25. Chapter 25
Felicia
My teeth clench hard enough to squeak. I turn on my heels, needing to put distance between me and the sight of Nathyn’s tortured corpse.
The door slams against the wall, rattling on its hinges as I burst through it into the dimly lit hallway.
“Where you going Flea? Don’t tell me the blood domme can’t handle getting her hands a little dirty.” Rylen sneers, following me out of the backroom. I spin on my heels and almost crash into Maddox’s tall frame. I didn’t realise he was so close behind me.
Maddox side-steps me over to the nearest wall, and leans back with his left leg raised to the concrete keeping him balanced. He pulls out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and sparks a flame in one fluid motion.
“Gee, sorry for not being up to this ,” I snarl, pointing to the blood splattered flooring still visible in the low light of the hallway. “Accessory-to-murder wasn’t exactly on my agenda for today.”
My arms fold instinctively across my body, shoulders trembling from the cold air. I wish I wasn’t still wearing this ridiculous fucking corset.
I dig my fingers tighter into the flesh pebbling my forearms, trying to force them to hold still. The last thing I need right now is to give that big idiot more ammo to make me seem weak.
A cloud of smoke cuts through the tension of the simmering glares Rylen and I are throwing each other. Maddox scrubs a hand across his stubbly jaw, exhaustion dragging at his features.
Why the hell is he still here? Why hasn’t Maddox thrown him out yet? I’m certainly not taking the fall for something his deranged ass decided to do.
“It’s not typically on anyone’s,” Maddox mumbles around the cigarette held between his lips.
“Speak for yourself,” Rylen quips, taking up residence against the opposite wall, smirking in Maddox’s direction.
The two men stare at each other for a beat before erupting into a fit of laughter, like they just heard the funniest thing in the world. Rage spreads through my entire nervous system like wildfire.
Now I’m shaking for an entirely different reason. Rylen picks his jacket off the floor and holds it out to me, like some idiotic kind of peace offering.
Fuck. That.
I smack the jacket out of his hand. It hits the floor with a soft thud.
“Great. Crack a fucking joke,” I snap. My voice is rising with each word, slicing through the air. I could smack Ry across his stupid smug face.
“It’s going to be hilarious when our entire lives implode because you’re a hot-headed psychopath. What’s the matter? Mummy didn’t hug you enough as a child?”
His expression hardens in an instant, knuckles clenching at his sides. My heart is thundering in my chest, threatening to burst out like some creature from an 80s SCI-FI movie.
He pushes away from the wall, quickly closing the distance between us with the kind of intent that causes the hairs on my neck to rise.
But Maddox moves faster. He steps between us, placing a steadying hand against Rylen’s chest like he’s trying to hold back an oncoming storm. He leans in whispering close to Ry’s ear.
They seem to be having some sort of a heated discussion. The only words I can make out are “ no bears, ” I scrunch my face up as I contemplate what the actual fuck that could even mean.
Rylen’s shoulders lower ever so slightly, and Maddox must register the shift because he withdraws his hand and takes a step back, voice returning to its usual volume.
“Go home. Take a shower and cool off. I’ll be there as soon as I’m done with this,” he says soothingly.
“You’ve got to be kidding me?” I scoff.
That asshole was going to deck me and yet Mads is speaking to him with compassion? This is some grade-A bullshit. Something has shifted between them since the threesome and I don’t like it. Not if Maddox is going to be taking his side on everything from now on.
Rylen’s nose flares as his eyes carve daggers into mine. He tells me to go to hell as he rips his leather jacket off the floor, and storms off down the corridor. My stare cuts to Maddox who looks entirely unfazed while he takes another long pull on the cigarette.
I throw my arms up in disbelief—I know I should keep my mouth shut but I can’t help the aggression he draws out of me.
As Rylen’s hand reaches the door handle at the end of the corridor, I call out one last jab. “Aw, you gonna run off and leave me and Maddox here together, all alone?”
He doesn’t look back. Just slams the door behind him. Maddox whirls towards me, so fast it has me drawing in a sharp breath.
“Felicia. That’s enough!” He barks, voice bellowing in the confined space. It makes my shoulders draw together on instinct, trying to shrink in on myself.
