[ZARA]Over the brassy and body-pulsing music of the club, I heard nothing but the cracking of my heart. I couldn’t believe I let him do this to me again. That I allowed him to hurt me in every freaking way. How could I be so stupid in the first place? After every horrible thing he did in the past, how could I let myself believe a single word that came out of that deceitful mouth? Maddox had been bad news since day one. And I was foolish to think he could be anything other than a pain in the arse and my biggest regret.With another shot of dark red liquor down my throat, I winced. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was drinking after a long time or because I had grown too vulnerable to handle this shit, but my throat and chest burnt like hell. But maybe this was something I needed to get him out of my head and system. I needed to lose myself for a bit to forget the bone-deep hurt he was solely responsible for.I had left for good and should never have returned. I should have signed tho
Josh stiffened and wheezed when Maddox grabbed him by the nape and smashed his head against the column next to him. I flinched, staring at the blood that broke out of his skin. Josh groaned and spun on his heels, swinging a punch through the air almost blindly. Maddox dodged it with no effort, punching him in the face and kicking him between his legs.The people around us froze and gasped when Josh fell on his knees, holding his gems with thick red liquid dripping down the side of his face. Maddox wasn’t done, though. His green eyes burned with rage. Stepping back, he scanned his surroundings, only to return with a small round table near the entrance, smashing it over Josh’s head.Perhaps it was the alcohol pounding in my veins or the fact I had literally no fuck to give, I turned my back on those two fighting bulls and pushed past the crowd that had gathered to watch the show.Once stumbling out of the club, I drew my arms around myself to deter the cool air from causing goosebumps a
[ZARA]The hangover of the previous night hit me way before the mellow music in my ears and was way more powerful than a damn wrecking ball. In fact, now that I thought about it, the way my body hurt it had been fucking bruised, a tractor-trailer truck probably ran over me. It didn’t help that everything around me was constantly in motion. Or it felt like it was, yet the lack of food in my tummy was to be blamed for the terrible sickness gushing up my chest.I blinked several times to clear the fuzziness in front of my eyes, just in time to catch a line of tall trees on either side of the rocky road. One minute ago, the music that sounded foreign to my ears now felt coherent enough to know it was English and not extraterrestrial. God, imagine if that was the case. The only good thing would have been to get rid of Maddox Richmond and his annoying toxic ass. Speaking of which…“Hey. Wow, you’re awake.” I heard someone chirp next to me as I rolled my neck to the other side and brushed the
[MADDOX]“So let me get this straight.” Nathan frowned, glaring at me with his hands on his hips. “First, you force Zara into marrying you, then force her out. You don’t tell her anything about Emily, and now she is missing and you don’t have a fucking clue?”This whole thing sounded like one fucked up disaster. I should have probably seen that coming. And I did. But I was a fucker blinded by my equally fucked up emotions. I called this upon myself despite swearing never to let this happen ever again.I should have stayed away. I should have let her live her life in peace. I should not have let myself care. Not after what happened to Emily. But I did, and now everything around me was pulsing, threatening to explode. Including my brother’s temper—the one guy who rarely lost his fuse—just one word away from skyrocketing.Not that it mattered in the face of this blunder named Richard Milton.Two hours ago, after the entire fiasco with Josh in his club, I woke up in my car with a terrible
“I was trying to protect her!” Despite the dizziness still darkening my vision, I snapped up at my brother. “You think I deliberately put her in harm’s way? I didn’t see it coming. Richard took me off-guard. He literally knocked me out.”“You didn’t see it coming?” Nathan hissed, his face turning darker and so much angrier. “You said the same thing when he took Emily. That you didn’t see it coming. But the truth was she gave you all the signs to warn you her life was in danger. Those texts and calls that you didn’t care to share with us. With me. With anyone.”“I was trying to protect you. All of you. The more you knew about him, the more danger you would have been in.”“If what you say is the truth, and we were better off knowing nothing about that asshole, then why the hell Zara’s life is in danger, huh? How would you explain that?”“I don’t know, okay? I really don’t.” And it was eating me alive from the inside. The reason Emily became his overnight target was the fact she turned o
*A Few Hours Before Armonica's Abduction*[BRANDON]“What are you doing here?”Armonica stood on my front porch. I had no clue why. But seeing her in the dead of night, something hurled in the pit of my stomach. From head to toe, she was soaking wet, her entire body trembling against the cold outside. If she said something in response, I failed to hear it. Against my better judgment, I opened the doors of my home for her, led her inside and into the living room.“Brandon!” Her voice trembled as she spoke.“Save it!” Rushing into my bedroom, I returned with some dry towels. Then I went into the room Zara used to stay in before she got herself a new place. I knew she kept some spares just in case. Once I found a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, I laid them on the bed and went back outside.Armonica was in the middle of drying her hair. She paused when our eyes met.“You can use that room.” I told her, gesturing at the room behind my back. “There are some dry clothes you can change into
I tried to clear my head and think like a mature person. But whom was I kidding? I had waited for so long for those words to come out of her mouth that all my attempts to act rationally ended up in vain. My eyes dropped to trace the shape of her plump lips and my hands itched to be all over her. It only deepened the hot, burning desires coursing through me, seeing how close she was, how good she smelt and how much I wanted to take her to my bed and return my confession in a much more intimate way.But something was holding me back. The weight of the ring on my finger. Even though I barely knew my fiancé, I couldn’t betray her. When I agreed to the engagement, it was my decision, the one I took considering everything there was to consider.I sighed, dropping my shoulders and trying to ease a building headache. “Armonica…it’s too late for this.”“I know. But that’s not the answer to my question.” Taking another bold step close to me, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and lifted h
[ZARA]It would have been so much better if that man had just killed me on the spot. Because after being drugged and cuffed and dumped in a lonely forest shack, I was just hanging in limbo, crawling in and out of consciousness, having no track of time or place.Every time a little consciousness hit me with a soft knock on my eyelids, I found myself in the same creepy wooden cabin. Laid on the dusty floorboards, my wrists and ankles tied and the entire space turned to exactly 90 degrees. It would take a hell long minute for my tardy brain to figure out the whole situation and by the time I would try to do something about it, hoping to get these ties off of me or maybe try screaming for help, my eyes would grow heavy all over again and the drug would knock me out one more time.I had no idea how many hours had passed since that asshole ditched me here. Or maybe it had been days? He said this was like the game of hide and seek, so I was really hoping Maddox would know I was missing and wa