CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR #2
“The cold case on Niko Makarov has been reopened. What was dismissed as a young man disappearing in rebellion is now being labeled a murder case. New sources have come forward. Authorities initially speculated that it was gang-related, as there were alleged ties to organized crime. However, recent discoveries are pointing to an unlikely killer, far removed from the crime world.”
My stomach knots, the contents clambering its way to my esophagus, blazing an acidic trail of terror. Wells starts flipping channels, surfing for who knows what, when he stops on another news station.
“… discoveries are pointing to an unlikely killer, far removed from the crime world.”
That’s the exact same wording as the other news report. Creepy.
I excuse myself from the girls as nonchalantly as I can and saunter over to Maddox, who is in a heated conversation with the other men. I’m not sure who here, other than Axel and Ryker, suspects that I killed Niko, but it’s too late to allow that to be a concern.
Axel’s sapphires land on me with both empathy and fortitude. He’s always a pillar of strength, but there’s an undeniable trace of distress when he lifts my chin with what feels like an order and an explanation at once. “You can’t believe everything you hear on the news.”
I arch a brow as my heart hammers erratically. “Fabricated?”
“Yes.” Wells smiles, scratching his neatly trimmed scruff and eyeing Ivy, aware she spilled about the media.
“Why?” I press, surprised that Maddox hasn’t interjected anything.
No one responds, leaving it up to him to fill me in or keep me in the dark. The air thickens, and ire swarms my veins, but I choose to afford him a beat to make the correct decision.
His conflict is evident when his eyes latch to mine. “They’re nullifying my claim.”
“The claim on me?” I ask for clarification, but my mind is swimming with so many questions. I can’t seem to stop there. “How do you know? Why would they do that?”
“It’s the first act of war,” Maddox explains. “If they make a case that Niko was killed two and a half years ago, that far precedes my claim on you. And because Niko was an untouchable, as Dimitri’s son, it means that whoever took his life gave up the right to be protected by our code.”
My nausea intensifies, along with a throbbing pulse behind my left eye. “Why did the reporters say, ‘an unlikely killer, far removed from the crime world’?”
Axel takes that one. “They’ve likely deduced some degree of your involvement, one way or another. Or they simply know that you are Maddox’s Achilles’ heel. This allows them to paint you as guilty, nullify the claim, and retaliate against either of you.”
“Using the news is a backdoor way of getting the word out while also extending a warning,” Maddox summarizes. “They’re telling us that no one is safe.”
“And that they will ensure everyone we trust turns on us because we killed against the code,” Cash tacks on.
I don’t miss the casual we he threw in before killed. All of them are so willing to carry each other’s sins.
“Time to fucking fumigate,” Gage gruffs, to which Maddox, Cash, and Liam all point to him in agreement.
“No,” Wells and Axel assert in unison.
“They’re taking their time to build a case for war,” Maddox argues, “and they aren’t even certain we know they’re gunning for us. If we strike first, we have the advantage of surprise.”
“I’m in,” Jax shouts from Rena’s bed. “Blitz the motherfuckers.”
It would appear the whole room is listening.
“It will be a bloodbath, Mad.” Ryker palms his dice in a neurotic frenzy. “We need the backing of members.”
Axel puts his glasses on, scrolling on his phone. “I’ll call an emergency meeting with KORT this morning. You two get the fuck back to the resort, and don’t leave again until this is over.”
Maddox is fuming. “I’ll get Tessa safely back to La Lune Noire, but—”
“Good,” Axel barks, cutting him off with a leer. “That is your only priority. Because these assholes will take going against the code to a whole new level. They will send the kind of message that never stops haunting any of us.”
A chill scampers through me, impaling my marrow. I can only imagine what that message would entail. I’ve heard enough horror stories to have an idea. Torture. Rape. Mutilation.
“She is my only priority,” Maddox snaps back, “which is why, after I get her to safety, I’m not fucking cowering from this shit, Axe. Or running or waiting to see what they fucking do. She’ll never be safe.”
“You’ll have the votes with KORT,” Ivy chimes in, revealing that she isn’t merely an involved wife; she has some sort of role in that secret society.
“A threat against the Noires is a threat against the entire organization. We need as much information on what happened that night as possible. Get your affairs in order and plan to hit them”—she glances at her watch, noting it’s four in the morning—“in seventeen hours.”
“We’ll be ready,” Wells confirms.
“Liam and I can work through the details of that night,” Axel says.
Some organizations have codes about the treatment of women.
I know the Noires do, so the ones they are most closely aligned with probably hold similar values.
I’m not sure if Maddox explained what the catalyst for that night was because he had promised Violet he wouldn’t, but I’m guessing he alluded to it.
I think if her identity won’t be revealed, it makes sense to divulge why Niko died.
“If you need to tell them everything that led to it in order to gain the support”—I flit my focus between Maddox and Axel, hoping they are reading between my words about the rape—“you can.”
Axel bobs his head, tugging me against him with pride coloring his assurance. “Good, Tess. No personal details though. You’ve both been up for almost twenty-four hours. Go home.”
Thirty minutes later, we’re zipping back to the resort, with security detail in the truck behind us.
Bernard stayed at the hospital, so it’s just the two of us in Maddox’s SUV.
The ride has been quiet so far. It’s nearly dawn, and we’re lost in music, so we don’t succumb to the mounting stress and trepidation.
I’m rarely the one to break the silence, but I’m guessing Maddox’s head is busy, so I provide a distraction. “At least we’ll make it back to see the grits rolling competition.”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Let’s gets some sleep and do that.” As I hoped, he breaks into his boisterous laugh. “Last year, Brasi came in strong with fifty-eight pounds. I don’t even know how the fucker climbed out of the tub.”
