Page 1 of Maddox

Chapter One

MADDOX

Kingdom was a phenomenal success and my practiced eyes ran over the dance floor. We’d been open nearly two months and the lines to get in each night were insane. This was Walker’s baby, but we all pulled our weight. Particularly as Gideon spent most of his evenings at home now with Abby. She was a sweetheart, and Gideon was a lucky fucker.

Funny that six months ago I loved going to see the Littles at Salvation and longed for my own, but I could barely stand to spend any time there now. Gideon and Abby were there tonight planning a dedicated puppy play space. A mixture of a soft playand a bouncing area. They wanted to keep the areas small and intimate, so instead of expanding the space, they were opening more nights and making them themed. It was a good idea.

Abby was flourishing. She was still the perfect Little girl for Gideon, but her current project was organizing a pet adoption day with the members with one specific condition. Only the pets that had failed to be adopted at a shelter’s regular adoption day could be there. Abby and Gideon already had a lab called Poppy, but over the last six months they’d added a fourteen-year-old basset hound with one eye that had just been dumped on a highway, and a four-year-old mix of lab/space alien, with only two working legs. He rocked the trolley Abby fastened him in and enjoyed as many walks as the other two.

Our fourth partner, Dion, had two Cane Corsos, supposedly aggressive dogs, but they protected Abby and her brood of misfits like their lives depended on it. No one—human or animal—would get near enough to hurt a hair on Abby’s or her babies’ heads while they were around.

In return, Abby adored the huge so-called killers and lavished them with kisses and as much affection as was humanly possible. But then, she’d done the same with Gideon.

He’d turned from cold and calculating into the marshmallow we now teased him about being, or at least when Abby was present.

That was until anyone so much as looked at Abby in the wrong way, and then the two Cane Corsos could just get in line.

Xavier drew close almost immediately, and I had to hand it to Walker, his manager was on point as always as his gaze was trained on the same group mine was. Like most of our employees, Xavier was military. He’d been a Ranger. I’d been watching three guys who were trying to look like wealthy socialites just having a good time, but in reality were pushers simply out to supply other party-goers with chemical assistanceto make sure of one. Drugs were rife in most clubs like this, but we neither supplied nor distributed. We were always on the lookout for individuals tanking up before they entered and dealt with them appropriately, but these three were taking those willing to the restrooms where we didn’t have cameras.

Which meant that one of the restroom attendants—always present—was turning a blind eye and being paid for it. We paid well, but there was always the chance that someone would pay better. When we went back over the tapes showing the time they were in the restroom, we’d know which attendant was in on it, or being paid to turn a blind eye, which was the same thing.

We had three very large restrooms, two for those that preferred to use the male or female and one for those that simply didn’t care who was in there so long as they washed their hands. Another two smaller ones for the top floor.

“I’ve got it covered,” Xavier murmured nodding to the group, not questioning whether I had seen the same thing he had. “Christopher Santis the Third is in trouble with his grandfather and on a budget. Lee Michaels has offered him an alternative income. Lee is the estate gardener’s nephew and, I imagine, was present when Christopher’s grandfather lost his shit after the last house party.”

I nodded. I had no idea who they all were, just noted certain behaviors, and I assumed the mistake that had brought them to Xavier’s attention was that they were slumming on the first floor, and not in the private booths. Xavier obviously knew them. Xavier came from money. Not as much as Dion, but then Dion’s parents had to rival Bill Gates’s net worth. I came from a street corner. Literally. If the trash collector hadn’t investigated the bundle before he threw it in the compactor, I wouldn’t be here watching idiots with way too much money snort their trust funds up each nostril. Security surrounded them at Xavier’s nod and, leaving him to it, I crossed to the stairs and the firstinvitation-only level. I scanned the dance floor first when I got up there. There were waitress-service tables at this level, but the reserved booths were on the next VIP level with a dedicated butler and waitress service. I looked around for any problems.

“Three parties tonight, two bachelorette and one birthday,” Walker confirmed, appearing from nowhere. “They’re not getting too out of hand.”

