LEV RAN BACK to the apartment and grabbed his stuff after deciding to stay here at the house for the remainder of our stay in Glendale.
Maddox and Ridge have been working hard on putting together some puzzle pieces, so we can move to the next phase of our plan. But first, we need to get inside Cade’s house.
“Maddox,” I call out as my bare feet pad through the kitchen, into the living room. “Where are you guys?”
“In here,” Ridge responds. I follow the sound of his voice to an open door off the living room and a familiar scent floods my senses.
I poke my head in the door to see Maddox on the floor beside a desk with a stack of papers while Ridge shuffles through folders in a file cabinet.
“Find anything?” I ask, still unable to shake that scent. I wander into the room, sniffing it out to see what it is.
“Not a damn thing.” Maddox clenches his fist as he slams a closed notebook onto the stack of papers. “There’s nothing here. Maybe my dad just takes his job as a Guardian very seriously.”
I hear Maddox, but I’m not paying him any attention as I approach the desk. My eyes land on a half-smoked cigar sitting in a black marbled ashtray. Without any thought process behind it, I pick up the cigar and inhale the scent. “Does your dad smoke these?”
“Oh yeah,” Maddox grumbles. “Nasty fucking things.”
“I don’t think there’s a day I’ve seen your dad when he wasn’t puffing on one of those tobacco logs,” Ridge adds.
I set the cigar back in the ashtray but can’t seem to take my eyes off it as memories of yesterday infiltrate my mind.
“Maddox,” I say with hesitation in my tone. “Do you have a picture of your dad?”
It may seem like an odd request, but something in my gut tells me I have to see what this man looks like.
“Um, I think there’s a family picture of us in the living room on the fireplace mantle.”
I don’t even say anything before turning around and leaving the room.
“What was that all about?” I hear Ridge ask Maddox, but I keep walking.
Slow, cautious steps lead me to the fireplace, while my heart is nearly jumping out of my chest, seeming to already know what I’m going to find. It’s a crazy thought, and I hope I’m wrong, but the minute I lay eyes on the five-by-seven picture, set in a gold frame, my stomach drops.
“No,” I mutter under my breath, my knees nearly buckling under the weight of this revelation. It can’t be.
It’s as if the man in the picture is staring straight back at me. Those bluish gray eyes—the same ones that watched me in the rearview mirror while I was bound in the back of his car.
I gasp for air, feeling as though it’s all been sucked from my lungs. “Maddox!” I yell, but my voice seems to break. When he rushes into the room, placing a hand on my hip, I realize that in about ten seconds, I’m going to change his whole life. His family may never be the same.
“What is it, babe? What happened?”
My eyes lift to his worried ones as I struggle to get the words out. I point to the picture with a shaking finger and I manage to say, “It was him.”
“Him, what? That’s my dad. What do you mean, it was him?”
“That’s the man who kidnapped me from Temper’s room.” My body begins to shake involuntarily and I feel like an idiot because the second I laid eyes on that man, I should have known exactly who he was. How could I be so clueless?
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ridge blurts out angrily. “Who the hell is Temper? And, what’s this kidnapping shit you’re talking about? Are you guys keeping something from me?”
“Shut up!” Maddox snaps at Ridge before returning his attention to me. “You’ve gotta be mistaken. My dad isn’t capable… He isn’t… He…” His words trail off as if he had an epiphany and I don’t say anything. Instead, I allow him time to process his thoughts while I process mine.
“Someone fucking answer me!” Ridge growls at my side, nearly making me jump. “Did someone hurt you, Angel?” He grabs my face in his hands and turns me to look at him. “Tell me the truth.”
I swallow hard, unsure of what to say.
Maddox snatches the picture off the mantle aggressively and puts it right in my face. ‘Look at it again. Please. I need you to be sure. We need to be perfectly fucking sure before we move forward with this.’ I can’t tell if he’s begging for me to tell him it was his father, or if he’s hoping it isn’t as I watch the tremble in his hand right where he’s squeezing the frame with all his might.
