Locke

  "And what do you think Jefferson can do for you, Maddox? He's our lawyer, and unless you have some hidden money in your thrift-store furniture at home, I doubt you can even afford the cost to call him on the phone." My mother laughs at her dig.

  She's right though. I have nothing to fight with. And since I'm leaving in less than a week, there isn't any time to fix this until I get home. I look over at Mercedes to find her staring at Mason with an expression that I can't understand. I clear my throat and she jumps at the sound. Looking over at me, she gives me a small smile and shrugs her shoulders. She's never been one to jump into confrontation, which is another reason I've worked so hard to keep her away from my mother and brother.

  "This isn't over," I tell them.

  "That's where you're wrong, brother," he says with a hard tone to his usual indifference towards me.

  He takes a few steps towards where I'm standing, coming toe to toe with me. I look into the face so different to my own. Where I'm tan skin, black hair, and even blacker eyes, he is the complete opposite. Light-brown hair, hazel eyes, and pale skin. How have I never noticed the menacing darkness that swirls around him?

  "Check. Mate," he snarls under his breath.

  "You motherfucking bastard," I yell, slamming my fist into his face.

  He staggers back, wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth, and laughs. He laughs in my face.

  "I might be a bastard, Maddox, but right now, I'm a bastard that has complete control over you, and you will do best to remember your place. Have fun on your little trip. I trust you two can see yourselves out?"

  He turns his back and I watch as my mother rushes to his side and fusses over her baby. With nothing but rage coursing through my body, the monsters my family has planted into my very soul get a little larger.

  Mercedes does her best to calm me down, but I know that they've won. There's no way I'll get my shares of the company. And all because I was stupid enough not to read the paperwork Jefferson sent over, assuming it was all the legal bullshit that came with protecting the company with my engagement and upcoming marriage to Mercedes. I should have known. I should have seen it coming. But I let the hopes that my darkness was finally getting a little brighter cloud my judgment.

  "It's going to be okay, Maddox. We can get past this," she coos when we get back into my piece-of-shit truck.

  "Yeah, Mercy? How exactly will we do that? We're barely staying afloat now. You're going to have to do better at the spending. We can't be wasting every check I get on more designer purses and shit."

  "I...I can try, Maddox. But there are things we are going to have to buy now."

  She smiles when I look at her, confused.

  "I didn't want to tell you, but I think you need something to look forward to now that...well, now. I'm pregnant. We're going to have a baby." She smiles shyly and looks down at her hands.

  A baby. Jesus. I can't even provide for both of us, and now, we have someone else to add to the mix. Every spare dollar we have she spends on more clothes and shit. I never minded--if she's happy, I'm happy. But now? A baby.

  I sit there, running every possible scenario through my mind. I'll be gone for the next six months at best. She can't work two jobs that long. How the hell are we going to handle this?

  "Aren't you happy?" she asks, looking at me, her face oddly void of emotion.

  I clear my throat. "Yeah, babe. I'm happy," I lie. I love her, and somehow, I'll make this work--even if I have to sell my soul to the devil.

  Four days later, I kiss my girl goodbye and never imagine that everything I've known for the last seven years was just a small piece in the giant game that's been playing against me. I leave distracted, worried, and--for the first time ever--afraid of what the future holds. I've worked so hard to give Mercedes a life she deserves. I should have known that the evil inside me would allow her to be tempted.

  And unfortunately, when I need her the most, I'm denied even that.

  Two months later, my war against my demons, the evil that I've always been told is deep within me, wins. And I'm left with even less than I came into this world with.

  A broken man.

  A broken man not worthy of anything pure in this world.

  After all--everything I touch turns to shit anyway.

  Chapter 3--Maddox--Past

  "Johnson! Get fucking down! Morris, goddamn it, fall back!" I scream seconds before the earth shakes and a wave of fiery heat pulses through my body. Then I'm lifted off my feet and tossed like a rag doll.

