Page 58 of Beautiful Liar

Once outside, I lit the joint. That first hit was pleasant. I hadn’t eaten and the buzz was starting to send tingles down my body. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. The sounds of wildlife sputtered all around me. The growing greenery and smell of spring rain were starting to grow on me.

Like mold.

I started to chuckle when I heard someone walk out the back. A big, prickly someone. I decided I didn’t really like Wren anymore.

Maddox caught sight of me, growled, or it was just hisusual rumble, and leaned beside me before reaching for the joint in my hand. I thought about fighting for it, but I wasn’t usually a joint hogger. That was Daniel. I reluctantly let it go. At first, I thought he was going to lecture me like he had when he kidnapped me. Okay, maybe kidnapped was a strong word. He had saved my life. But he had lectured me about smoking too much weed. He’d lectured me about doing well in school. About doing something productive with my life. After I tried suicide by his bodyguard and he had saved me, we had matching scars. He’d taken a bullet in his shoulder for me. And I had the scar of the bullet above my ear reminding me how close I’d been to dying. Maddox Brennan had saved my life. I didn’t know he was my half-brother then. He did though.

“Who hurt you?” he asked then took an inhale of the joint. The end of it lit, he leaned back, chin inched up, revealing his thick neck. Everything on Maddox was thick. Then he let the smoke out of his too full lips. He looked nothing like Daniel. Daniel was all Moya while I was all Katarina Ruiz, my mother. The bits and pieces of her Maddox and I shared made us look more alike.

“Nobody important.”

He made a sound at the back of his throat and released the smoke. “You taking off?” he asked, handing me back the joint.

“That’s the plan,” I said, taking it.

“You can’t always run, kid.”

“Running’s all I got now.”

He kicked at his feet as if he needed to move too. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how we left things.”

“You mean, you threatening to kill me.”

“After you threatened my brothers.” He realized what he said and cleared his throat. I wasn’t part of the “brothers” equation.

“Why did you even let Daniel go?” I whispered. “Why did you save me? You don’t owe us anything.”

“Growing up, I always felt different. Cillian, he was strict, but I always felt as if he and mom always argued about what to do with me the way they didn’t with Tristan and Liam. My mother, she was perfect.”

The sting in my chest from his words hurt. “That’s fucking great,” I chuckled with malice in my voice. “While you were living the perfect life with a fake mother, our mother hated me because I reminded her ofyou. She’d…” I swallowed. The words stuck in my throat. And why bother spilling my dirty laundry. I’d never go back to that part of my past. Maddox gave me a way out. Though I couldn’t stop thinking about her. My mother. Was she still even alive? Did I really care? I took another hit of the joint, cutting off the conversation. I decided I was going to take everything Tate gave me tomorrow night and lay on the grass and stare at the stars until Luca found me. Not a bad way to go.

For a coward.

“You blame me for what she did?”

“Yeah,” I spat. But then he’d been a baby when Cillian had taken him. What the fuck did he know? I still hated him though.

“Daniel took me off guard when he told me about us. I didn’t want to believe that the mother I thought was my mother wasn’t. That Tristan wasn’t my real brother.”

“Heisyour real brother,” I snapped.

“I know. But shit, Tomás. My world was upended. I let him go because I couldn’t kill him. He’d done nothing wrong.”

“How many other people have you killed that did nothing wrong, Maddox? How many families have you erased?”

He swallowed. “I have my hard limits, Tomás. Everyone I killed were in the life. They knew the risks. Even your father.”

“When will it ever stop?”

“I guess when we’re dead.”

“That may happen sooner than later,” I said.

“You’re not going to die out there,” he almost growled.

I turned to face him. Something in me just shattered. I’d been pathetic my whole life, now was no different. I couldn’t forget about Enzo. The father version of him when he’d first taken me in, that slowly turned into a brotherly love for him. Then, more. Was I jealous of Alessandro and Maddox? I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it. Maddox didn’t know Enzo the way I knew him. Maddox had saved me from a bullet, but I couldn’t save him from Enzo. And what if Maddox didn’t want to be saved? Hell, I hadn’t wanted to be saved when he saved me from the bullet.

“Do you love him?” I blurted. I didn’t have to elaborate on thehim. My stomach twisted inside.

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