He tosses the cigarette butt to the side and storms out leaving me alone and disoriented. I wrap my arms around myself, following his retreating form.
My knuckles lightly rap against the hardwood of Maddox’s office door. I push it open tentatively and spot him standing next to the illuminated fireplace. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs as I slip inside, quietly making my way over to his couch.
The reflection in the window shows him staring out into the city lights, but it looks like he’s not even really here. Like he’s somewhere else, lost deep in thought .
I fidget with the hem of my skirt, stalling for the right thing to say. I know I’ve pushed too far… He’s quieter than usual, not in the calculating way I’m used to, this is different. He hasn’t uttered a word to me. Hasn’t even looked in my direction since I entered.
The feeling twists something dark in my stomach, it rises up my throat with a burning that has me fighting back tears. I pour myself a glass of whisky from the side table, quickly gulping it down and lean back. The leather cushions creak under my shifting weight.
I stumble over the words in my head, trying to voice them in a way that seems casual, but even I can tell they seem forced.
“What is it with you and Rylen?” I finally manage. Maddox exhales slowly and deeply, like he already knew this was coming.
“Felicia… Can we not do this now? Please?” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Dark circles are etched in the hollows beneath his eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Maddox look this weathered before.
And still, I can’t let it go. The desire to understand what’s so special about Rylen burns through every corner of my soul.
“I just—I need to know Mads… Why do you always give him so many second chances?”
His head falls forward to rest against the arm that’s leaning on the window frame, I can see his face reflected in the window and it looks… broken.
My brow raises into an arch, drawing out the silence when he doesn’t immediately respond .
“Ry’s… complicated. But he’s not some fucking monster,” he says with a scowl. A small scoff escapes my lips before I can stop it.
Maddox turns, angling his body towards me until he’s standing to his full height. His shadow crawls up the ceiling like some boogeyman from my worst nightmare. His face is devoid of all emotion by the time he speaks again.
“When I was eleven, my old man was shot dead. Right in front of me.” He doesn’t flinch when he says it. Doesn’t even try to soften the edges.
“He owed money to the wrong people. They didn’t know I was there, didn’t even bother to look, just pulled the trigger…. They left him bleeding on the kitchen floor while I stood ten-feet away, frozen and terrified as I watched him bleed out.”
I hadn’t realised I’d stopped breathing until my lungs started burning and rapidly sucking in a gasp of air. Jesus. I don’t know what I was expecting to hear, but it sure as shit wasn’t that.
A scratchy lump swells in my throat at the image of Maddox as a young boy; skin soaked in fearful sweat. Helpless as he was forced to listen to his father suck in his last breaths.
“Mads. I-I’m so sorry,” I whisper. My hands are trembling with the need to reach out and touch him, pull him close and soothe him. But that’s not the kind of relationship we have… that’s not who Maddox is.
And now I understand why.
He continues solemnly, “when my uncle could no longer handle me, they stuck me in juvie. The kind of place where you learn real fast not to need anyone.” He takes a drag of his cigarette, exhales toward the glass window then eyes drop to his feet as he turns around towards me.
“Rylen had already been there for a year. His mother was a junkie, and her boyfriend liked to remind Ry that he wasn’t welcome… and that if he ever looked at another boy ‘the wrong way’, they’d beat it out of him. He didn’t talk about it much, but I knew what that kind of hatred did to him.”
There’s a pause, a flicker in Maddox’s gaze like he’s replaying something only he can see. Guilt churns in my gut over the comment I made about Rylen’s mum. I’m such a piece of shit.
“We didn’t really talk about our feelings back then.
But we knew—he had my back, and I had his.
We figured out the rules the hard way. Don’t trust the staff, never show weakness.
And when we couldn’t take it anymore, we ran.
He was nearly eighteen, I was sixteen. We had no money, no plan.
Just knew we weren’t staying in that hellhole. ”
Instinctively I lean forward, wanting to reach out. My hand stills halfway to pushing myself off the couch, scared that if I move too fast he’ll shut down. This is the most open and honest Maddox has ever been with me.
I clear my throat, unsure how to keep him talking. “And you went straight into this?” I gesture to the room around us.