I nodded and turned for the steps to take me to the top tier, but a flash of scarlet made my lungs seize in my chest. It wasimpossible. There was no way she would be here. I turned slowly, telling myself it couldn’t be true.

But it was.

Clare Elizabeth Newman, twenty-two years old. Daughter of the late Elijah and Harriet Newman. Elijah had once run the largest media company in America, but he hadn’t responded quickly enough to the digital age, and if he and his wife hadn’t both died in a skiing avalanche, he would have been bankrupt within the next twelve months. Her older brother had stepped in and turned the company around and made it a huge financial success.

My eyes scanned her greedily. Five months since I’d seen her at her brother’s, and six since I’d carried the bundle of skin and bones she was then out of the cage that bastard Jeremy Blakeny had kept her in. Her hair was still the same vibrant, untamed red cascading down her back, and even in the cage that’s what I had seen first. Her eyes the same azure blue when with her coloring, I’d have expected brown or even green like Abby’s. Her freckle-covered, pale skin stood out starkly in the bronze-colored sheath dress. Her tits, small but perfect, were pushed up and begging for my hand.

For a second, I marveled at her courage. When I’d last seen her, she’d been understandably traumatized. Even her brother raising his voice slightly had terrified her. But now having thecourage to go out, even facing head-on a situation similar to how she’d been kidnapped from a nightclub, made me in awe of her.And maybe a little hopeful.

But I squashed that down flat. I wasn’t an idiot, and I knew every time she saw my face she would be reminded of one of the worst times of her life. It had been me that had carried her out of that fucker’s cage, and because she’d been terrified, I’d taken my mask off. Not only had it been caught on camera and caused problems for Gideon and Abby, but it meant she would always associate my face with her capture and imprisonment.

The pathetic thing was, I would do exactly the same again, even if it lost me her a second time.

I grunted.Lost?I’d never had her in the first place.

“Is that Clare Newman?” Walker asked incredulously. But I wasn’t listening. I narrowed my eyes and watched her some more. It was Clare, butnot. She’d definitely been drinking, and I hoped to God that was all she’d been doing. On the wrong side of merely tipsy, she was very much the life of the party. There were six of them, five women and one man, and they’d garnered a lot of attention. They all had cocktails and shots and as I watched, Clare put a hand up to call for the waitress for more drinks. I wanted to smack her ass for putting herself at risk. Turn it bright red.

Then hold her while she cried.

Walker took a step forward to nix the order, but I put a hand on his arm, and he subsided, understanding immediately that this was my show. I watched as one of our servers, Briony, took their orders and went to the bar and handed them to Lizzie, one of our bartenders. Briony went to take another order, and I let myself in behind the bar. Lizzie looked up as I approached her. “What can you tell me about the group you’re making this order up for?”

Lizzie didn’t pause what she was doing, used to these sort of requests from the four of us. “Birthday party for the girl in pink.” I nodded. Not Clare, then. “All top shelf stuff. They started with four bottles of Dom, and it went up from there. The redhead is paying the check for everyone. She has an Amex black card and the cover charge went through okay.” Standard practice with an unfamiliar account. We’d been caught out too many times with stolen and forged cards that now, unless they were a regular, they had to pay a hefty instant cover charge to be on this level, which doubled as a deposit. Still considerably less than the membership fees for the top level. And why was Clare throwing her money around?

“Everything okay?” Lizzie had paused mixing the drinks.

“Yes, but nothing else without my approval.” She finished and handed the tray to a returning Briony, leaned forward, and clearly repeated my instruction because Briony glanced over to me and nodded her understanding. I liked Briony. She was only twenty-two herself with a three-year-old. Thanks to what we paid her and her tips, she had been able to afford for her mom to quit her job and to look after her little boy instead, so Briony could work here and study online. Our manager, Xavier, had a list of her upcoming exams to make she wasn’t scheduled to work before any of them, as it was common for the servers not to get out of here until four a.m. some days.

I glanced back at the table and watched as the girls on either side of Clare leaned over her to say something.

---