I stare at the picture, wishing it wasn’t true. Hoping like hell I was mistaken the first time, but the longer I look at those eyes, I’m even more certain. “It was him.” My tone is low and my words are strained. “I’m sure of it.”
Maddox slams the frame to the floor beside us and I watch as the glass shatters into hundreds of pieces. Tears pool in my eyes, but they’re not for me or what I went through, they’re for him. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
Ridge steps closer, crunching the glass and the gold frame, having no regard for the photo. It’s as if the family Maddox once thought he had is now as broken and as shattered as the shards on the ground. “If someone doesn’t tell me what the hell is going on right now, I’m gonna start breaking shit, too.”
Maddox growls and runs his fingers along his chin. He turns away with his head hung low as he paces back and forth, his rage apparent, but his pain hidden deep inside him.
‘Angel,” Ridge says hastily as he grabs both of my arms. My body shakes along with his as his hard gaze sets on mine. “What. The. Fuck. Happened?”
I’m almost afraid to tell him. Scared that he’ll go mad and storm out of this house to find Maddox’s dad. And once he does, he’ll kill him. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind after everything I learned tonight.
“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Maddox pipes up, taking on the role himself. Or at least, threatening to. “He’s a dead man.”
“Who?!” Ridge screams, the sound so loud that it jolts me. “Who the fuck are we killing?”
Maddox stops pacing, his face red hot and his fists clenched at his sides. “My dad.”
“All right then,” Ridge retorts with a shrug, far less surprised than I thought he’d be. There’s not a bit of sympathy for Maddox in his tone and it has me wondering why he isn’t questioning this more. Unless, the loyalty these three guys have far exceeds what I ever could have imagined.
“Stop it, you guys,” I tell them. “We need to think this through. No one is killing anyone. I think we’ve all done enough of that for a while.”
Maddox’s shoulders relax a tad, but it’s apparent the anger he’s feeling hasn’t dissipated at all. “I knew he was hiding something.” He looks at me, shaking his head in disappointment. “That’s why he kidnapped you. Tell me what he said again about needing a confession.”
Ridge grows concerned but holds his composure as I speak.
“He said, um…something about needing a confession within the next couple days, or the governor’s sealed records would be handed over to someone.” I clear my throat as I try to remember everything, knowing I’m not getting my words exact. “He also said something about a lot of secrets being exposed.”
Maddox snaps his fingers. “The governor had something on him. Something fucking huge.”
“Fuck the governor,” Ridge snaps. “Why didn’t you guys tell me about this? How the fuck could you keep something so damn important from me?”
I run a comforting hand down Ridge’s arm. “I was going to tell you. Things have just been so hectic.”
“Does Lev know?” he asks, as if in some way it would be a betrayal if I told Lev and not him.
“No,” I say as anger rises inside me. “But it’s not like I was purposely keeping this from you. Not in the way you and Maddox kept secrets from me.”
I know it’s not the right time to have this discussion, but if we’re laying all our secrets out there, then the feelings that come along with the truth should be revealed too. “I’m hurt that neither of you trusted me enough to tell me what you’d done. And that you let me believe it was all Lev.”
“It had nothing to do with trust and everything to do with keeping you safe. And this situation can’t be compared. Your life wasn’t in immediate danger then. Someone fucking kidnapped you, Angel.” He grasps his chest as if the thought physically pains him. “What if something had happened to you? Something…something I can’t even fathom.” He turns around and bends with his hands to his knees before springing back up. “Did he fucking touch you? I swear to God if he laid a hand—”
“He didn’t. I’m fine. He knocked me out, put me in a car and I escaped. The end.”
“Knocked you out, how?”
“Chloroform, maybe?” I guess, not knowing of any other drugs that can knock you out from a rag, but also knowing I’m not experienced in that department.
“Son of a bitch,” Ridge grumbles. “Yep. He’s a dead man.”
“They’re going down,” Maddox chimes in, his voice low but stern. “Every one of those fucking Elders who have made our lives hell are going down. They will all fucking fall.”
