Page 112 of Mad Love

Another heavy breath. “It’s not your fault. Not really.”

I touched her ankle. “I’m your best friend, and I should’ve had your back. Do you want me to fill in the blanks?”

Madelaine’s video had made several right assumptions, but there were also a few things I knew from Ryan that my twin hadn’t known. Bex had to still have questions.

“No,” Bex finally said, flipping onto her back and looking at me. “I want Court to tell me.”

“I can go get him,” I offered.

“No,” she repeated, shaking her head as her mouth turned downward. “I want him to want to tell me. I want him to realize that I’m worth the freaking truth, Mads.”

I nodded, understanding her point. “Okay. But I don’t know if he’ll ever be ready for that.”

“Then he doesn’t care about me the way I thought he did,” she murmured. “Not the way I want him to.”

“Do you remember what you told me when Ryan hurt me after the engagement party?” I raised my brows until she gave a short nod. “Same thing applies now with Court. I don’t think he’s trying to hurt you. In his way, he’s trying to protect you.”

“It’s a bullshit excuse,” she told me, sitting up and drawing her knees to her chest. “I don’t need to be protected, and neither do you.”

“Tell that to the half dozen alpha males downstairs,” I teased with a weak grin. “They think protecting us little girls is their sole purpose in life.”

Bex’s face darkened into a scowl. “Well, this little girl’s about to nut punch all of them if they don’t cut it out.”

I cracked up, unable to hold my laughter at the visual of tiny Bex doing just that. “Let me know before you do, okay? I totally want to record that.”

A wry smile twisted her lips. “Deal.” Then the happy light in her eyes vanished. “Madelaine recorded stuff about my dad on those drives. Do you think I should watch it?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The guys already told you he was involved in some of the shadier shit, but not nearly to the extent their dads were.”

She looked down, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I don’t want my dad to go to prison, Maddie. I mean, he’s my dad.”

I smothered a wince. “Okay.”

“He’s the guy who taught me how to ride a bike. Who spent the night in the hospital with me when I was sick,” she went on. “I know he’s done some bad things, but…”

“Then don’t,” I answered. “Bex, your dad might not be innocent, but he’s far from Gary Cabot’s level of dirty. And it seems like every time he did something, it was because his hand was forced.”

Not that it absolved him of guilt, but I guessed it was something. And right now, Bex needed to cling to that hope.

Besides, Malcolm Whittier hadn’t known that, when he’d agreed to Bex “going away” with Jasper Woods, she was really being kidnapped to manipulate Court. The Whittier and Woods families had been friends for years, vacationing together before their kids were even born. Madelaine’s original guess in the video was that Malcolm had sold out his daughter for seed money for the startup that would eventually be CryptDuo. But Malcolm wasn’t a monster. He was just an idiot who had trusted a man he thought was his friend.

Still, his mistake had nearly cost Bex her life, and it had absolutely been the start of his marriage decaying. Betty and Malcolm were married in name only now, something Bex had pointed out multiple times since I’d met her. But they both loved Bex more than anything.

Couldn’t say the same for my parents. They’d both proven, repeatedly, that I was for sale to the highest bidder or for the next fix.

“Hey.” Bex touched my hand. “Where’d your head go that has you looking all sad?”

“Just wondering what life would’ve been like with parents that actually cared about me.” I flashed her a forced smile and tried to shrug it off.

Her expression morphed into something fierce. “It’s their loss, Maddie. Screw them both for not seeing how amazing you are.”

“I hate that Gary won,” I confessed. “He got the money, and Madelaine’s dead. It’s not right.”

“Maybe Ash and Tyler will find something on the drives that’ll help,” she suggested. “And you know Ryan isn’t going to let him waltz off into the sunset.”

Judging by the planning in the garage, she was right.

“Speaking of Ryan, he’s making dinner. Are you hungry?”

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