Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
MADDOX
“What the hell happened here?” Mercy's voice cuts through the chaos as he steps into my office, his eyes widening at the sight of the wreckage. I sit on the floor, my back against the filing cabinet, clutching Livvy’s stuffed lion like a lifeline. He hesitates for a moment before joining me on the floor, the weight of the moment settling in.
“Okay, how bad is it?” he asks, his gaze scanning the destruction, but I can tell he isn’t referring to the mess around us.
“Bad,” I admit, shame crashing over me like a tidal wave. “I threatened her with a belt.”
Mercy's sharp gasp pierces the silence, disappointment radiating from him like a palpable force. “Oh, you fucking idiot! How could you do something like that? Why would you do something like that?”
Disgust is etched across Mercy’s face. The disappointment in my brother's eyes cuts deeper than any words could express. The silence weighs heavily on me, a stark reminder of the trust I’ve shattered and the distance I’ve created between me and the one person I care about the most.
“Vic is going to kill you.”
“I know.” That old bastard will be coming for me; it’s only a matter of time, and deep down, I know I deserve it. There’s no excuse for what I did. She was only trying to comfort me, reaching out in my darkest moments, but I was too consumed by my own pain to see her intentions clearly. Instead of allowing myself to be vulnerable, I lashed out, using the very things I knew would frighten her to keep her at arms distance.
"I want to kill you myself," my usually carefree brother says, a rare flash of rage breaking through his usually calm demeanor.
“I know,” I tell him defeated.
We sit in the heavy silence a few more moments when Merc clears his throat. “I’m sorry about what I said to you at Evie’s that day. It just hurt us all so much that you wouldn’t let us be there for you.”
Merc never was one for kicking a man when he was down, but I knew he needed to get this off his chest and I needed to hear it.
"I didn't think I deserved you all to be there for me." I felt that after everything I had done, I deserved my self-imposed isolation, not the comfort of my family. I had pushed them away, convinced that my mistakes were so severe that I couldn't accept their love or support. The guilt gnawed at me, a relentless reminder of my failures, and I believed that withdrawing was the only way to atone.
But it wasn’t until I nearly lost Merc that I truly understood how wrong I had been. The moment I realized he was in danger, a wave of panic washed over me, shattering the walls I had built around my heart. In that instant, I recognized the depth of my need for my family—the very ones I had turned away. They were my lifeline, the ones who could help me navigate through the darkness I had chosen to endure alone.
As I watched Merc fight for his life, I felt a desperate longing for connection, a yearning to bridge the gap I had created. I realized that isolation was a prison of my own making, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I needed my family, their strength, their love, and their unwavering support. Yet, I found myself at a loss for how to express that need, trapped in my own shame. The realization hit me hard: vulnerability was not a weakness but a strength.
“We’re your family, Maddox. We needed you! We needed to be there for each other, for our sake and yours. We all needed to grieve together, but you cut us off. You ignored our calls, moved away, and wouldn’t tell anyone where you were. Just think of poor Mama, always worrying about you—you became a ghost.”
I hang my head with shame. “I couldn’t stay there anymore. Surround by all her little toys, and clothes. I just couldn’t.”
Merc reaches over and gently takes the stuffed lion from my hands. He traces the stitching back and forth. “I lost a good friend over there, served the last three years together.” He doesn’t have to tell me where, I know.
Mercy leans his head back against the filing cabinet and closes his eyes. “He shoved me out of the way and took the full force of the blast. Some nights, I dream that his charred body is lying next to me in bed. He doesn’t say a word; he just stares at me with this haunted expression. I scream "why" over and over at him. Demanding he tell me why he’d do that, but he never fucking answers me. I should have been the one that died that day, not him.”
As his voice cracks, I pull my baby brother into my arms, wrapping him in a tight embrace as he breaks down in tears. I can feel his body shaking against mine, the rawness of his emotions flooding the space between us. Soon enough, my own tears begin to spill, mirroring his sorrow. We're both adrift in a vast sea of loss and devastation, swallowed by a grief that feels too heavy to bear.
