Chapter 4—Maddox—Past
The first thing I feel when I start to wake up is pain. An unbearable pain I never thought possible is searing through my whole body. My eyes hurt, my arm is killing me, and my ribs and chest scream with every breath I attempt to take, but the worst pain is coming from my leg.
What the hell happened to me? I try to remember where I was last, but my head seems to be filled with nothing but dark holes. I attempt to open my eyes again, blinking fiercely at the pain from the bright lights.
I groan and try to move my arm to my eyes, coming up short when it smacks me in the head with a bone-crushing force. What the hell? Peeking through my eyelids, I see a bulky cast covering my arm from hand to shoulder.
Then it hits me. Johnson, Morris, and the bomb.
With a renewed rush of strength, I push my body to listen and open my eyes to look around the barren hospital room.
Where the hell am I?
I locate the call button and wait for someone to come and explain some things to me. Did Johnson make it? Did Morris’s body make it home? Where am I? And why the hell am I in so much pain?
An hour later, I feel like my world is coming to an end. The only thing getting me through is the thought of Mercy and our child. The nurse just left with the promise to call my family—well, Mercy—and let her know that I’m awake. It’s been almost a month since I got here.
As I fight the sleep that my body is demanding, I also battle with the fact that I’ve lost a chunk of my life. Numerous surgeries to mend my broken body have left me with a badly broken but healing arm, seven broken ribs, and one foot.
After the rest of our team found me dragging Johnson and Morris, we were taken the military outpost. I was airlifted to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center next to the US air base in Ramstein, Germany, as soon as I was stable enough to be moved.
Despite my best efforts, Johnson and Morris didn’t make it. I can’t even get past the part that I’m now going to have to learn how to walk again—not when my brothers didn’t make it out alive. All because I was fucked up in the head from my problems at home. I missed the danger, and because of that, their families are husbandless and fatherless.
Hours later, I wake with a jolt. It takes me a second to realize that the screaming echoing throughout the room is coming from my own mouth. I’m soaked through with sweat from my nightmare of the bombing, but what has me screaming isn’t reliving that hell. No, what woke me is the sensation that my foot is being sawed off. My whole leg feels like I’ve dipped it into a shredder.
“FUCK!” I scream, doing my best to get the covers off my feverish body. “Goddamn it!” I hear the heart monitor screaming as I force my body to move. To get to my leg before the pain becomes too much to bear.
After throwing back the covers, I reach down with the arm not in a cast and come up empty. The pain is getting worse with each second, but when I look down, there is nothing. Nothing but a covered stump halfway down from my knee. I scream from pain so uncontrollably violent that I start to vomit all over myself and frantically search for a way to turn off the feelings coming from a foot that is no longer part of my body.
A month later, marking seven months since I’ve been away from home, I’ve become used to the nightmares that wake me in pain to search for my missing foot. My wails have become a constant companion for the emptiness that’s become my life. I fight with the depression that has settled over my body like a thick blanket.
The depression didn’t sink in until I got a letter from Mary, Johnson’s widow, telling me to stop trying to contact her family. The blame for her husband’s death is all mine. By allowing myself close to him, her, and their kids, I have ruined their lives.
“It should have been you, Maddox. I would have my husband and my children would have their father had you not failed them. I will never forgive you for ruining my life.”
Her words are a constant companion. I wake alone and I go to sleep alone.
The majority of my time is spent making sure the rest of my body doesn’t succumb to the darkness swirling around me. Doctors in and out, nurses, physical therapists—you name it. My room has become a revolving door of medical personnel. There’s one thing that is painfully missing from this time.
Mercy.
She was notified. I know that much. But she hasn’t come. Didn’t even pick up when I called her over and over. My letters come back unopened. My own mother and brother didn’t even care—not that I’m shocked there—but Mercy? My Mercy against the world I’ve been fighting since birth is gone, just gone. The hope is eclipsed more and more each day she isn’t here.