It’s surreal hearing Maddox speak this way. The harsh words coming from his mouth are far from his usual gentle tone. He’s mentioned in passing about how he’s always felt like a weak link and I’m proud to see that he’s standing up for himself. Even if it is going to be against the man he desperately sought approval from. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, he’s out for blood.
“No one is dying, yet,” Ridge pipes up. “In fact, I think I know of a way to use this to our advantage.” Maddox and I shift our attention to Ridge as he continues. “First, we need to find out exactly what your dad was so hell-bent on keeping a secret.”
A look of defeat washes over Maddox’s face. “And how the hell are we supposed to do that? I’ve searched this place high and low and found nothing.”
“Give me five minutes alone with your dad. I’ll find out what he’s hiding.”
“No,” I pipe up, a plan already forming in my mind. “I think it’s best if we don’t let Maddox’s dad know we’re onto him. If we do this right, we can clear all our names, while bringing down the real villains at the same time.”
Ridge quirks a brow. “What did you have in mind?”
“If we’re framing Cade for the other murders, what if we give him an accomplice?”
Ridge scoops me off the floor, my feet dangling in midair as he twirls me around. “You’re a fucking genius.”
As he sets me down, I see Maddox, and my heart splinters. He’s on the couch now, elbows pressed to his bare knees as he stares at the floor with a scorned look on his face.
Ridge catches my gaze and follows me over to Maddox’s side. I sit down beside him and rest a comforting hand on his leg. “I know this is a lot to take in.”
He jumps up in a state of disbelief, throwing his arms out wide. “He’s my fucking dad. How could he do this shit to me, to our family?”
Giving him his space, I remain on the couch while he hovers over the shattered picture on the floor. “Does my mom know about the shit he’s been up to, or this horrible secret he’s been keeping?”
“Doubtful,” Ridge says. “Your mom’s a fucking saint.”
Maddox’s eyes slide up and the pain in them reappears. “I thought my dad was, too. At least, as much as he could be in this world. We’re Guardians. We’re supposed to protect members, not kidnap them. Whatever the hell he’s hiding must be really fucking bad.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” I say softly. “And hopefully, it’s not as bad as what you think.”
“Well,” Maddox says with a sudden shift in his demeanor, “we’re not accomplishing anything by standing around here.” His eyes dart to Ridge. “Call Lev on that burner phone and fill him in, then we need him to get into Cade’s house to put the first part of the plan in motion. After that, let’s hear what Riley has planned. I think it’s time she knows our endgame here anyways.”
“Fuck no. She’ll be an accomplice if we fill her in,” Ridge says through gritted teeth.
I cross my arms and glower at Ridge. I’m not a damsel in distress that sits on the sidelines, and Ridge Foster needs to come to terms with who the fuck I am.
“I’ll be your partner,” I say in a condescending tone, moving to stand over him. “If we want this shit to work, we better all get on the same fucking page. First of all, I am not going to sit on the sidelines while the three of you throw yourselves into the lion’s den. It’s all of us or none of us. And second,” I point my finger at both of them to make this very clear, “there will not be another damned secret among us. If you cheated on your math exam in the third grade, I better fucking know about it. No. More. Lies.”
Maddox smiles and I can see Ridge debating on agreeing to my terms or throwing me over his shoulder and tying me up to put me in a padded box for the rest of my life where he knows I’ll remain safe.
“Deal,” Maddox says as we watch Ridge’s shoulders sag in defeat.
“Ridge?” I ask, needing to hear him say it out loud.
“All right, it’s a deal.” He walks over to me and fists my hair. Smacking his lips to mine, he shows me exactly who’s in charge here before there’s anything I can say about it. He breaks the kiss and looks me in the eyes as he says, “We planned to take down The Society from within, but I feel like you could have probably guessed that by now.”
I nod. “I figured as much.”
“Well, Angel, now that you’ve got yourself a harem of murderous psychos willing to go against The Society and exact some revenge, what are you going to do with us?”
The anticipation of what’s to come has me feeling light-headed. I hope like hell we can pull this off, because if we don’t, we’re the ones who are going to take the fall.
