Chapter 8—Emmy
When I wake up to Maddox’s screaming and shaking in the bed, my first thought is that I have to be dreaming. Then the events that led up to us being in the same bed come rushing back. It’s been weeks since I’ve allowed myself just a second of rest, so it’s not a shock that, the second I got around the one person who I know deep down would never let harm come to me, I crashed.
The noises that are coming from his throat are tearing me to pieces. I forget the hell that will be waiting for me when I return to Syn and focus on the broken man who needs me now. I just pray that he will let himself take what I so desperately offer him.
The second he lets his walls down and our lips meet, I know that every feeling I thought I would feel when he finally let me in isn’t even a fraction of the reality. I feel alive for the first time in months. Hell, maybe for the first time in my life. When I decided to let him go, I never thought that this moment would come to fruition. I never let myself believe that it would happen.
His fingers curl into my hips, and I jump when he hits my sore spots—crying out when the pain rips through my middle.
And just like that, the moment is gone.
He pulls his mouth from mine and searches my eyes for the cause of my whimper. One clearly pain-derived and not because I can feel him hot against my core.
“Did I hurt you?”
I should lie. I know even before the words leave my lips that the moment is gone.
“It’s nothing,” I say in the hopes that he will drop it.
“You don’t have a reaction like that over nothing, Emmy.”
He snaps the light beside the bed on and gently pushes me back some from his chest. He lifts my shirt up at the hem, and I close my eyes when I feel his fingers trace the bruising around my sides. He is silent for the longest time, but I don’t open my eyes.
“Who fucking did this to you?” His voice breaks through the silence, and just the sound of his rage makes me flinch.
“Maddox, please… It’s nothing.”
He leans in, his nose just inches from mine, and looks me in the eyes. “It isn’t nothing, Emmy. There are goddamn handprints all over your hips. This is as far from nothing as it gets. I won’t ask you again, Emmy. Who did this to you?”
I squirm in his lap, trying to get some distance from him, but his arms wrap around my middle and hold me hostage.
“It was an accident?”
His nostrils flare, and I watch as his eyes darken even more.
“I fell?”
His jaw ticks.
“I—”
“Swear to Christ, if you feed me another line of bullshit, I’ll put you over my knee and spank your ass, Emersyn.”
Holy shit.
“It was…Shawn.” I sigh and cringe when I remember the night I came back to the club and the welcome home from him I got. I don’t know why I thought that he would have left me alone. I might be older now, but with The Ram ready to retire, Shawn is even more powerful at the club. Ivy is still strutting her old ass around the floor like she’s twenty. The Ram sticks to the bar or his office, not giving a damn about what goes on around him. Now that his Princess of Syn has come home licking her wounds, he could care less what happens as long as the money is flowing.
But Shawn. He is like a piece of gum you can’t get off your shoe. The evil that was only simmering in him years before has now grown to insurmountable levels. He no longer cares who catches him fucking unwilling dancers in the back. Clearly, since he raped me the first night I had come back and didn’t even stop when Ivy walked into the room. She looked right at my tear-streaked face and cocked her head like she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Shawn just laughed and took me harder.
“Who the fuck is Shawn?” he snarls.
How do I explain Shawn? “He-he’s… I’m not sure how to answer that, Maddox,” I tell him honestly.
“Explain,” he demands.
I hold his eyes for a few beats before scooting off his lap and folding my legs next to where he is lying. “Shawn is the manager of Syn. The Ram—my father’s right hand…and my worst nightmare.”
The veins along his neck pulse with his anger as I wait him out, praying that he doesn’t ask the questions I know will follow. I have wanted nothing more than him to open up to me, so it’s only fair that I play by the same rules. Even if the truth is as ugly as it gets.
“You know my parents own Syn, right?” At his nod, I continue. “I was put into dance when I turned two. The cute little beginner classes every little girl dreams of taking,” I laugh without mirth. “Those turned into advanced classes as the years went on. I’ve been trained in just about every form of dance there is. And all of that was for one thing—so that I would take over the club as headline dancer and my parents could sit back and keep making money. But according the The Ram, no princess can rule without her prince, and to him, my prince is Shawn.”
“That doesn’t explain how that motherfucker’s handprints ended up all over your body.”
I don’t argue with him; it doesn’t explain that. But I also don’t know what he’s going to do when I tell him the rest.
“Keep going,” he stresses.
“I managed to put them off until I turned twenty-one. Don’t ask me how because I’m still not sure, but the first night I took the stage seemed to be the green light for him to claim his princess. And every night until I was saved from there, until the night I came back. He continues to claim his princess.”