“Well don’t you look like shit,” a deep voice jokes from the doorway.
I turn my head and lock eyes with Reid. He’s part of my team, but he wasn’t with me out on the field. He and the other men were clearing another part of the area when we took the other.
“Won’t be winning any beauty contest. That’s for fucking sure,” Beck says, coming in behind him.
“Coop and Cage are on the way. We’re getting the hell out of here and taking you with us. Time to go home and get the fuck out of this bed,” Reid says. He gives me a lopsided smile, trying to ease some of the thickness in the air.
“Have you been able to get Mercy?” I ask. I don’t give a damn about anything else right now. I need my girl. I need to know that she and our child are okay. Everything I’ve been pushing my body to do since the day I woke has been for her. I’ll get stronger; I’ll overcome—for them.
“Yeah, brother, we have,” he says weakly.
Beck won’t meet my eyes, and that damn sense of dread starts to fall over me.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Why don’t we focus on getting you Stateside and walking again?” Reid tries to change the subject, his green eyes boring into mine.
“Tell me where the hell she is, Reid.”
He flinches but doesn’t say anything. Until I hear the voice I hoped I wouldn’t have the displeasure of hearing again for a long time break through the silence.
“Oh you really are such stupid boy.” She clicks her tongue. “They’re not telling you because they seem to think you need to be eased into the news.” She laughs. “I would ask how you are, but it looks like that demon seed that made you finally started to nip away at you. Quite literally.”
“You fucking bitch,” Cage sneers from the doorway behind my mother.
“No need for name-calling, dear. I’m just here to make sure there isn’t anything tying me responsible for the invalid now that it’s time for him to be discharged. Can’t have that now. He’s all yours, little boy.” She pats Cage on the chest a few times before walking into the room. “It was such a long flight. Let me sit for a second before I tell you a little bedtime story.” She walks over to where Beck’s leaning back and gaping at her in the room’s only chair. “Up now,” she demands with a flick of her wrist.
Beck, being the lover and not fighter of the group, stands without argument and moves out of her way.
She sits, dusting off her black pants with her hands before folding them in her lap. I look up and meet her hard gaze, staring her straight on, refusing to let her see any weakness in me.
“Story time, bastard son of mine.” She pauses—I’m sure for dramatic flare. “Once upon a time, there was a son born out of an accidental affair with the pool boy. Such a terrible decision on the mother’s end, being that she was married with a perfect little angel already. Oh, and that her husband couldn’t have more children. Imagine the scandal that rocked the house when she became pregnant. Of course, the husband was deeply confused, determined to stand by her side while the mother worked her magic and had her husband believing in miracles.”
She laughs before her face falls and becomes serious again. “But that little bastard was nothing but trouble from day one. The mother was sick for the whole pregnancy, convinced that she was going to die from the demon inside her body. Her little prince suffered because she was feeling too unwell to care for him. Her husband—that miracle-believing fool—finally found out the truth when the baby was born. He looked nothing like his wife or other son, but instead favoring the dark complexion of a member of their staff. It was quite the time. Sure, that little bastard looked a little like his mother, but the differences were too vast for her lie to be believed. Like a thief in the night, her husband was gone.”
She pauses while I struggle to keep up with what is obviously my life story. Sure, I’ve always been a little tanner than the rest of the family, but I share my mother’s dark eyes and black hair. I always assumed that my brother just took after our father.
Holy shit.
“Ah, I see it’s sinking in now. Yes, Maddox, you are that little bastard. The rotten little baby that was,” she laughs. “Now here is where things get real fun. Your father, leaving when he did and proving that I had in fact been unfaithful, took oh so much from me. He took money that was rightfully mine. He didn’t get my company, but even that was struggling. I’ve been fighting hard to build it back up for years. I knew that, one day, because of the way my foolish father had worded his last will and testaments, my sons would retain partial control of Locke Oil. I couldn’t take the chance that your rotten hands would touch what is ours. You played right into my hands when you met little Mercedes. She’s been of great importance the last few years.” She pause, and I feel the urge to throw up.
