Page 31 of Wicked Love
Maybe I didn’t totally understand his way of life and how he justified it to himself, but any flickers of doubt I’d still had snuffed out. He might not be a good guy in all the typical ways, but he was more than good enough for me.
The same startled awe was crossing the other guys’ faces. Logan opened his mouth, but I leapt in before he could say anything.
“No. You’re not shutting us out.”
Beckett gave me a pained glance. “Maddie, it’s not like that.”
I stood up like Logan had and set my hands on my hips. “However you want to put it, it’s not happening. You want to protect all of us? Well, I want to protectyoujust as much. It’s my dad. None of this would have happened if we hadn’t been trying to unravel his murder. I’ll be careful, but I’m not going to step back now and let you take all the heat. I’m standing with you, pitching in every way I can.”
To my surprise, Slade got to his feet next, his expression tense but his eyes sparkling with determination. “I’m in this until the end too. It’s our fight as much as it is yours. We’d be real cabrones if we let you march into battle alone.”
Dexter sprang up too, his stance rigidly defiant. “I’m in. We stand together, all of us.”
That left only Logan, standing there with his jaw working and turmoil in his dark gaze. He stared at Beckett for a long moment.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he said finally, his voice rough but genuine enough that relief washed through me. “You could have walked away from this whole mess and left us to deal with it, but instead you’re doing the opposite. You insisted on pushing into our lives—well, now we’re insisting on being part of yours. As far as we have to go, as long as it takes, no matter what hell we have to go through.”
A tingle raced over my skin at the conviction in his words—and the knowledge that there really might be some kind of hell ahead of us.
Beckett gazed at all of us as if hoping we might change our minds. Then he sighed and rubbed his face. “Somehow I feel like arguing isn’t going to get me anywhere.”
I moved toward him and grasped his hand. “It isn’t. Because we’re in this together, all the way to the end.”
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Beckett
Iwatched the clock above the door as it continued ticking. Seconds turned into minutes as noon came and went, leaving me pacing the hardwood of the office floor.
He was late.
I’d requested a meeting with Doom’s Seed at his earliest convenience, and today at noon was the agreed upon time. It wasn’t in person, of course. Though I would have preferred that, he had denied the in-person invitation and countered with a video chat.
That was fair. Being a part of the Devil’s Dozen awarded most people a level of anonymity. Nobody knew where he held a residence. He could have been in this country or halfway across the world.
Our jobs made it possible to live virtually anywhere.
Our jobsdidn’tmake it impossible to join a damn video chat that’d been scheduled in advance on time.
I understood the game he was playing. It was the same sort of game that my father had played for years before his authority had dwindled. It was the same sort of game that I’d watched Mercy play so expertly in my time in Paradise Bend. Doom’s Seed was intent on showing who held the power in this meeting, in this case by making me wait.
So far, he was nine minutes later than expected.
I hated playing into his desire for power and control. I had half a mind to disconnect from the video chat before he joined, walk off, and not be here when he finally got around to signing in. If it’d been any less pressing a situation, that’s exactly what I’d do.
But if it were any less pressing a situation, I wouldn’t have requested the meeting in the first place, and Doom’s Seed probably realized that. If I wanted to keep Maddie safe, I needed to assess his involvement in the recent schemes I’d stumbled on. I couldn’t turn back for the sake of my pride.
The clock hit precisely 12:10, and an alert pinged on my computer signaling that the other party had joined the video chat. I turned toward my desk and settled stiffly into my chair. As I put on a mild but firm expression for the camera, I approved his icon.
The man I knew only as Doom’s Seed appeared on the screen. The plain beige background gave away nothing about his location, contrasting starkly with his typical flashy clothing.
In his usual garish fashion, he wore a vibrant gold-and-purple plaid vest over a shiny black button up with a tie that might have had actual gold thread woven into it in a paisley pattern. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes.
“Storm’s heir,” he said in greeting, with a sardonic tone that managed to make it sound as if he didn’t think the title was earned. Not that he knew all that much about me. “My apologies for the delay. I had something important come up.”
He didn’tsoundthe slightest bit apologetic, which no doubt was purposeful. All the same, I treated the apology as if he’d meant it, not allowing the implied insult to affect me. It was better if I pretended I hadn’t even noticed his subtle rudeness, though I kept my own tone brisk rather than placating. “I understand. Things come up. Thank you for coming.”
I’d thought long and hard about how I’d structure this conversation. I had to be so careful with my words. Every conversation within the Devil’s Dozen was a struggle for control, a fragile balance between maintaining authority and bargaining for what you wanted.
