Chapter Fifty-Four
Ryan
I’m in a world of my own as I walk through the lobby, heading toward the elevator with my hands loaded down with takeout bags and pizza boxes filled with the goods Maddie has been craving all day.
Her texts have been very food-based today, and so I did the only thing I could do.
I got my girl exactly what she wanted, even if it meant carrying home enough bags and boxes to stink my car out with greasy food.
Anything for my little troublemaker.
Smiling to myself, I walk past the reception desk, spotting Callie sorting through papers and envelopes on her desk. I don’t bother interrupting, heading for the elevator, awkwardly pressing the button and patiently waiting for its arrival.
The sound must draw Callie’s attention, because she suddenly calls, “Oh! Mr. Young?”
Peering over my shoulder, I raise a questioning eyebrow that Callie takes as an invitation to approach. In her hand is a simple white envelope, unassuming and normal-looking, so I wait until she’s near to ask, “Everything okay?”
Callie smiles politely, the sweet girl holding the envelope out toward me, and I look down to find Maddie’s name printed on the front, along with her address.
“This arrived this morning. Certified mail. I tried calling Maddie, but there wasn’t an answer.
Would you mind handing it to her, if you’re heading up to see her? ”
I stare at the envelope for a beat too long, a sinking feeling forming in my gut.
Something tells me I already know the contents of the envelope, and something bigger screams at me not to hand it over to Maddie, for fear that it might upset her.
Because there’s only one idiot in the world who would dare send Maddie a letter after almost killing her with a gun.
“Do you know what it is?” I ask Callie on the off chance that the mailman might have had some information to give her.
Callie only shakes her head. “No idea, sorry. But…”
She hesitates, chewing her lip before finally building the courage to quietly mention, “The news broke an hour ago. It’s all over the internet.”
Right. Of course.
The plea deal. Thirty years, no trial, no public testimony. Just paperwork, sentencing, and prison bars that will close around the rest of Toby Moore’s life.
Serves the fucker right.
It’s not enough for my liking, my deep-rooted need for the psycho to suffer for longer unsatisfied with the outcome, but I’m happy Maddie doesn’t have to go through the chaos a trial would bring.
Since the evidence supplied was sufficient enough to screw Toby’s life to kingdom come, there was no way he was escaping a hefty prison sentence.
It’s just a shame he won’t get the maximum he deserves since the bastard took a plea deal this morning to avoid several other charges that have now been dropped.
Eyebrows pinching, I nod once, accepting the envelope by balancing the bags and boxes awkwardly.
I slide the envelope into my bag, suddenly feeling as though I’m carrying a live grenade, and Callie smiles before she cautiously approaches a topic that has been nonstop in Maddie’s apartment for the past two weeks.
“How is Maddie coping? I haven’t seen much of her over the past two weeks, and I know the news is probably haunting her right now. ”
“I imagine she’s hiding in her home office right now. I’ll let her know you were asking about her,” I assure her, offering a smile that Callie thankfully accepts with a small nod and a wave before she disappears.
The apartment is quiet by the time I finally pass the threshold, not a peep to be heard.
It’s almost suspicious, because usually when there’s an awake Maddie, there’s plenty of noise.
Music. Her talking to herself. Arguing with Caiden about the cabinet space he’s overtaking with his healthy food, protein snacks, and powder.
Not-so-innocent noises I’ve grown addicted to hearing.
Today, however, there’s nothing but the soft hum of her computer coming from the hallway.
Placing the pizza boxes and takeout bags on the kitchen counter, wondering where the hell the others have scurried off to, I head toward the office.
Sure enough, I find Maddie curled sideways in her office chair wearing one of my baggy dress shirts that hangs off one of her dainty shoulders and a pair of short shorts that show off the long line of her slender legs.
Her blue hair falls messily around her shoulders in loose waves, her face bare save for a brush of mascara that makes her pale-blue eyes pop more than usual.
Maddie stares intently at the monitor screens through her clear-rimmed glasses that take up most of her face, all three of them plastered with news articles that glow against her creamy skin.
From where I stand in the doorway, I see Toby’s mugshot positioned in the top-left corner of her left monitor.