He smirks, but it’s thin. “Not exactly. We started at the bottom; Muscle for people who needed dirty work done. Busted heads, collected debts, dealt in weapons and gear. And somewhere along the way, I saw the kind of empire I could build—one where I made the rules instead of following orders like a fucking dog.” Maddox throws the butt of his cigarette to the floor, stubbing it out with the toe of his shoe.
“Rylen’s been there every step. Not just because he’s my right hand. He’s… been the only constant I’ve ever really known.”
I study him intently, and for once, he doesn’t look away.
“Had you ever stopped to think that maybe it’s because you’re in-love with each other?” I ask, tone deliberately light, but I catch the faintest hitch in his breath from my words and I know I’ve said too much.
Maddox’s jaw tightens, eyes dropping to his glass. “It wasn’t that simple.”
“Because of him? Or because of you?” I push. He doesn’t answer, just turns back to the window, the silence thick enough to choke on.
When he finally speaks, his voice has hardened, the mask he wears like armour sliding back in place.
“I thought that if Rylen ever knew half the shit I’ve fantasised about him—it’d ruin everything we’ve built.
And it did, at first, but now…” he smiles softly, making his way over to the side table for a glass of whisky.
“Some things are worth destroying if they’re in the way of your happiness,” I murmur, thinking about Nathyn’s lifeless body. If push came to shove, I likely would have killed him myself if it meant saving Tristan.
“Yes, they are.” Maddox replies, lost in some private memory. I exhale deeply through my nostrils.
“I should apologise to Rylen,” I sigh.
I stand in the elevator of the penthouse, my reflection in the polished brass looking like a stranger. My stomach is a nest of live wires. I shouldn’t be here, but the guilt of what I said earlier—the sharp, ugly things I hurled at Rylen—is a weight I can’t carry into tomorrow.
The doors slide open with a hushed, expensive whistle, revealing the expanse of Maddox’s sanctuary.
Rylen is sitting on the couch next to a fluffy little black and white cat. He’s silhouetted against the city lights, looking frayed at the edges.
When I try to apologise, the words feel clumsy, like I’m trying to handle Ming-dynasty porcelain with oven mitts. He doesn’t even let me finish. His eyes, dark and hollowed out by the day’s horrors, narrow with a lethal kind of intuition.
“What—why are you doing that?” he demands, his voice cutting through my rehearsed speech.
“What am I doing?” I try to keep my tone even, but my pulse is drumming against my collarbone.
“Treating me like a fucking person. What’s gotten into you?”
I falter, and start to stammer, grasping for some neutral ground; some way to bridge the gap without admitting what I know.
I beat around the bush, my sentences dying halfway through, but Rylen’s patience is non-existent. He looks beyond pissed, like a man who’s already seen the end of the world and is just waiting for the fire to reach him.
“What did he tell you?” he growls, standing up and stalking towards me.
“Who?” I stammer, not meeting his gaze.
“Don’t fucking ‘who’ me,” Rylen thunders, the sound vibrating through the floorboards and making my teeth ache. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Now tell me what Maddox told you.”
I take a breath, the air in the penthouse feeling thin and sterile. I can’t lie to him—not when he’s looking at me like I’m the one holding the blade.
“Rylen… I know that you love him, truly I do,” I say, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “And what you went through was horrible—”
“I don’t want your fucking pity,” he spits, the venom in his voice enough to make me recoil.
“I’m not giving it!” I snap back, my own spine straightening as my temper flares to match his. “And do not speak over me again.” The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
We stand there, two people caught in the gravity of the same powerful man, locked in a brutal stare-down. Rylen’s jaw is tight, his chest heaving, until finally, he gives a sharp, infinitesimal nod.
I glance over at the couch to find that the poor little cat has run off somewhere, probably in hiding. It must be awful having such an angry man as your owner.
“I do believe that you truly love Maddox,” I continue, the cold logic of the situation finally taking over my heart. “Which is why I know you’ll do what’s best for him. And I’m sorry, but after today, I think we both know that he deserves more.”
I take a step into his personal space, forcing him to see the grim reality in my eyes.
“I mean, you killed a man, Rylen—you tortured him to death. That kind of thing doesn’t just go away. Do you really want to drag Maddox down with you when you inevitably get caught?”