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I can’t get Zarah’s sad eyes out of my mind. The petite frame of her body. Her tiny feet. Compared to my size, she seemed like a little doll.
Easily broken.
It will be impossible to wrap my head around the knowledge some fucker paid to hit her. I want to do more than bash Black’s face in for selling her. That he’ll rot in prison for the rest of his life isn’t enough.
He stole Zarah’s self-esteem. Self-worth.
I know shame when I see it, and it was all over her face when she ran out of the café.
I wish Max were here. To help her. To take away her pain.
I wish I could.
But me and her. I don’t belong with a woman like that.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Max asked me to do something.”
“Can’t be that bad.”
I stare at the divorcée’s lit-up house. “He asked me to keep an eye on Zarah Maddox.”
Pop blows out a breath. “They had a thing?” he asks, surprised.
I’m with him. When I found out—and I only found out when she and her brother stopped by the office and asked if they could go to Max’s funeral—I was speechless. Geeky Max who readWar and Peacefor fun in a relationship with Zarah Maddox. Most of the details hadn’t come out yet, and I didn’t know much about the nature of Max’s death, only that because of the Maddoxes, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Something that evening in the parking lot I had the satisfaction of reminding them.
Slowly, the pieces came together. Days of planning at the Crowne Royale, a luxury hotel near the Renegade. Romantic nights. Kisses and whispers in the dark as he helped her wade through the bog.
Jealousy burned swift and hot.
That my brother had the right to touch something as exquisite as the Maddox heiress.
“From what I can piece together, and from what the note said he gave to Mike McClennan to pass on to me.” I pull it out of my jacket pocket. I’ve been carrying it around, but I don’t know why. I guess because I haven’t fully decided if I’m going to do what Max asked. I don’t see the need for it. She’s been fine all this time. Zarah has plenty of people to look out for her, and Ashton and Clayton Black are locked up. High security. A strict—and short—list of visitors. She’s free of the Blacks. All she needs to do now is get on with the rest of her life.
Max was anxious and obsessed when he wrote that note.
Pop angles the notebook paper and reads it by streetlight. He wouldn’t turn the dome light on and call attention to our car. The streetlight is bright enough, and he makes quick work of skimming my half-brother’s request.
“He had it bad,” he says, folding the paper and handing it back to me.
I slip it into the torn envelope and shove it into my pocket. “Not hard to see why,” I say, and scoot deeper into my seat.
Pop doesn’t miss a thing. “Yeah?”
“Saw her yesterday and saved her from a pack of vultures.” I tell him about buying her a coffee, her anxiety over the choices. The shame coloring her cheeks when she ran away. Pop’s a man. I don’t have to tell him Zarah booked it the hell out of there because she felt the sizzle between us. Same as me.
I’m not Max.
“You like her?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I say, almost angrily. I have zero chance so why torture myself with something that will never happen.
“You’re not going to do what your brother asked?”
I can hear the disapproval in his voice. Last wishes are pretty sacred stuff, and one of the few things Max ever asked me to do.
My own shame burns my cheeks. I buried my head in the sand, not wanting to face Max’s death. Now coming to realize he’d asked me to do him an important favor, I’m lucky Zarahhasbeen okay. Otherwise, I would’ve blamed myself for anything that had happened to her. “It’s already been a year. She’s been all right.”