There are court details scattered over the rest of the screen.
Her middle monitor is playing the news without sound, and today’s hot topic is none other than the physical therapist turned stalker and almost-killer who tried to murder a famous photographer and the daughter of one of the world’s most well-known actor couples.
On the third monitor, there are comment threads I know aren’t doing anything to help the situation, and one look at Maddie’s face tells me she’s more tired than she’s letting on.
Not broken, just a little worn around the edges.
Like she desperately needs a vacation. Thankfully, a vacation that is just around the corner.
The takeout smell reaches her before she notices I’m even standing in the doorway, and her head slowly swings toward me. As soon as I’m blessed with that beautiful pale-eyed gaze, Maddie’s face softens and a beautiful smile appears on her face.
“Hey, handsome. When did you get back?” she asks, awkwardly righting herself in her chair. My shirt slips on her body, revealing far more skin than she probably intended, and I catch a peek of her braless chest before she shrugs the shirt back into position.
Refusing to be distracted by her delectable body, I head over to her and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear before I answer, “Just a few minutes ago. Don’t suppose you plan on dining on actual sustenance today rather than the caffeine I’m pretty sure you’re half-made of?”
She points lazily to a smoothie cup Caiden bought her recently, a matching one to his, and tells me, “Protein.”
“That’s not food,” I argue gently, eyeing the cup with an intense desire to throw it out of the window much like Maddie did with the hellish lube that, and I quote, almost decimated her goodies.
Maddie frowns, looking at the cup with confusion. “What do you mean? It had peanut butter in it. That’s food, is it not?”
“No. That’s not food,” I deadpan, and Maddie grins faintly right before she looks back toward the monitor screens.
The smile slips almost immediately, and I hate it.
I hate it just as much as I hate the way her shoulders tense at any mention of Toby Moore.
I hate it as much as I hate that she’s currently torturing herself by delving deep into every news article and message board she can find.
Tucking my hand into the same pocket where the envelope lies, I instantly start debating whether or not to set the thing on fire, for no other reason than allowing Maddie to find some shred of peace since Toby went berserk.
Something she hasn’t found much of in the past two weeks.
Between the nightmares that have struck her and her unwillingness to leave the apartment after dark, the only time Maddie seems out of her head at all is when she’s at work, or when the guys and I distract her in some shape or form.
I’m happy to distract her whenever she needs distracting, and I’d never complain, but when she isn’t crying out with orgasms, moaning around our cocks, or screaming as she rides us, then she’s as silent as the dead as she loses herself to her thoughts and memories.
And now I’m carrying around yet another grenade Toby wishes to throw at her.
Jaw clenching as I decide not to hand it over for her own peace of mind, Maddie turns just as I remove my hand from my pocket and notices the movement instantly.
“What’s that poking out of your pocket?” she wonders lightly, simply curious.
It’s that curiosity that will be the end of her, I’m sure of it.
There’s no real good answer to give her, and lying seems like the worst option imaginable, so I simply walk toward her, sliding the envelope carefully onto the desk beside her keyboard.
Maddie’s eyes flick downward, then they narrow slightly on the text written on the front of the envelope. “Do I actually want to know what that is?”
Shrugging, I tell her, “That’s entirely up to you, trouble. I think we both know where it came from, though.”
“Of course I do. I’d recognize his writing anywhere after he fucked my car up,” she grumbles, reaching for the envelope and turning it around to check the opening.
She hesitates for a moment, and I tell her quietly, “You don’t have to open it, you know? I’m more than happy to set it on fire, bury the ashes, and let a passerby’s dog piss on it.”
A shocked burst of laughter breaks out of her, and my shoulders instantly relax at the sound, the beauty of it setting me at ease. That’s more like my Maddie. Vibrant and full of life, quick to laugh, and easily the most incredible woman I know.
She takes a deep breath before finally opening the envelope, sliding out a small piece of paper that looks like it contains a handwritten letter.
She leans back in her chair before she starts reading over the words, and I stay exactly where I am.
Not because I’m nosy, but because there isn’t a single universe that exists where I would leave her alone with something like this.
It takes everything within me these days to leave the apartment when I know she’s here alone.