Page 108 of Clap Back (Carter Brothers)

“My parents looked for me every day of the rest of their lives,” Maven whispered. “How could you do that to another human being? To two? Do you realize how devastated they were?”

“I was the one to send them on wild goose chases when they got too close with their private investigators,” he said.

A sick feeling lodged in my gut. One completely new and foreign.

This man. This sick fuck of a man, in charge of a police force that would do his bidding no questions asked.

What else had he done that was wrong?

Had I unknowingly played a part in his schemes?

Maven, proving that we were on the same wavelength, asked, “And did you do anything else? Cover up anything else? Abuse your authority?”

“No,” he admitted. “I couldn’t draw attention to myself or you. I couldn’t have you taken away from me.”

“Is that why you sabotaged my business?” she asked.

“I didn’t want anyone knowing who you were. Just one single person, knowing the right people, would’ve been able to expose you. Me,” he said. “The only way I knew to keep us both safe was to force you to quit before you got too high profile.”

“That is rather presumptuous to assume I’d get that big,” she admitted.

Brock leveled a look on her that made my skin crawl. “Let’s be honest with ourselves here, Maven. You don’t do anything by halves.”

Maven pushed herself off the door, then turned her back on the man.

Without another word, she left the interrogation room.

I met her in the hallway and pulled her into my arms.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now we charge him for not one kidnapping, but two,” I heard Evador’s voice behind me. “This is going to be a shit storm. Do you have any idea which senator he was talking about?”

Assman came up, offering up an iPad.

“Senator Wallace.” Assman handed it over. “He’s a bulldog. This is going to be the biggest news story in the world by the time this is over.”

Maven all but crawled into my skin as she said, “Freakin’ awesome.”

Twenty minutes later, we were two-thirds of the drive home, when she finally broke the silence.

“I don’t know if I can continue to be called Maven,” she mused.

I ran my fingers through her long hair, snagging on curl after curl.

She pulled it away from me with a laugh.

“Do you want to go by Marina?” I asked.

She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

I caught her hand in mine and said, “I’ll call you whatever you want, as long as you’re clear on whose last name you’ll have, sunshine.”

She threw her head back and laughed.

“You have to ask me, first, Auden.”

I winked at her. “I have to get through some brothers first. Then I’ll ask.”

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