  When I'm able to clear my head a little, it sounds like I'm at the bottom of a tunnel and the air is whooshing around me. My eyes fight to open as I try to make sense of where I am. I can feel the sand blowing over my skin, prickling the exposed areas of my hands and face.

  "John..." I struggle to get the word out, my lungs protesting and wetness bubbling up from my throat. I try to move my arm to wipe the annoying path it leaves when it rolls down my neck, but the second I do, it's like the trigger my mind needs to let me feel is pulled. The pain that shoots from my arm seems to ping-pong around my body until it shoots out my head.

  I try to speak again, but more wetness drools out the side of my mouth. Fuck! I have to get the hell up! Mentally telling myself that I need to man the fuck up, I use every ounce of strength I have to pull my body together. Each movement I make causes my mind to scream, demanding that I just lie the fuck down and let go. But something in the back of my head tells me that, if I don't move now, it's going to be too late.

  Focusing my eyes around the dust-filled fog swirling around me, I briefly make out Johnson's prone form just feet away. When I move to stand, I realize quickly why my body is telling me to just stop--my foot and a good part of my shin are all but hanging from my leg. I lie back and pull my belt from the loops, knowing that this is going to hurt more than I could ever imagine. Then I use what I can to secure my leg to minimize the damage. Inside my head, I'm screaming, but I know I need to do what's necessary. What I'm trained to do. I have to stop a few times just to keep myself from blacking out--the pain is that intense.

  When I can finally see through the dust and pain enough to make out the best path to Johnson, my body is on the edge of losing consciousness. The pain is climbing higher and higher.

  With my leg useless to handle my weight, I flip to my stomach and make the painful crawl forward. It takes way too long to get to Johnson, and I know that, if I don't hurry the fuck up, none of us will make it out of here. The car that exploded just seconds before could start a chain reaction with the two that are parked next to it. Not only that, but you can never assume that the area is free of more danger than just a car bomb.

  The streets were empty when we made our way in earlier, but I saw the threat just seconds before the homemade bomb was triggered. Before I could scream out my warning--it was too late.

  "Johnson, you hear me, brother?" I wheeze when I get to his side.

  He doesn't respond, and after checking for a pulse, I know he needs a medic immediately. Before I assess the situation further, I look around for Morris. He was closest to the blast, but until I know for sure, I won't leave either of them behind.

  I'm about to give up hope when I see him, and I know there is no way possible that he's alive. There is a large piece of metal impaling him directly through the chest.

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I crawl as quickly as my mangled body allows towards him and drag him back with me, moving away from the flames.

  It takes me what feels like weeks in between bouts of vomiting my own blood, stopping numerous times during our evacuation to fire round after round at the camouflaged threat around us, and having to pause because my vision is starting to tunnel in and out, but I manage to pull my brothers for almost a mile before I hear the motor of an incoming truck. With no choice but to keep my path, I can only pray that it's one of our own. They know by now that help was needed. With signals down, I was unable to call it in, but there is no fucking way they missed that exp
losion.

  I vaguely hear orders being called out and feet rushing around. The only thing I can think is, Thank fuck they're American, before I pass out.

  Chapter 4--Maddox--Past

  The first thing I feel when I start to wake up is pain. An unbearable pain I never thought possible is searing through my whole body. My eyes hurt, my arm is killing me, and my ribs and chest scream with every breath I attempt to take, but the worst pain is coming from my leg.

  What the hell happened to me? I try to remember where I was last, but my head seems to be filled with nothing but dark holes. I attempt to open my eyes again, blinking fiercely at the pain from the bright lights.

  I groan and try to move my arm to my eyes, coming up short when it smacks me in the head with a bone-crushing force. What the hell? Peeking through my eyelids, I see a bulky cast covering my arm from hand to shoulder.

  Then it hits me. Johnson, Morris, and the bomb.

  With a renewed rush of strength, I push my body to listen and open my eyes to look around the barren hospital room.