Mercedes? What does she have to do with this fucked-up tale?
I look up and lock eyes with the four other men listening to this shit—each of them wearing the same expression of shock and outrage.
“I’m sure that, at some point in your ridiculously long relationship, she might have cared a little. It didn’t take us much to persuade her to come work for our side of things. The money and power you can’t provide her with can persuade even the strongest of souls. And of course it didn’t hurt that your brother is quite fond of her. We offered her the world, something you would have never been able to give her. It was all planned out. All we had to do was wait for her to get that pathetic ring on her finger, have all those prenuptial papers drafted with the additional paperwork that relinquished your right to anything Locke Oil related, and wait for you to leave for another little game in the sandbox.”
“The fuck you say!” Coop shouts, startling her enough to flinch.
“Hush, boy,” she scolds.
“I got your fucking boy,” he crudely yells back, grabbing his crotch.
“Let her finish,” I interrupt before Coop can start bellowing again.
“Oh yes. We are getting to the best part. And the reason that I just sat on that dreadful plane. It really is a pity that you made it out alive. I’m not sure how you’re going to be able to face the fact that, once again, your vile soul has tainted more lives. Those poor men…dying because of you.”
Coop isn’t the only one who lashes out at that. I hear them all start to yell over each other. I just sit there and stare her in the eyes, refusing to give her what she wants—my pain.
“As I was saying,” she continues. “Since the day you were conceived, you have destroyed everything you touch. Every relationship in direct contact with you suffers. It wasn’t enough that my husband left me, cleaning me out and making it so we couldn’t have the best of the best. Mason had to suffer the disgusting public school system for years before I rebuilt our empire. You have been nothing but trouble from the beginning. Always doing something ridiculously careless in school. The early drinking and partying. And then disgracing the family by joining the military. Everything you have ever touched is shit, and Mercedes is lucky that she and my grandson got out when they did. Enjoy what’s left of your life, Maddox.” She goes to stand, and her words hit me like a Mack truck.
“Hey!” I scream when she is halfway through the room, walking fearlessly through the testosterone-driven minefield. “That’s my son and I won’t let her keep him from me!”
Judging by her smile, I would guess that my reaction is just what she was hoping for. After all, how would she dig the knife deeper if I hadn’t spoken up?
“Oh, silly me. I forgot the best part of your bedtime story. He isn’t yours. He’s Mason’s.” She throws her head back and lets out an evil cackle. “That’s right. Mason and Mercedes—they’ve been sleeping together for the last four years. They’ve been trying for a baby for the last two. Didn’t you find it odd that the woman who made you wear a condom ended up pregnant? Took longer than they thought since she had to be careful not to show her hand to you and your brother had to finalize his divorce and all.”
Before she leaves, she pushes her hand into her purse and throws something on my lap. Then she turns her back to my shocked face and clicks out the door on her heels.
She doesn’t even spare her son a second thought as she takes off. How she can just so carelessly throw me away again and again will never make sense to me. Nevertheless, she’s finally won. Taken everything I had left to live for and slapped me in the face with what she’s been drilling into my head my whole life.
Everything and everyone I’ve ever touched has been ruined. The evilness she embodies and the demons that have been nipping at my heels since I started walking have won.
With nothing left to give, I pick up the item on my lap and feel that hope inside me die a painful death.
Mason, with his arms around Mercedes, is the first thing I see in the close-up shot. The second is the little baby in her arms. The little baby that looks nothing like me. Mason’s son. I close my eyes and allow the only tear I’ll ever shed over my life to roll down my cheek.
Never again. I will never allow myself to harm someone else.
I’m a broken man.
A broken man with black hole left where his heart used to be.
I’ll get past this, but I will never open myself up to this kind of pain again.
A blessed life is something I have never known, so I’m not sure why I ever hoped to feel its glory.