It’s the dumbest competition. Well, truthfully, most of them are dumb.
But grits rolling is hilarious and much anticipated by all.
Participants jump into a pool of grits, flail around, and see how much they can collect within their clothing.
They are weighed before and after, and there are various tricks to hold more.
“I remember.” I smile, thinking about how Brasi idolizes Maddox.
He was in a really bad place when Maddox gave him the promotion.
His mom had died a few months earlier. Then his girlfriend broke up with him.
All the employees were concerned. He was drinking to a state of blacking out all the time.
Until Maddox made him run until he puked and told him he was his new assistant.
It was a few months before I terminated my employment and a little over a year before I killed Niko Makarov.
That was only one of the acts that made Maddox stand out to me, but the change in Brasi was enough for me to know he was more than he presented himself to be.
“Maybe your dad and Violet will want to come,” he suggests.
“Yeah, they might,” I agree. “I’ll take some videos and send them to Rena too. She’s missing La Lune Noire chaos.”
“She’d love that. She’s looked forward to this festival since we started it, when she was barely a teenager.
I still can’t believe she’s a mom.” A smile blasts across his face.
“I’d like to take Remy to see the Human Hungry Hippo competition.
Maybe you can even get your father to bring Adam and Anna. They’d probably love it too.”
I don’t have a chance to tell him that Eden barely allows me to be around them, so that will never happen, because the phone trills with an encrypted call.
Maddox answers via the vehicle’s Bluetooth, his booming tenor blaring through the cab. “Miss me already?”
“Always. Got something,” Liam sings. “Axel filled me in on some straggling details that had a bunch of things clicking. I think we can get this whole shit show called off.”
A sigh bursts out of me. I’m not sure I even realized how tense I was, but the thought of this ending has me opening my eyes to the beautiful twilight haze of the passing forest.
Maddox squeezes my thigh. “Give it to me.”
“We didn’t have a name for Vincent Lund’s grandson. He has nine. Only four are connected to his business. Or seemed to be. But Axel and I did some digging on the others. He had a hunch about something, and it panned out. Shane Graham—one of Lund’s grandsons—went to college with Hunter and—”
I huff in disbelief. “Shane went to college with Hunter? The same Shane? I guess it makes sense that I didn’t know that, but it’s weird.”
Maddox’s head whips toward me. “You know Shane Graham? Vincent Lund’s grandson?”
“Know of him. Well”—I mull it over for a second—“maybe it’s a coincidence. I stole a car when I was a teenager. The DA mentioned that it belonged to a guy a few years older than me, named Shane Graham.”
“Same guy,” Liam verifies.
Maddox bypasses that vital tidbit and gets to what he really wants to know. “You stole a car?”
I forgot I hadn’t shared that with him. “Long story. I’ll tell you more later.”
Of course he can’t let it go. “What kind of car, Nightmare?”
Shaking my head, I relent. “A 1965 Alfa Romeo Spider.” When he beams at my response, I shoo away his ill-timed enthusiasm to keep us on track. “What does this mean?”
“It means Shane Graham is likely the witness who saw me,” Maddox fills in. “And since he was the number one suspect with the Makarovs, he flipped it. I don’t know how you knowing him plays into it, but I’m assuming he and Hunter—”
“Have been cleaning the money in the Bahamas,” Liam interrupts. “It looks that way. A few other notable Lockhart-related folks have been on those trips too.”
“Who?” Maddox growls, and a pit forms in my stomach.
“Got it, Chief,” Liam mutters in the background before returning with, “Derek and John.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I snap, an oppressive lump blocking my airway.
What the hell is going on?
“Gage, Cash, and I are heading out to pick up Hunter. He’ll lead us to Shane Graham. We’ll let you handle questioning the other two. Ryker is getting ready to leave in a few minutes. He said to wait for him and just take care of Tessa.” Liam chuckles. “So many bossy fuckers in one room.”
“I hear that. Thanks, man,” Maddox says, ending the call, which immediately has “Wings” by Birdy playing.
Maddox threads my fingers with his, dusting his thumb over my skin. “We’ll figure this out, Tess. Don’t jump to conclusions about John and Derek.”
“It just doesn’t make sense.” I rub my forehead, my head already killing me with an oncoming migraine. “That can’t be right.”
I don’t say it because I know Hunter is a sore spot, but I can’t imagine him involved in this either.
Like always, he reads my thoughts. “I interrogated Hunter and thought the same. He was hiding shit, but I didn’t expect him to be partnering.”
“Right?” I agree. “And what would be Derek’s and John’s motivation?”
“Money?” Maddox hedges, but when he glimpses how tormented I am, he amends that conclusion. “Or it’s wrong, baby. Liam was only speculating. Maybe they were just along for the vacation.”
“That’s possible.” I stare at our clasped hands, comforted by his effort to assuage my anxiety. “I went to the Bahamas with Hunter. We all have. Maybe it’s nothing.”
“Let me handle it,” he insists with a tender brush of his thumb.
I’ve never felt comfortable with anyone handling anything for me, but Maddox is different.
He’s always safe. I lift my head to tell him I trust him, only to be blinded by two bright lights.
A monster truck rams into his door, launching us airborne into a roll that is both slow motion and far too fast.
Trees and blue and asphalt and sky.
Metal on metal. Pelting bullets. Screeching sounds of death and searing pain.
Stars and grass and crimson showers.
It was almost over. We were nearly home.
Another crash. Some echoed words. Music and wintry eyes.