Page 9 of Mad As Hell

“She was in the hallway,” Bex went on, her eyes locked on Court’s as she spoke, like he was keeping her anchored right now. “Her face was bruised and her ribs… I helped her get changed and we left. We were going to the bus station.”

“She got on a bus?” I reached for my phone, ready to tell Ash to look at all the terminals and figure out where the hell Maddie had gone.

The idea of her getting on a bus, scared and alone, was like having acid dumped on my heart and pumped through my veins. The pain was unbearable and caustic, eating me alive with fear and worry. Even bruises wouldn’t hide how gorgeous my girl was, and I knew all too well how many sick fucks out there could take advantage of her.

All because I didn’t protect her. Because I fucking ran at the first sign of trouble.

Fury and self-loathing mixed in a toxic cocktail that made me physically ill. What had I done?

“No,” Bex told me sharply. “She wanted to see Madelaine first. I took her to the cemetery. She went inside their family’s mausoleum, and the next thing I knew, these guys were there. One grabbed me—”

Court went eerily still. “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” she assured him. “The other two grabbed Maddie inside the crypt and took her back to their car. I recognized them as part of Gary’s security team. I’d seen them at the party earlier. The guy who grabbed me drove me back home. I’ve been trying to call Maddie ever since, but her phone is going straight to voicemail.”

She stepped back and scuffed a toe into the carpet. “And I guess Gary called and said something to my parents, because they’ve basically kept me on lockdown here since last night. I tried to leave. I was thinking of trying to sneak out tonight, but the security cameras are everywhere.” She paused, her nose wrinkling. “How did you two get in here?”

“Ash hacked the cameras,” I answered with an indifferent shrug.

“Of course he did,” she muttered. “Look, I thought Maddie was still at Gary’s. If she’s not there…”

My heart sank like a fucking rock to the bottom of the ocean.

Where the hell was my girl?

CHAPTER 3

MADDIE

By the morning of the third day in my cell, the bruising around my jaw didn’t hurt quite so much. I was still on a soft-food-only diet, courtesy of my father’s fist, but at least pain wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I woke up.

The sun was already bright in the sky, rising above the mountains in wherever-the-hell-we-were. I still had no idea. The remote, almost rustic cabin that Gary had brought me to, the morning after his goons dragged me back to his house, was isolated, as far as I could tell. I wasn’t sure what the house even looked like, or how big it was, since I’d been drugged when I was brought here.

After crying myself to sleep, I’d woken up in Madelaine’s room at the mansion to hands holding me down and a needle pressing into my arm. Everything had gone fuzzy and dark, and then I had woken up in this room.

The view outside my window—locked of course—gave me only a glimpse of an endless series of hills and valleys with trees just starting to change with the season.

I got up from the bed and walked to the window on the other side of the room, pressing my hands to the chilly glass that was my only view to the world outside. The first day, I’d considered breaking the glass and jumping, but I wasn’t an idiot. Even if I survived the fall to the ground from the second story without breaking anything, there was no way to tell if I was a mile or a hundred from civilization.

And there was also the fact that my mother was being held captive by my psycho father.

My fingers curled into fists at my sides as I turned from the window and looked around the sparsely decorated room.

A queen-size bed dominated the space with simple white linens and a gray duvet. There was a chair next to a bookcase with no books on it. Anything that might have been in the room before my arrival had been removed, including the TV that I assumed had been mounted on the wall. Now only a cable cord dangled from it.

The bedside table was empty, save for a simple digital clock that at least let me know what time it was. An empty dresser was pushed against a wall to the left of the bed, and there was a closet, which I’d found disturbingly stocked with clothes in my size like Gary had been waiting for when I’d inevitably fuck up and he’d bring me here.

The tiny attached bathroom had a shower stall, a toilet, and a sink. The mirror had been removed from the wall, which sucked, because I could’ve smashed it and used the broken glass as a weapon.

Actually, that was probably why it had been removed.

Twice a day, meals were brought to my room by a woman I didn’t recognize. I tried talking to her at first. Then pleading, and finally screaming.

Nothing worked.

At eight a.m. on the dot, the lock on my door clicked and it opened. But this time, instead of the slight woman who normally brought my food, Gary was there with a tray in his hand.

He gave me a wide smile and kicked the door shut with his foot but didn’t lock it.

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