40
40
Liam
I jerked open the door before Madeline could ring the doorbell. Her vehicle pulling down my driveway had been the only moment in the past twenty-four hours that I wasn’t in complete torment. The sight of her meant that Blaise had found Liberty.
“You look like you haven’t slept in a week,” she said, her eyes scanning me before she stepped inside.
Ozzy came walking into the foyer to see who had arrived. He wasn’t in much better shape than me. He’d not eaten much since Liberty had left, and he kept pulling his dog bed to the side of my bed she’d slept on, as if he believed she would come back and he wanted to be there.
“Where is she? Did Blaise find her?” I asked, still gripping the doorknob. I wasn’t going to sit and visit. I needed a goddamn address.
Madeline smiled at Ozzy. “Hello, Ozzy.” Then, she lifted her eyes to me and crossed her arms over her chest.
There was disapproval in her steady gaze that I didn’t have time for. She could berate me later. I just needed to get to Liberty.
“That’s why I’m here. I told him not to,” she informed me.
No. I shook my head. That was what had kept me sane since I’d walked in this house and found Liberty’s note and the photo of our baby.
“Madeline, I have to find her,” I pleaded, my hoarse voice cracking.
She raised her eyebrows. “If she wanted you to know where she was, then she would have told you. The fact that she did not means she wanted time,” she replied.
Fuck. I’d have to find someone who could track her down. She didn’t have a car, and her phone was going straight to voice mail. I’d driven to every motel and hotel in the city and outside the city last night. Nothing. No one had her as a guest. A few had told me that they weren’t allowed to give out that information, but when I had grabbed them by the collar and pulled them over the counter, they had talked.
Blaise was the fastest way to find her.
“Madeline, please. I messed up. She needs to hear what I have to say,” I begged, running my hand through my hair.
The determined gleam in my daughter’s eyes wasn’t softening.
I walked over and picked up the ultrasound photo that I’d been staring at when her car arrived and held it out to her. “See this? She needs me. They both do.”
Madeline took the photo, and a soft smile touched her lips. “I have a brother,” she said. “Congratulations, Liam.”
Then, she lifted her gaze to me. “When I came here, the way she looked at you when you first walked up, that was love. Then, you treated her in a way that no woman deserves. You acted as if she were some hired hand instead of the woman carrying your child. Why, Liam? Why did you do it? My heart was breaking for her, and I was so angry with you, and you were being so stubborn, telling me that she was fine.” Madeline held out the photo to me. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t allow you to get her address and go to her. She was right to leave. I would have left too. Maybe now, you can acknowledge how you feel about her. Is she the live-in housekeeper, or is she the woman you want to spend forever with and raise a family with?”
Thinking about how I’d treated her was haunting me.
“You think I don’t know that? I haven’t slept. I can’t close my eyes because when I do, I am reminded of what I’ve done. How I hurt her. It is ripping me to shreds inside, Madeline,” I said, slamming a hand on my chest. “If I can’t find her, how do I fix it?! How do I tell her that I love her? That I was scared. That I didn’t think I would be enough for her. Not forever. That I thought I was saving her from a future where she was married to an old man. I couldn’t see us growing old together because I was the one who was gonna be old, not her. I told myself it was selfish of me to make this more. To love her.” I let out a hard laugh. “I was a fucking fool. I’ll be whoever she wants me to be. I’ll take her however I can have her, as long as I can have her. I’ll worship her, love her, and if the day comes when she no longer wants me, I will do everything I can to change her mind. Because I can’t see a future if she’s not in it, here, in my bed, in my house.”
Madeline lifted her chin as she stared at me, her eyes now glistening. “You should have told her all that before she left. What was selfish was not letting her know how you feel. Making her think it was all one-sided.”
“Then, Madeline, please, honey, help me. Blaise can find her faster than anyone else. If you walk out that door, still refusing to help me, I will hire someone. But every second that goes by, she’s somewhere, thinking I don’t love her. That I don’t want us. And it is killing me.”
She pressed her lips together, and a spark of hope came with the sympathetic look she gave me. She stepped forward and placed her hand on my arm. “I love you, but I won’t do that. You were in control, and you screwed up. Now, Liberty has the control. Let’s see what she can do with it. Give her time,” she said, then scrunched her nose. “And take a shower. You stink. Try to eat something too. Sleep wouldn’t hurt either.”
Then, she squeezed my arm and headed for the door.
If I thought falling to my knees and begging would work, then I would do it. But I’d just been exposed to Etta’s daughter. That look on her face was one I’d seen on her mother all those years ago. I wasn’t going to get through to her when she had made up her mind on something.
She reached the door, then glanced over her shoulder at me. “You can try to hire someone to find her, but it’ll be a waste of time. No one is going to do anything that would piss off Blaise, and every private detective in the state of Florida has received the message not to find Liberty Dillard,” she said, then opened the door and walked out.
I stared at the door as she closed it.
I had to find Liberty. I’d figure out a way. No fucking Mafia boss was going to stop me. There had to be someone out there who wasn’t scared of him.