31. Maddison #2
The rope cuts deeper into my wrists as I twist weakly against it, as if maybe I can crawl out of my own skin. I feel something inside me splitting clean down the centre. Not heartbreak this time. Not the desperate ache of a daughter begging to be loved.
This is something colder.
Something final.
All those nights I stayed late at the office trying to prove myself. Trying to earn approval. Trying to be enough.
Enough for what?
For a man who used my face and my smile to sanitise the blood on his hands?
Another wave of nausea hits, but I swallow it down, trembling.
“You don’t have the nerve,” my father snaps. “If you release that information, you bury yourself.”
Zeke gives a soft laugh. “You still think I’m involved? I never touched your operation. I simply watched and made you feel as if I were there beside you. For a businessman like yourself, all I needed to do was pick at that ego of yours.”
Delight flashes in Zeke’s eyes, as if he’s proud of himself.
“You’ve been blackmailing me,” my father breathes.
Zeke crouches in front of me, and for a second, I think he’s going to touch me, but he doesn’t. He just studies my face, eyes flicking over the tears, the swelling, the wreckage.
“I’m bored with this conversation,” he mutters into the phone, dark eyes pinned on mine. “You know where to send the money.”
And with that, he ends the call. Taking away the voice of the person I hate the most.
My inhales are rough as I glare back at him, teeth grinding together. Nails bite into my skin as I ball my hands on the armrests of the chair, my body trembling. The pain from my wounds is distant now, anger and disgust at the forefront of my mind.
“Oh, darling,” Zeke murmurs, almost pitying.
“Don’t cry for him.” He lifts a tattooed hand, his thumb skating across my cheek to capture a tear.
When he brings it back, he studies it, rubbing the moisture between his fingers as if it were a rarity.
His eyes flick back to mine, turning hard and dark.
“However bad you think he might be... he’s worse. Much, much worse.”
And with that, he stands, leaving the room without a single glance back.
Zeke’s footsteps fade down the corridor, the sound swallowed by concrete and distance until the room is left with nothing but the low buzz of the light overhead and the ragged rhythm of my breathing.
The silence he leaves behind is worse than his voice.
His presence was poison, but at least it was something I could focus on...
an enemy I could hate. Now there are only my thoughts, which are dark and disturbing and downright furious.
I swallow, and it feels like my body is trying to reject itself.
My stomach clenches again, but there’s nothing left inside me.
Just bile and humiliation and the sickening, unstoppable realisation that my father might just be the worst person I have ever met.
And I’ve been hanging out with gang members.
My vision flicks to the two knives still embedded in my thigh, following the dripping blood down to where I’d been sick, the mess pooling by the feet of the chair I’m tied to.
My vision swims, and the room tilts slightly.
I blink hard, trying to force myself back into my body. I’m here. I’m still here. I’m still...
A sound breaks the silence.
Not Zeke.
Kai.
A strained exhale mixed with the faint clink of his chains. The tiniest shift of his weight against restraints that have been cutting into him for too long.
“Maddison,” he says quietly.
My eyes fall shut at the sound of his voice. The sound of my friend. It sounds like a hand reaching into cold water and grabbing hold.
I don’t answer. I can’t. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out . The grief is lodged too deep. Behind my eyelids, I see him.
Ash.
A man who has committed so much crime, yet none of it is as horrific as what my father has committed. His messy dark hair, his inked fingers gripping his motorcycle handlebars. Those blue eyes that showed me everything he was feeling, when his lips couldn’t.
I feel a laugh build in my chest, sharp and hysterical, and it dies before it escapes. There’s nothing funny here... not really. Maybe the fact that I can feel myself dying, and I can’t tell the man that I love how I feel about him?
Kai’s chains shift again. He leans forward as much as they’ll allow, and when he speaks again, his voice is steadier.
“Look at me.”
My lashes flutter. My gaze drifts up, slow and heavy, like moving my eyes takes more strength than moving my body.
Kai’s eyes don’t leave me. They hold the line between me and whatever darkness is trying to drag me under.
“I love him,” I whisper, voice thick as the words fall out. If I can’t tell Ash, I need to tell someone. I force my drowsy gaze to hold his. “I love him, Kai...”
My face crumples and a sound slips out of me like something dying. Hot tears slide down my face, streaking down my cheeks, catching on the swelling and the dried blood and the places that ache when I breathe.
“And I chose that asshole over him. That disgusting... horrific man over Ash. How could I do that?” My voice takes on a slight slur as exhaustion weighs heavily on my shoulders.
“And now I’m going to die. And I can’t even say sorry.
Will... will you? Will you tell him that I’m sorry?
And that... He is the best person... That I know... And I lo... I love him!”
My eyes drift closed, needing to see him again, if only in my mind. Those dimples. Those lips. Why is he so damn pretty? It’s not fair.
“Eyes on me, Maddy,” Kai grits out again, and they open, finding him staring at me. “Don’t you fucking close those eyes again. And you’ll tell him yourself.”
A sad, pathetic huff leaves me as my lip trembles.
“I won’t tell him... I’m dying, Kai. Promise me you’ll tell him?” I murmur, a sad smile curving my lips.
Kai’s jaw tightens, a muscle ticking once near his temple. For a second, his eyes look past me, not at the mess on the floor, not at the knives buried in my thigh, but at something inside his own head. His lashes flutter as those dark eyes focus back on me.
“You’re not dying,” he says, and there’s no comfort in it, no softness. It’s a statement... an order. “Not here.”
I let out a weak, broken laugh that turns into a wince. “Kai...”
“Promise me you’ll keep your eyes on me. And I’ll promise you I’ll tell Ash you love him,” he cuts in again, voice turning urgent.
My lashes flutter. The room swims. But I drag my gaze back up to him because t’s the only thing that feels solid. Nodding, I keep my eyes on him.
Kai’s chest rises slowly, controlled.
“You didn’t choose him,” Kai says after a beat, and something sharp presses into my chest at how certain he sounds. “You were conditioned to. There’s a difference.”
Words spoken by a man who rarely speaks, comforts me more than I thought would be possible right now. Down here, in this concrete cell where hope shouldn’t be a possibility, he gives it to me.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I whisper, the words barely squeezing out. “To spend your whole life trying to be... enough. To think if you just do one more thing right, he’ll finally look at you like you matter. And for what?” I scoff, shaking my head. “To find out who he really is.”
Kai’s gaze doesn’t waver. “I know what it’s like to be raised by a man who thinks love is earned,” he says, voice flat. Something dark enters his voice. “And I know what it does to you.”