The next item I pick up is a letter, and after reading it, my blood is boiling.  I understand grief.  I’ve watched it up close and personal within our group, but what I don’t understand is using that grief to lash out at those who do not deserve it.

“Good God, Maddox.  I’m not going to argue with you.  You have believed this for so long, but let me tell you this much.  She was hurting, baby.  She needed someone to blame, and just like you blame yourself for something that is unjust, so does she.  She took the blame out on the only person who made sense to her.  I honestly believe that she regrets each of these words now.”

He doesn’t try to argue with me.  He’s going to believe it, but I’m going to keep working on him until he understands just how wrong he is.

The more items we go through, the more I look at him in shock as I try to make sense of it all.  From the outside, it’s so easy for me to see how wrong he is, but I can’t wrap my head around it.  Not until we get to the bottom.

There, I see a picture of a much younger, happier, Maddox, tattoos missing from his body.  He’s standing tall with a big smile on his face.  And in his arms is a stunning blonde.  From just this picture alone, I can see the evil in her eyes.  I don’t have to know her personally to know that she’s rotten to the core.

“That is Mercedes.  I had just asked her to marry me before I left.  I was young and dumb, blinded by the thought of a pure love.  I spent my whole life wishing for just one person who would love me for me, so when she entered my life, I grabbed on and didn’t let go.”

“What happened?” I ask, not sure that I want to know the answer to that question.

“My mother happened.  Well, to be honest, I think it was a fair mix of my mother, brother, and the power that came behind the Locke name.  Something I wasn’t interested in then and I still have no interest in now.  I wanted a life away from them, and even though I couldn’t give everything, I foolishly thought that she would be happy with just me.”

He goes on to tell me a tale so twisted that it sounds like he pulled it right off the Lifetime Movie Network.  He touched on this back when we were at the cabin, but to hear his life up until he became the version of himself I see in front of me now in so much detail is almost too much.

I want to cry for him, hold him, fix him, but standing in the frontline of all those feelings is the rage I feel for three sorry sons of bitches somewhere in the middle of Texas.

Chapter 27—Maddox

What I wouldn’t give to be inside her head right now.  I expected her disgust when I laid all of my pain on her lap—literally—but I never anticipated her anger for me to become a force to be reckoned with.

“I hate them,” she forces through her clenched jaw.  “God…”  She shakes her head but doesn’t finish.

“Hating them doesn’t do anything, Em.  Trust me.  I’ve been doing it for so long that I should know.”

Her gaze burns into my skin as I pack up the box and close the lid.  When I go to remove it from her lap, she stops me by slamming her palm down on the top.

“Don’t you dare.  We’re going to keep this out, and each day, we will come back to it.  We can pull them out one at a time, all at once, or just look at the fucking thing for all I care—but one thing we will be doing is talking about this.  I’ll talk until I’m blue in the face and you’re going to sit there and listen to me.  And, Maddox?”

“Yes, Emersyn,” I respond, waiting to see where she’s going with this.

“I don’t care if it takes every day I have left on this Earth, but by the time we finish, you’re going to be able to let go of everything that’s physically in this box and every piece of garbage you’ve let it collect within you.”

By the time she finishes, we’re both breathing heavily.  I have no doubt that she means it, and even though I can’t help but feel nervous about the thought of reliving my nightmares daily, with her, part of me feels instant relief that she isn’t giving up on me now that she knows what a vile soul I have.

“I mean it, Maddox.”

“I know you do, angel.”

“And when we’re done, I’m going to remind you of this moment and the promise I’m about to make to you,” she says, her eyes begging me to believe.

“Go on,” I urge.

“One day soon, when we’re able to take the majority of this and throw it away.  The day that you believe every word that I’m telling you as the truth that it is—that day, you’re going to feel the beauty of life, and the peace that you feel won’t even hold a candle to the love I’m going to drown you in.”