“The hell you say?”
I just nod my head and move to leave the bed. Distance seems like a good idea right now.
“Don’t you dare leave this bed.”
I turn and almost fall to my ass when he pulls me back to him.
“He put his hands on you. That bastard hurt you. I’ll fucking kill him,” he vows, and I don’t doubt that he means it.
“No, you won’t.”
“The hell you say!”
I roll my eyes at him, causing his to narrow. “I’m where I deserve to be, Maddox. We can chalk this night up to a lapse in judgment on your end, and come morning, you can drop me back off and go home.”
“Are you serious? You think for one second that I’m willingly going to hand-deliver you to your piece-of-shit parents and a fucking rapist!” he bellows.
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do.” I wiggle out of his hold and walk to the bathroom. I need to get my shit together and I can’t do it when he’s near me.
I stand under the scalding-hot water that’s raining over my body and let my mind wander back to when I believed my love for Maddox could overcome everything. That seems like a lifetime ago when it was really just months earlier. He’s pushed me away for so long that it almost feels like some twisted kind of normal for us, but it isn’t fair to either of us to continue this tug-of-war.
I can’t keep wishing for the impossible and he needs me to leave so he doesn’t have some pathetic hanger-on. Coop would be pissed if he knew that I went back to Syn. I can’t help but feel like I’ve, in a sense, let him down. He saved me from this life, took me in, and made sure I was safe. He gave his life for me. And I repaid him by jumping right back into the fire.
The grief I’ve felt over his death and my role in it comes crashing back over me and I drop to my knees. The water continues to beat over my skin as I let out the emotions I’ve been struggling with for weeks.
I owe him for so much and I never would have been able to pay him back, but I can’t even remember the last time I hugged him and reminded him how thankful I was to have him in my life. I remember being frustrated with him because he had been acting like a jerk the day before. Not many people saw his serious side, but I did. He was yelling at me to get my thumb out of my ass and move on. He was always my biggest cheerleader, and it kills me to know that I’ll never see his smile again. I’ll never feel his strong arms comforting me after a hard day and the shadows of my past creep up on me.
“Em? Come on. Turn off the water and let’s go.”
I ignore him and sit back on my ass, tilting my head up and letting the water wash my sorrow away.
“Now.”
“I’m not a dog, Maddox Locke! I don’t come on command!” I shout over the water.
“Want to put money on that?”
That jerk!
I stand too quickly, and before I can catch myself, I’m tumbling through the curtain and onto the floor. Maddox, clearly not having anticipated my literally falling at his feet, moves back. The stoic mask I’ve grown so used to slips for a second and I see the shock followed quickly by lust before he hides again.
He comes out of his shock and helps me to my feet. Then he reaches over the counter and pulls a towel off before thrusting it into my arms and leaving the bathroom. I silently dry myself off and wrap the towel around my naked body.
I don’t necessarily want to go back into the bedroom, but I can’t exactly sleep in the bathroom. I take a few deep breaths and walk into the room. He’s pulled his jeans and shoes back on, and when he looks over at me and the questions that I’m sure are written all over my face, he just shakes his head.
“Mad,” I start with, having no clue where I’m going with the conversation.
“I’m hanging by a thread here, Em. Let’s get one thing straight. It’s never been that I don’t want you. I just can’t have you. Now, we’re going to go back to bed and, in the morning, go get whatever shit you need from that piece-of-shit hotel you’ve been holed up in. We will NOT be going back to Syn. I’ll have one of the guys come down with me to get your car. Don’t look at me like that, Emmy. I won’t bend on this. You aren’t ready to go home—that’s fucking fine. We’ll go somewhere else and get that pretty little head of yours together. When you’re ready, we go home. Simple as that.”
“It isn’t that simple, Maddox.” I’m fuming. Who the hell does he think he is telling me what is going to happen with my life?
And just as soon as the last thought passes through my mind, I want to laugh. He’s Maddox freaking Locke. Of course he is going to lay it out there in some unyielding demand. He’s standing there, his naked chest and its sprinkling of dark hair making my hands twitch with the memory of what his skin feels like under my palms.
I cock my brow and invite him to continue.
He mirrors my move and crosses his tattooed arms over his massive chest.
Not to be outdone, I mimic his move. His brow rises, but he doesn’t speak.
We’re at an impasse. I’m not willing to be told what is going to happen in my life. And he isn’t willing to let me run.
Little does he know, I’m the only one in control of my life. A life he made clear for years that he has no interest in sharing with me.