  Where the hell am I?

  I locate the call button and wait for someone to come and explain some things to me. Did Johnson make it? Did Morris's body make it home? Where am I? And why the hell am I in so much pain?

  An hour later, I feel like my world is coming to an end. The only thing getting me through is the thought of Mercy and our child. The nurse just left with the promise to call my family--well, Mercy--and let her know that I'm awake. It's been almost a month since I got here.

  As I fight the sleep that my body is demanding, I also battle with the fact that I've lost a chunk of my life. Numerous surgeries to mend my broken body have left me with a badly broken but healing arm, seven broken ribs, and one foot.

  After the rest of our team found me dragging Johnson and Morris, we were taken the military outpost. I was airlifted to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center next to the US air base in Ramstein, Germany, as soon as I was stable enough to be moved.

  Despite my best efforts, Johnson and Morris didn't make it. I can't even get past the part that I'm now going to have to learn how to walk again--not when my brothers didn't make it out alive. All because I was fucked up in the head from my problems at home. I missed the danger, and because of that, their families are husbandless and fatherless.

  Hours later, I wake with a jolt. It takes me a second to realize that the screaming echoing throughout the room is coming from my own mouth. I'm soaked through with sweat from my nightmare of the bombing, but what has me screaming isn't reliving that hell. No, what woke me is the sensation that my foot is being sawed off. My whole leg feels like I've dipped it into a shredder.

  "FUCK!" I scream, doing my best to get the covers off my feverish body. "Goddamn it!" I hear the heart monitor screaming as I force my body to move. To get to my leg before the pain becomes too much to bear.

  After throwing back the covers, I reach down with the arm not in a cast and come up empty. The pain is getting worse with each second, but when I look down, there is nothing. Nothing but a covered stump halfway down from my knee. I scream from pain so uncontrollably violent that I start to vomit all over myself and frantically search for a way to turn off the feelings coming from a foot that is no longer part of my body.

  A month later, marking seven months since I've been away from home, I've become used to the nightmares that wake me in pain to search for my missing foot. My wails have become a constant companion for the emptiness that's become my life. I fight with the depression that has settled over my body like a thick blanket.

  The depression didn't sink in until I got a letter from Mary, Johnson's widow, telling me to stop trying to contact her family. The blame for her husband's death is all mine. By allowing myself close to him, her, and their kids, I have ruined their lives.

  "It should have been you, Maddox. I would have my husband and my children would have their father had you not failed them. I will never forgive you for ruining my life."

  Her words are a constant companion. I wake alone and I go to sleep alone.

  The majority of my time is spent making sure the rest of my body doesn't succumb to the darkness swirling around me. Doctors in and out, nurses, physical therapists--you name it. My room has become a revolving door of medical personnel. There's one thing that is painfully missing from this time.

  Mercy.

  She was notified. I know that much. But she hasn't come. Didn't even pick up when I called her over and over. My letters come back unopened. My own mother and brother didn't even care--not that I'm shocked there--but Mercy? My Mercy against the world I've been fighting since birth is gone, just gone. The hope is eclipsed more and more each day she isn't here.

  "Well don't you look like shit," a deep voice jokes from the doorway.

  I turn my head and lock eyes with Reid. He's part of my team, but he wasn't with me out on the field. He and the other men were clearing another part of the area when we took the other.

  "Won't be winning any beauty contest. That's for fucking sure," Beck says, coming in behind him.

  "Coop and Cage are on the way. We're getting the hell out of here and taking you with us. Time to go home and get the fuck out of this bed," Reid says. He gives me a lopsided smile, trying to ease some of the thickness in the air.

  "Have you been able to get Mercy?" I ask. I don't give a damn about anything else right now. I need my girl. I need to know that she and our child are okay. Everything I've been pushing my body to do since the day I woke has been for her. I'll get stronger; I'll overcome--for them.

  "Yeah, brother, we have," he says weakly.