In that moment, I realize this is Merc’s way of reaching out—his quiet invitation for me to join him in his pain. He’s letting me in, allowing me to share the burden that’s been weighing him down, and I understand how desperately he needs this connection. Together, we navigate the turbulent waters of our hearts, intertwined in our shared grief.
I hold him tighter, feeling the weight of our collective sadness, and I wish I could shield him from it all. But as I wipe away his tears, I know that facing this together, side by side, is the only way we can begin to heal. In this embrace, I find solace, knowing that he doesn’t have to drown in his sorrow alone; I’m here, and together, we’ll find a way through the darkness.
Later he helps me clean up my office.
“I’m glad you moved back home, even if it took me damn near dying to get you here,” he says with a lopsided grin as he sweeps up the broken glass from earlier.
“Well, I’m not going nowhere so don’t fucking do it again.”
“No shit.”
He starts singing some God-awful rendition of some pop song and I almost plug my damn ears.
“What the hell happened in here?” I didn’t even notice Henry had walked in thanks to Merc’s can’t carry a tune ass. Henry looks at my desk propped against the wall, then at the glass Mercy’s sweeping up, before quirking an eyebrow at me.
“He fucked up, big time,” Mercy sings.
I growl at my baby brother to shut his damn mouth.
Henry levels me with a stare I’m sure he uses on the local teens that sneak into Bangers with a fake ID. Too bad that shit doesn’t work on me, he may be the big brother, but I’m bigger and can take him.
“What brings you by?” I ask him like a chicken shit, hoping to deflect the question.
“Well, I came by to work out and check on you.” He looks around my office. “I know how hard this day is for you and I didn’t want you to be alone. Guess I was right.” He’s right, Livvy’s birthday is one of the worst days of the year for me, he just doesn’t know how much worse I made today.
All that aside I really have the best fucking family. How I’ve went the last few years without them I don’t know. “Thank you,” I tell him earnestly.
Henry gives me a slight nod. “So, how’d you fuck up?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Well, I?—"
“Well, he was in here getting shit faced when Sugar stopped by, and he lost it on her.” Damn Mercy! The man really can’t hold water.
Henry’s eyes turn to slits. “Lost it on her how, Maddox?”
“Threw his desk across the room, backed her in the corner, and then threaten her with a belt. I’m sure she was just trying to comfort the big grouchy bitch.”
“MERCY!”
“Maddox, please tell me you didn’t,” Henry says looking at the ceiling before leveling me with his big brother is disappointed look. That always unnerves me. Maybe because our daddy died when we were so young and he took that responsibility on, but it fucking gets to me. Doesn’t matter if I’m bigger than him or not.
I look at the ground refusing to look him in the eye.
“What the hell is wrong with you Maddox Cole? Is that what you do now? Hurt women? After everything you watched mama go through?”
“No! I would never. I just wanted to be left alone to drink my whiskey and miss my daughter. I never meant to frighten her.”
I’m abruptly reminded of our first kiss—how she recoiled in fear, her eyes wide as she begged me not to hit her with a damn belt. The memory cuts deep and I struggle to find the words to capture the weight of my regret for ever threatening her like that. It gnaws at me, knowing I crossed a line I should never have. I never wanted to be that man, yet here I am.
“Don’t worry Henny, Sugar slapped those glasses clean off his face,” Mercy says with a sense of pride.
“If she decides to press charges, brother or not, I’ll make sure your ass is locked up,” Henry warns .
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” I reply, bracing myself, half expecting him to put cuffs on me right now.
Henry exhales sharply. “Vic’s going to have your head on a silver platter. You’d better hope you can fix this before he catches wind of it. Or worse,” he shudders, “before Louisiana.”
Vic didn’t kill me, but he arrived at the gym shortly after my brothers left. I was in my office debating on rather to give Evie time before going to see her or not. I didn’t want to make matters worse. When he kicked my door in and saw me slumped in my chair, he ordered me to stand up and take it like a man.
Make no mistake: I was used to getting hit. Hell, I did it for a living. But Vic was a different beast entirely. His fist felt like an anchor crashing down on me, and I was grateful the bastard only threw a few punches. Two to the face and one to the gut, each blow sending shockwaves through my body. As I crumpled to the ground, he looked down at me with disdain and spat, “Be a better fucking man,” before turning on his heel and walking away.