother off the hood before slamming him back down again, harder this time.
“Not until you give me back the money.” He reaches up with one hand and grabs a fistful of Noah’s hair, pulling on it until his head flies back and the back of it smashes against the truck.
Suddenly, our size difference doesn’t matter.
Before Noah has a chance to collect his bearings from the impact, I’m kicking the back of the guy’s knee and yanking him away from him by the back of his black T-shirt.
I only manage to stun the Hulk-man for a few brief seconds because before I have a chance to move out of the way, a fist is flying at my face at the speed and force of a fucking semi-truck.
“The money is mine. I earned it,” Noah says calmly.
Blood spurts from my nose, dripping down my front and staining my shirt and sweatpants. My eyes are unfocused, my face throbbing, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been punched in the face, and it won’t be my last.
Spreading my lips in a grin, I say, “I expected more from a guy your size.”
The next hit comes at my gut, and the air whooshes out of me as his knuckles make impact, knocking me off-kilter. Still, I don’t curl up and protect myself; instead, I ignore my instincts and spit a ball of blood and saliva into his face.
Noah’s quick to interfere then. “Fuck. If you want the money that bad, then take it.”
Something hits the ground beside my feet, but I don’t take my eyes off the man in front of me. I hold his gaze, adrenaline making me reckless.
“You gonna get that, or should I?” I ask.
Tearing his eyes away from me, he glances at whatever fell beside us and, after a few seconds, gives me a final shove against the hood and lets me go to pick it up.
I catch a flash of white from down the street as a car door slams shut, closely followed by another. Footsteps pound the pavement.
Fuck. My. Life.
“Okay, big guy. Take your money and go,” I say, trying to keep hold of the panic starting to swarm.
“If I see either of you here again, I’ll kill you,” he warns us.
Rage brews in Noah’s dark eyes at the threat, and even if I know he would never hurt me, fear tries to spark anyway.
He doesn’t say anything to the guy, just stands in place and watches him like he’s thinking of ways to make him disappear, never to be found again.
Finally, the man turns and leaves, his hands still in fists.
My body hurts, but I ignore the pain as I push away from the hood and lift the neck of my T-shirt to wipe away some of the blood from my face. “We need to leave. Reporters are here.”
“And they’ve already seen you,” Noah says.
“Yep.”
He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me up straight. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
Nodding, I pull the keys from my pocket. “How did they know I was here?”
“You were getting your ass kicked by the bouncer. You’re not a nobody here. Not in this city.”
I want to scream when the footsteps get closer and closer and their voices start to break through our bubble. Noah’s eyes are wild as he starts to lead me to the driver’s side. His help only makes things look worse, but I’m not going to turn it away.
“What are you doing here, Maddox? Who was that man?”
“What happened here? Is this a drug deal gone bad?”
Lights flash in my eyes as the men rush forward, taking photos and trying to shove their recording devices in my face. They move in closer as questions keep coming, but I ignore them all. I’m doing everything that I should be in this situation, but there’s no reassurance in that.
I’m outside of a shithole bar, bloody and battered after getting my ass beat by some steroid-pumping bastard. The minute this story breaks, I’m in deep shit. The real story won’t matter now. When it comes to the press, it rarely ever does.
Noah grunts at the reporter as he opens the truck door for me. My hands are shaky as I climb inside. He shuts the door before going around the back of the truck and climbing inside the passenger side.
I start the engine and grip the steering wheel tight. Lights continue to flash through the windshield as the reporters stand in front of us, blocking the way out.
“Honk at them. Make them move,” Noah snaps, voice like a whip. The tattoos on his fingers strain with how tight he’s squeezing his knees.
I do, and they jump out of the way, continuing to snap their pictures. Without hesitation, I pull away from the curb and onto the street.
“I’m in the middle of signing an extension with Vancouver,” I rush out. “This is a nightmare.”
“You’ll be fine,” he grunts.
I want to laugh and maybe even cry a little as I say, “No. I’m fucked.”