Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“Girl?” That voice belonged to Sadie.
Madison let out a sigh of relief and wrenched open the door to find her friend looking amazingly gorgeous—as usual—except for the concern on her face. “Thank you for coming.”
Sadie pushed her way inside, then locked up behind her, gray backpack in her grip. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but right after you called, Mama told me the family erupted in panic. The senator is pacing and furious as fuck. Todd’s daddy is frantically making phone calls. Predictably, Agatha is doing what a senator’s wife does—hobnobbing with the press she considers her ‘friends’ while giving Cynthia valium like it’s candy.”
So they knew what Todd had done and were already doing damage control, including keeping her mother-in-law, who was prone to hysterics, sedated.
“Where’s Todd?”
She shrugged. “Mama didn’t mention him at the house.”
That meant he was still out looking for her. “Anything else?”
“The family is asking about you, girl. All over town… They’re ‘worried’ they haven’t seen you in hours. You have to get out of here. Change clothes.” Sadie shoved the bag in her hand.
Madison tore into it, stripping off everything except her undergarments, then donning a pair of black jeans, a baggy black V-neck shirt, and some dark sneakers. She shoved her dirties in the bag. She’d dump them elsewhere later. “Better?”
Sadie shook her head, sending her waist-length braids bouncing around her. “I still think what I thought the first time we met. You’re too beautiful not to be noticed and too delicate for this life. What the hell happened?”
“I can’t involve you anymore. It’s dangerous.” And Sadie was a twenty-one-year-old honors student with her whole life ahead of her.
She asked. “It’s already dangerous. Give me something.”
On the one hand, Madison didn’t want to put Sadie in the Pershings’ crosshairs. On the other, if the family found her before she escaped town, Madison feared what they would do. They probably wouldn’t kill her—at least right away. But they would make her life hell because she’d proven more than once that she wouldn’t put the family’s reputation above her morals. Since then, they’d used every means possible to minimize her. How long before they silenced her altogether?
“I went to Todd’s ‘love shack’ to demand a divorce. I found him. I watched him kill Brent. I caught it on video.”
Sadie’s jaw dropped. Her dark eyes threatened to pop from her head. “Are you shitting me?”
“I wish I was. I especially wish Todd hadn’t seen me and chased me down a stairwell with a bloody knife, threatening to kill me, too.”
“Damn…”
“I’d go to the police, but—”
“Don’t bother. The Pershings own tons of cops and every judge in town. You gotta run, girl.”
Exactly. “Where? I can’t hide forever.”
“Go where they can’t touch you.”
Madison scoffed. “Unfortunately, Mars is a little chilly this time of year.”
Sadie put her hands on her hips, her brown skin gleaming under the harsh lights of the bathroom. “I’m serious.”
“I am, too. There’s nowhere in the world their influence doesn’t reach.”
Sadie sighed. “Then go home.”
Madison gaped in return. “What the—”
“Not that fancy-schmancy condo Todd bought to be your gilded cage. Go to Louisiana.”
“That’s the first place they’ll look. And I don’t dare endanger Daddy.”
“He’s in a medical facility. He’ll be okay for now. But you gotta reach safety, and all those badasses you know—”
“Are now married and have children. I can’t put them in jeopardy.”
“Not all of them.” She raised a brow. “What about Matt?”
Madison rued the day she’d been lonely, imbibed too much wine, and spilled the deets about her weekend with the rugged cowboy. “As far as I know, he’s still single. But he didn’t want me then. He’s not going to want my trouble now.”
“Make it worth his while, girl. You two have unfinished business. If he’s not interested”—she shrugged—“he’s not. But I’m guessing he wouldn’t want you to die.”
Madison sighed. She didn’t want to gamble on Sadie being wrong…but she was out of options. “All right.”
“Good. Now go. I’ll miss you, girl.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” She gave Sadie a teary hug, fearing her life would never be the same again.
After a promise to stay in touch, Madison slipped out of the coffee shop. No one looked at her twice.
Nearly twenty-four sleepless hours later—after renting a cheap motel room long enough to dye her hair, using cash to purchase a last-minute train ticket to Atlanta, and then hopping a bus to Lafayette—she crept onto Matt’s property. Over the past two years, she’d stalked the heartbreaker on social media. He didn’t post often, but if he had moved, one of their mutual friends, probably Tessa Garrett or Laila Scott, would have mentioned it.
Finally, with her destination near, the Louisiana sky opened up and the hot summer rain poured down. She slinked toward Matt’s brightly lit porch, wondering if he was even home or out with someone beautiful and willing who wasn’t fighting for her life, when he suddenly appeared at the window, phone in one hand, beer in the other, staring into the night. He was bare from the waist up, and he looked more solid and powerful than ever. Her breath caught. Her heart flipped. A battalion of butterflies dive-bombed her stomach.