Locke

“You were going to marry me.”

“Jesus fuck, Mercy!  I’m right fucking here,” his brother yelps.

“Diana,” Maddox speaks, ignoring the domestic argument happening between his brother and sister-in-law.  “Find your precious lawyer, Jefferson, and get this shit rolling.  I don’t really give a damn if you have to sell this very house to be able to afford to buy me out.  You want it that much, make it happen.”

She doesn’t look happy about it, but she stomps out of the room.

Before she can get too far, Maddox calls out for her.  I watch has she walks back in with a little less supremacy than she had earlier.

“And you, Mason.  You might think you’ve won.  You have the girl you think I want.  You have this shithole in Texas and a company six months from bankruptcy.  But, brother, you will never have the world because I already fucking found it.  I’m worth more than you will ever see in your lifetime and I’m not only talking about the money piling up in my bank.  I have everything you wish you had.  And the best thing?  I have a woman who loves me for everything I am and ever will be.  One who isn’t just with me because of some purse or shoe she wants at the moment.  So… Check. Mate. Motherfucker.”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” he spits.

“You could fucking try, but even with my hands tied behind my back, I would snap you in two.”

Mason’s face goes pale before he storms out of the room, slamming the door in his wake.  His mother hasn’t moved from her spot.  She looks at Maddox with shock and maybe a little respect.

“Maybe I underestimated you, stupid boy.  I’ll have Jefferson send you the paperwork.”  She shakes her head and follows his brother out of the room.

“Looks like it’s just us, Mercedes.  I do have a question for you.  Why?”

She crosses her bone-thin arms over her chest and huffs.  “That, Maddox, is easy.  Mason promised me the fucking world.  The best clothes, houses, cars.  Ultimate power right at my fingertips.  All I had to do was get you out of the picture somehow.  It seemed so simple at first.  You had given me the perfect plan when you put that speck of glass on my hand.  I just had to play my cards right and fake a few orgasms.  That meeting before you shipped out was all my idea.  We just had to throw a few lines of bullshit out there and wait for your temper to get the best of you.  I knew you wouldn’t question what they were saying.  Not only are you just too fucking stupid, but when I dropped the baby bomb on you, all of your focus went into worrying about that.”  She laughs and my rage grows.  “You didn’t even question the baby.  You just believed me because you loved me.  God, you were so fucking stupid.”

“What do you fucking mean, I believed you?  I saw the picture of you, Mason, and the baby.”

Her laughter takes on an insane crackle.  Just the volume of it screams psycho.  “Ah, yes.  Perfect timing struck again when we decided to go visit a friend of your brother’s who had had their first little baby.  Some careful editing and you couldn’t tell a difference.  I knew you would buy it at face value.  There never was a baby.”  She laughs again, and that rage that was building hits a boiling point.

“You see,” she says while stepping forward and dragging her fingertip down his chest.  “I just needed to make sure you were distracted, and digging that final nail into your heart was the perfect way.  You wouldn’t have come back—you had too much fucking pride for that.  And since, unfortunately for me, my plan to have you so distracted that you got yourself blown the fuck up didn’t work and all you lost was your stupid leg.”

Oh, I did not just hear her say that.

“You.  Fucking.  Bitch!”  I scream and drop Maddox hand.  I hear him stress my name before I turn into a human torpedo and launch my body into hers.

She doesn’t stand a chance against me.  I have too much frenzied madness burning away at my veins.  I land on her and latch on like a monkey until we both slam to the ground.  I can hear Maddox yelling my name, but he doesn’t attempt to pull me off.

“You motherfucking bitch!” I yell before punching her in the face.  My fist hits her jaw first.  Then I shift my weight when she tries to throw me off her and give her another hard slam into her ribs.  “I’ll kill you!  I will!”  I get three more slaps in before I’m being lifted off her.  I look down and spit on her. “You never deserved him.  I thank my lucky stars that you were too fucking STUPID to realize just what kind of man you had.  Take a good look, bitch, because you will never know what it feels like to be with a REAL man!”  I spit again and smile when it lands right between her eyes.

She moves to stand and Maddox isn’t quick enough to get me away from her.  I lift up my foot and kick her right in the ass, laughing when she falls forward and knocks into the bookshelf, sending a few dozen books from the shelves onto her prone form.

“You feel better?” Maddox asks with a huge smile on his handsome face.

“Yeah,” I reply, smoothing out my hair and clothes.  “I do.  How about you, baby?”

His eyes go soft and he gives me a kiss.  “Yeah, angel.  I’ve never felt better in my life.”

Looking into his eyes, I believe it.  Until I feel a sharp pain in my side and wetness against my panties.

What the hell?

I reach down, and when I bring my hands up, there is blood on my fingertips.

“Maddox?”

“Yeah, Em?” he asks, moving his eyes from where Mercedes still hasn’t moved.  When he meets mine, he goes still.  “Em?”

“I think it might be a good idea if we go to a hospital,” I whisper.

He looks from my eyes to my hand before his tan skin goes white and I’m in his arms.  He doesn’t respond when his mother snarls his name or when his brother starts stalking after him.

He doesn’t stop until he’s slamming the car in park and carrying me into the local emergency room doors.

Chapter 35—Maddox

She was right.  Letting go of that last tie gave me a sense of peace I hadn’t fathomed possible.  I didn’t feel pain from my mother’s or brother’s words.  I didn’t even flinch when Mercedes told me just how deep her deceit had been.  I even wanted to laugh when Emmy threw her body on top of her and fought her like a world-class boxer.