  Beck won't meet my eyes, and that damn sense of dread starts to fall over me.

  "What the fuck does that mean?"

  "Why don't we focus on getting you Stateside and walking again?" Reid tries to change the subject, his green eyes boring into mine.

  "Tell me where the hell she is, Reid."

  He flinches but doesn't say anything. Until I hear the voice I hoped I wouldn't have the displeasure of hearing again for a long time break through the silence.

  "Oh you really are such stupid boy." She clicks her tongue. "They're not telling you because they seem to think you need to be eased into the news." She laughs. "I would ask how you are, but it looks like that demon seed that made you finally started to nip away at you. Quite literally."

  "You fucking bitch," Cage sneers from the doorway behind my mother.

  "No need for name-calling, dear. I'm just here to make sure there isn't anything tying me responsible for the invalid now that it's time for him to be discharged. Can't have that now. He's all yours, little boy." She pats Cage on the chest a few times before walking into the room. "It was such a long flight. Let me sit for a second before I tell you a little bedtime story." She walks over to where Beck's leaning back and gaping at her in the room's only chair. "Up now," she demands with a flick of her wrist.

  Beck, being the lover and not fighter of the group, stands without argument and moves out of her way.

  She sits, dusting off her black pants with her hands before folding them in her lap. I look up and meet her hard gaze, staring her straight on, refusing to let her see any weakness in me.

  "Story time, bastard son of mine." She pauses--I'm sure for dramatic flare. "Once upon a time, there was a son born out of an accidental affair with the pool boy. Such a terrible decision on the mother's end, being that she was married with a perfect little angel already. Oh, and that her husband couldn't have more children. Imagine the scandal that rocked the house when she became pregnant. Of course, the husband was deeply confused, determined to stand by her side while the mother worked her magic and had her husband believing in miracles."

  She laughs before her face falls and becomes serious again. "But that little bastard was nothing but trouble from day one. The mother was sick for the whole pregnancy, convinced that she was going to die from the demon inside her body. Her little prince suffered because she was feeling too unwell to c
are for him. Her husband--that miracle-believing fool--finally found out the truth when the baby was born. He looked nothing like his wife or other son, but instead favoring the dark complexion of a member of their staff. It was quite the time. Sure, that little bastard looked a little like his mother, but the differences were too vast for her lie to be believed. Like a thief in the night, her husband was gone."

  She pauses while I struggle to keep up with what is obviously my life story. Sure, I've always been a little tanner than the rest of the family, but I share my mother's dark eyes and black hair. I always assumed that my brother just took after our father.

  Holy shit.

  "Ah, I see it's sinking in now. Yes, Maddox, you are that little bastard. The rotten little baby that was," she laughs. "Now here is where things get real fun. Your father, leaving when he did and proving that I had in fact been unfaithful, took oh so much from me. He took money that was rightfully mine. He didn't get my company, but even that was struggling. I've been fighting hard to build it back up for years. I knew that, one day, because of the way my foolish father had worded his last will and testaments, my sons would retain partial control of Locke Oil. I couldn't take the chance that your rotten hands would touch what is ours. You played right into my hands when you met little Mercedes. She's been of great importance the last few years." She pause, and I feel the urge to throw up.

  Mercedes? What does she have to do with this fucked-up tale?

  I look up and lock eyes with the four other men listening to this shit--each of them wearing the same expression of shock and outrage.

  "I'm sure that, at some point in your ridiculously long relationship, she might have cared a little. It didn't take us much to persuade her to come work for our side of things. The money and power you can't provide her with can persuade even the strongest of souls. And of course it didn't hurt that your brother is quite fond of her. We offered her the world, something you would have never been able to give her. It was all planned out. All we had to do was wait for her to get that pathetic ring on her finger, have all those prenuptial papers drafted with the additional paperwork that relinquished your right to anything Locke Oil related, and wait for you to leave for another little game in the sandbox."