Page 74 of Ox
Although she doesn’t directly say she’s once again gone out on a limb for me, the pleading in her eyes most certainly does.
“Let me guess… the head honchos want more evidence?”
I faced the same issue when I commenced proceedings to have Warden Mattue taken down. He wasn’t as bad as Agent Moses, nothing he did specifically affected Demi, but he didn’t deserve his position. For a change, I went about things the right way. I gave the investigators enough evidence to place ‘inmate’ in front of Warden Mattue’s title, but somehow, he wasn’t found negligent in his position.
I had planned to push the matter further, but Rocco took the decision out of my hands. He trialed Warden Mattue in the court he fucked over, and when he was sentenced to death for his crimes, Rocco took care of his execution as well.
It kills her to do, but Agent Machini lifts her chin. “We don’t have anything solid on India. It’s all hearsay or out of our jurisdiction. Then when we stumble onto a witness, they’re either too scared to talk or end up dead.” She locks her eyes with mine. “I don’t see that being the case with you. If we work together, we can do this. We can bring India to justice.”
It’s clear her idea of justice and mine are two starkly contradicting notions, but I’m not sure I should admit that to a federal agent, so instead, I hit her with a wink that could mean many things before gesturing for her to lead the way.
Three hours later, I’m the same Maddox on the inside, but my shell has been reconfigured. Tails’s artistry skills are as out of this world as Henley’s, but they’re not permanent. He used the same process when actors and actresses require tattoos. The transfers will wash off in two weeks, perhaps a couple of days if I really scrub them.
“What do you think?” I ask Agent Machini while doing a twirl to show her my new ink.
A grin tugs my lips when she mutters, “Say that again… with the right accent this time around?”
Every stencil Tails placed on my body represents England in some way—Big Ben, the Tower Bridge everyone often confuses for London Bridge, and even their infamous black cabs and red buses got a placement on my arms. I’m tatted up like my hair coloring is compliments to a UK heritage.
I won’t lie. At first, I wasn’t convinced with Agent Machini’s plan. It was only after she explained the information she had unearthed about Trey Corbyn the past twelve hours did I realize she could be on the money.
India’s plan to birth children of all mafia ethnicities started when she was betrothed to Achim Novak. Since he was obsessed with a housemaid he’d known since childhood, India shifted her focus on another equally powerful man—Trey Corbyn.
When Achim heard about her overzealous affection of a rival, he hatched an evilly cunning plan that not only saw Trey’s family stripped of their mafia lineage, but it also commenced India’s fixation to rule from all corners of the globe.
If rumors are true, India’s surrogates have most of the top nations in the world covered. There’s only one country she’s yet to tick off her list—the United Kingdom. When the Corbyn’s reign fell, the Russians moved in. Excluding the true monarch, there hasn’t been a homeborn ruler in over six years—until today.
Noel Corbyn has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? The youngest brother of Trey and Cole, Corbyn was left to fend for himself after his family’s downfall since he was birthed to a whore instead of the queen of the Corbyn entity.
When you truly stop and think about it, Agent Machini’s plan is quite brilliant.
I stop grinning at her brilliance when soft fingers trace the tattoo covering a majority of my left shoulder. “The resemblance is uncanny,” Agent Machini whispers while taking in the tattoo of Demi with her father. “The tattoo artist did a wonderful job.” She waits for me to tug on a shirt, then spin around to face her before asking, “Do you miss her?”
“Every single goddamn day,” I reply without fault, my tone the most honest it’s been the past five years. “She’s always on my mind, day and night. I’ll never forget her.”
After bracing her hip on the bed I was lying on the past couple of hours, she asks, “Is she the reason you served time?”
I take a moment to consider her question before sheepishly shaking my head. “Demi wasn’t to blame for anything her uncle did.”
“Some could say the same for you, Maddox. You did at the time what you thought was right. None of us should feel sorry about that.” I don’t know why, but I’m reasonably sure her comment includes some skeletons of her past as well, but before I can call her out on it, she asks, “If you could go back and change one thing, what would you change?”
I almost say I wouldn’t be a prick to Demi when she mashed her head into my crotch, but then I realize my dithering moods were the least of our problems back then. I can’t even place the blame on Col’s shoulders.
Agent Machini looks shocked when I say, “I would make sure Agent Moses’s claims that I would help my community were legitimate.”
“You wouldn’t change the family Demi was born in?”
I shake my head. “Demi was who she was because of what she had been through. I would have given anything to stop her from being hurt, but I wouldn’t have changed her for the world. She was perfect the way she was.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, stunned in silence.
Just as she regains the ability to talk, her cell phone silences her for the second time. After peering down at the screen, she lifts her eyes to mine. “I should take this. It could be important.”
When I jerk up my chin, giving her the go-ahead, the friendly Macy Machini mask she’s been wearing the past four hours is replaced with Agent Machini, an all-round hard-ass yet still a fierce federal agent.
I discover why when she murmurs, “Grandma is good. She’s doing a lot better than the doctors let on.” She swivels on the spot, a telltale sign she feels guilty about lying. “I don’t think I’ll need to stay as long as first perceived. I should be back in a couple of days.” Her sigh is both pained and worrying when she asks, “When?” I pay more attention to her conversation when she shifts on her feet to face me. “How many casualties?” The widening of her pupils tells me her caller’s number is high. “No, no, I’ll tell him… I’m sure. We’ve developed a weird bond the past four years.” I’m confident she’s talking about me, and I am given a chance to seek clarification when she breathes heavily down the line, “I love you too. Always. Bye.”
She doesn’t sugarcoat her news, nor does she roll it in glitter to make it appear not as dreary as it is. She merely hits me with straight-up honesty. “It’s your sister. She’s missing.”
