Page 23 of Covert (Ruthless Love #2)

Chapter twenty

Maddox

T oday is shit. I woke up in a terrible mood, and not even Nikki's sweet presence at breakfast and on the ride to the shop made me feel any better. Maybe it's because she rode with Axel today. Whatever. I'm not a needy bitch.

So, when my phone rings and I see Officer Johnson's name on my phone, my stomach drops. Maybe my bad mood was a premonition. I leave my client without a word, snap off my sweat gloves, and stomp out the back door.

"What?" I bark into the phone, a mix of terror and fury. My insides vibrate with anxious tension, and I just need to know.

"No updates."

My shoulders sag in relief, but the anger doesn't leave me, just the fear.

"What fucking use are you!? It's been years and nothing? She's just disappeared off the face of the planet? No text, no body, no blood. What the fuck man?! What would you do if that were your sister?"

A tiny gasp pulls my attention back to the door. Fuck. Nikki's head and shoulders pour out of the doorway. I hadn't even heard the door open under my rant.

I don't want to explain to Nikki how I fucked up. I don't want to have to tell her that I'm a horrible person. I don't want her to look at me differently .

I slam the End button on my phone before raging towards her. My fists are balled, my chest is heaving, and an alarm is blaring in the back of my skull that this is a bad idea.

I grab her arm and press her against the brick wall. At least I'm aware enough to put my hand between the back of her head and the wall, but the rest of me is fuming.

Wide brown eyes stare up at me, but she's not afraid. I'd expect any woman to cower under a raging asshole like me. One who is clearly violent and out of control.

"Why the fuck aren't you afraid of me!?" I shout down at her.

My stomach sours even as I speak to her like this, but my anger has always been my go-to emotion when things get hard.

When mom went hungry because she couldn't afford to feed us.

Whenever the bullies would make fun of Nat and me because our clothes were stained or had holes in them.

Whenever anyone looked at Mom wrong because she would have to compare the coupons for cans of vegetables.

When Nat was taken.

Because if I let myself feel any other emotion-anything besides anger - I'd have crumbled.

After mom passed, Nat was my world. My only living family member.

Mine to protect. And I failed her. So, instead of imploding into a ball of self-loathing and loss, I clung to my anger.

If she were ever found, I needed to be around.

And I couldn't do that if I weren't angry.

Dad took off when we were young. The old story of "he went out for some scratchers and never came back".

Mom was young and worked as a school janitor.

She would steal printer paper for me because she knew I loved to draw.

She always said her taxes went to fund the schools, so she was only taking what she was owed .

I always worried she'd get caught, but she did it anyway. Her life was hard. And she aged quickly because of it. She had a brain aneurysm a week after Nat moved out of the house. It was almost like she was waiting for both of her kids to be okay before she let herself rest.

I hope she finally found the rest she deserved.

"I'm not afraid of you," the tiny woman in front of me says, pulling me out of my memories.

"Why the fuck not?!" I shout again, angry at the world, angry at her for not having more self-preservation sense, and angry at myself, for my mom, for Nat, for yelling at Nikki.

"I could take you."

I scoff, incredulously.

"Your sister? That's the one Axel looks for, isn't she?" Her tone is small, sad, and tender, and it only pisses me off more.

I pound the brick above her head. That at least causes her to flinch.

"Why the fuck do you care?" I growl.

Two small, delicate hands are placed on my pecs, and she does the last thing I was ever expecting.

She wraps them around my neck and steps into me, hugging me.

She presses her face into my chest, and I freeze.

Stupid woman, she should be running away from me, calling for help. What the fuck is she thinking?

I go to pull her arms off of me, but she speaks. "I lost someone close to me, too. I know what it feels like." I still. Who did she lose? When did she lose them? A brother? A sister? A friend? A boyfriend?

"Who did you lose?" My hand drops to her lower back as I hold her begrudgingly in a hug. Her pity makes me almost as uncomfortable as her knowing about Nat, but her understanding, her touch, has the red haze in my vision retreating. It's still close to the surface, though, in case I need it.

"My brother. When I ran, he couldn't come with me, and I miss him every day. It never gets easier, does it? Walking around with a them-shaped hole in your heart?"

The fight drains from me entirely. "No. No, it doesn't."

We hold each other for what feels like hours, but I'm sure is just minutes.

It's both too short and too long. We don't talk.

We don't need to. She left her brother behind, in a probably not-safe place.

My sister was taken and, if she's even still alive, is in a not-safe place.

I try not to think about what she could be going through right now. Sometimes, death is better.

But the small woman in front of me, who's not afraid of anything and who understands my loss better than most, doesn't judge me.

She just holds me.

And it's everything I didn't know I needed.