Page 23 of Dangerous Command
“Why would they? Everyone thought Muro was dead.”
“Or did they?” she asked. She shrank back, her hands clutched behind her, pressing her breasts out. “It’s almost like someone’s watching us.”
“Us?” I asked. That was an interesting choice of words. “Why would someone be watchingyou, Maddie?”
She touched her cheek cautiously, then let her hands drop. “I’m just saying it’s too quiet here. Muro is alive, so why wouldn’t he be here, waiting for us to show up?”
Because Muro wasn’t the kind of person to shoot a sniper rifle and take the target out efficiently. He was waiting for the right moment when it would hurt me the most. I had seen what Muro did to his wife and my father.
“Because a death like this would be too easy,” I said.
Maddie’s veins visibly pulsed beneath her skin. I imagined sucking right there, biting it until she cried out. I had never heard her make those noises before, but I wanted to sear them into my memory. To hear what her mixed-up emotions sounded like. The war of what she shouldn’t want, rivaling with what she desired.
But there was one thing that was certain. Maddie was afraid of being back in Brackston.
Maddie had never been one to go into her personal life, which was part of what made her attractive to me. She was mysterious. Other women threw themselves at me; one even offered to sell a kidney if it meant securing my heirs. But Maddie always treated her work like an actual job, like my brothers and I were simply clients.
And yet I was more suspicious of her than I had ever been. What ties was she trying to avoid here? Why did she want to cut paths to her life in Brackston?
Madeline Vela. Miles Muro. Margot. So many damn M names. That could be a coincidence.
Or it could be a connection.
Still, I wanted to give Maddie a chance to explain herself. To tell the truth. As far as I knew, she had been good to my family.
I should have been more sympathetic to my own uncle over her, but I couldn’t help it. Uncle Ray confirmed his reasons for being suspicious; Maddie simply hid behind a false identity.
All I needed to do was to figure out why.
“What happened to you in Brackston?” I asked.
She stepped back, leaning against the wall, her eyes still focused on mine. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“What was so bad about it that you moved to Pebble Garden? Then to Sage City?” I tilted my head. “Why not leave the state entirely, if you couldn’t stand to be in Brackston?”
She looked all around us, her voice still quiet, “My mother. And bad memories. Nothing I want to go into right now.”
“You’re hiding something from me.”
“I’m hiding from myself.”
The air was thick with tension. She adjusted her tank top, suddenly noticing that her chest was more exposed than before, those juicy breasts barely held up by the bra.
“Prove to me that you’re mine,” I said.
“I’m not yours,” she said quickly.
Perhaps that came out wrong. I slipped into my own desires. What I needed, right then, was different.
“Your loyalty, Maddie: where does it lie?”
“What?”
“Kneel.”
She pressed her palms to the wall. “No. I’m not kneeling.”
I stepped closer and she sucked in a breath.
