He turns his back and I watch as my mother rushes to his side and fusses over her baby.  With nothing but rage coursing through my body, the monsters my family has planted into my very soul get a little larger.

Mercedes does her best to calm me down, but I know that they’ve won.  There’s no way I’ll get my shares of the company.  And all because I was stupid enough not to read the paperwork Jefferson sent over, assuming it was all the legal bullshit that came with protecting the company with my engagement and upcoming marriage to Mercedes.  I should have known.  I should have seen it coming.  But I let the hopes that my darkness was finally getting a little brighter cloud my judgment.

“It’s going to be okay, Maddox.  We can get past this,” she coos when we get back into my piece-of-shit truck.

“Yeah, Mercy?  How exactly will we do that?  We’re barely staying afloat now.  You’re going to have to do better at the spending.  We can’t be wasting every check I get on more designer purses and shit.”

“I…I can try, Maddox.  But there are things we are going to have to buy now.”

She smiles when I look at her, confused.

“I didn’t want to tell you, but I think you need something to look forward to now that…well, now.  I’m pregnant.  We’re going to have a baby.”  She smiles shyly and looks down at her hands.

A baby.  Jesus.  I can’t even provide for both of us, and now, we have someone else to add to the mix.  Every spare dollar we have she spends on more clothes and shit.  I never minded—if she’s happy, I’m happy.  But now?  A baby.

I sit there, running every possible scenario through my mind.  I’ll be gone for the next six months at best.  She can’t work two jobs that long.  How the hell are we going to handle this?

“Aren’t you happy?” she asks, looking at me, her face oddly void of emotion.

I clear my throat. “Yeah, babe.  I’m happy,” I lie.  I love her, and somehow, I’ll make this work—even if I have to sell my soul to the devil.

Four days later, I kiss my girl goodbye and never imagine that everything I’ve known for the last seven years was just a small piece in the giant game that’s been playing against me.  I leave distracted, worried, and—for the first time ever—afraid of what the future holds.  I’ve worked so hard to give Mercedes a life she deserves.  I should have known that the evil inside me would allow her to be tempted.

And unfortunately, when I need her the most, I’m denied even that.

Two months later, my war against my demons, the evil that I’ve always been told is deep within me, wins.  And I’m left with even less than I came into this world with.

A broken man.

A broken man not worthy of anything pure in this world.

After all—everything I touch turns to shit anyway.

Chapter 3—Maddox—Past

“Johnson!  Get fucking down!  Morris, goddamn it, fall back!”  I scream seconds before the earth shakes and a wave of fiery heat pulses through my body.  Then I’m lifted off my feet and tossed like a rag doll.

When I’m able to clear my head a little, it sounds like I’m at the bottom of a tunnel and the air is whooshing around me.  My eyes fight to open as I try to make sense of where I am.  I can feel the sand blowing over my skin, prickling the exposed areas of my hands and face.

“John…” I struggle to get the word out, my lungs protesting and wetness bubbling up from my throat.  I try to move my arm to wipe the annoying path it leaves when it rolls down my neck, but the second I do, it’s like the trigger my mind needs to let me feel is pulled.  The pain that shoots from my arm seems to ping-pong around my body until it shoots out my head.

I try to speak again, but more wetness drools out the side of my mouth.  Fuck!  I have to get the hell up!  Mentally telling myself that I need to man the fuck up, I use every ounce of strength I have to pull my body together.  Each movement I make causes my mind to scream, demanding that I just lie the fuck down and let go.  But something in the back of my head tells me that, if I don’t move now, it’s going to be too late.

Focusing my eyes around the dust-filled fog swirling around me, I briefly make out Johnson’s prone form just feet away.  When I move to stand, I realize quickly why my body is telling me to just stop—my foot and a good part of my shin are all but hanging from my leg.  I lie back and pull my belt from the loops, knowing that this is going to hurt more than I could ever imagine.  Then I use what I can to secure my leg to minimize the damage.  Inside my head, I’m screaming, but I know I need to do what’s necessary.  What I’m trained to do.  I have to stop a few times just to keep myself from blacking out—the pain is that intense.