“Have you ever thought about getting a real job?”
“No.” I lied to her, not wanting to get into it with her.
“I could ask my father if there was anything he could to do help.” She looked at me eagerly. “Maybe he could get you a job at city hall and ….”
“Enough.” I held my hand up at her abruptly. “I don’t need your dad’s help.”
“He won’t judge you.” She looked at me anxiously. “Not if I vouch for you.”
“Would you vouch for me as the guy who f**ked you in his bed a week ago?”
“Of course not.” She made a face at me. “I would just say you were my friend.”
“Of course, your friend. Don’t you think he would want to know how we met? And would he be cool with us being friends?”
“My dad doesn’t judge people, Logan. I don’t know why you have something against him, but he’s a good man.”
“Yeah, he’s a good man.” My voice was harsh.
“I wish you would talk to me,” she pleaded.
“What do you want to know, Maddie?” I shouted, frustrated. “Do you really want to know what I think of your dad? Your perfect dad? Do you want to know why I wish I could watch him getting run over by a semi truck?” I watched as her face contorted with pain and she shrunk away from me, but I was too annoyed to stop.
“I f**king hate his guts.” I hit my fist against the steering wheel. “I am never going like him. I don’t know why you just can’t leave me alone. What don’t you get?”
“Sorry.” Her eyes flashed. “I thought you’d want to be friends.”
“Why would I want to be friends?” I looked at her, agitated. I was starting to feel bad for shouting at her, and that was making me even more upset. I didn’t want to care how she felt.
“I thought that we—”
“No, no, you haven’t been thinking,” I interrupted her. “I get it, you had a schoolgirl crush on me, but you move on, Maddie. You don’t track me down to seduce me, and then tell me you want to be friends. I’m not going to change. You’re not going to discover the other secret part of me. What you see is what you get. Do you understand that? I’m a car thief. I steal cars for money. I steal cars from people with kids.” I nodded to the baby seat in the back and ignored the twinge of guilt in me. I couldn’t afford to feel guilty in this business. “I’m not misunderstood, I’m not going to get a job in a f**king office, I’m not going to turn into some man who is going to give you the safe life you’ve grown up in. Just because I f**ked you, it doesn’t mean I want anything with you. Yeah, you’re hot. And yeah, I had a good time. But that was it. Stop trying to make this into more than it is. And don’t ask me why I’m mean to you or hate you. I don’t hate you. I just don’t f**king care.”
I took a deep breath and turned away from her. This time she didn’t try to shield me from the tears streaming down her face. She stared at me with wide, hurt eyes, and I was taken back to my childhood when I had told my mother I hated her. The pain that coursed through me right now was the same pain that had coursed through me then. I had been about twelve years old, and my dad had been on his way to steal a car and I was going to accompany him. My mother had been upset that he was using me as his lookout, and she had pulled me aside and told me that I couldn’t go. My father had been slightly drunk and had shouted at her. She stood her ground against him and had whispered that she couldn’t put up with it anymore. She told him that she wasn’t going to let him do this to the kids and that she was going to leave him. I had been incensed at her words and turned on her and shouted that I hated her and that she didn’t understand. The look she had given me at that moment had broken my heart in two. The pain mingled with shock, hurt and disbelief as she stared at me. I could feel how my words had hurt her. The hurt that coursed through her had flushed through me and I hadn’t known what to say. The anger and confusion in my own body had stopped me from apologizing in that moment. I knew that in that moment that my mother realized that the innocent and loving boy she had raised was gone. And as I stared at Maddie, in this instant, I knew I had also shattered her image of me. No matter what she had thought of me before, or what she were to think of me in the future, she would always be reminded of this conversation in this car.
“He’s here.” She bit her lip and turned away from me.
“What?” My voice was softer, and I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I wanted her to shout back at me, to scream and call me an asshole.
“The guy you’re selling this car to? I think he’s here.” She squinted and then doubled down in her seat.
“What are you doing?”
“I think I know that guy,” she whispered up at me.
“Really?” I looked at her in surprise and then at the guy standing in front of the car. He looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “Stay here,” I hissed at Maddie again before I stepped out of the car.
“Hey.” The guy nodded at me.
“Hey.” I took in his dirty appearance and nodded. “You called me about the car?”
“Yeah.” He looked it over. “It runs well?”
“Yeah, smooth as a Ferrari, only twenty thousand miles as well.”
“You want five grand?”
“I want ten grand, but I’ll accept five.” I stared at him, and he stared back at me with a glint of something in his eyes.
“What about three grand?”
“No deal.”
“You got no papers.”
“So?”
“Two grand.”
“I don’t have time for games, five grand or nothing.” My voice rose, and then I noticed his hands were full of grease. “I’m going to go.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to leave, Logan.” He stepped towards me with a menacing stare. “Marty’s not happy that you didn’t give him a call.”
“Marty?” I held my ground as I stared at the man, as I realized where I knew him from. He was one of Marty’s mechanics/henchmen.
“Yeah.” His voice was menacing. “You get a lot of protection in River Valley because of Marty. I wouldn’t like to think you were disrespecting him.”
“I don’t need Marty’s help.”
“Marty wants this car, and he’s willing to give you a grand.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“You’ll take the grand, and be grateful you’re getting that. Next time, Marty won’t be so nice.”
“Forget about it.” I turned away from him, angry.
“We don’t want Vincent to get into any trouble now, do we? I’d hate to see his college dreams come crashing down as he sits in a jail cell.”
“Leave my brother out of this.” I turned around, heart racing. “What do you want?”
“I want you to give me this car, and Marty wants you to consider this a warning.”
“Piss off.”
“You think we’re playing with you?” His voice was full of venom. “We know Jared’s been messing around with Joey Kennedy. I’d hate for him to go down as well. Two brothers in jail? Well, how would that feel, Logan? No one would be surprised. In fact, everyone would just be waiting to see when the third and final Martelli brother made it to jail.”
I stared at him with my blood boiling. If Maddie hadn’t been in the car, I would have decked him, not caring what would have happened next. But I didn’t want her to see the blood.
“You want the car, you can have it.” I took a deep breath. I was pissed at myself for caving, but I needed the money.
“Here.” He pulled out a stack of twenties and handed them to me. “Leave the car in the parking lot, we’ll have it picked up and towed tonight.”
“This is only five hundred.” I glared at him.
“Be thankful you got anything.” He came towards me and bent down and whispered in my ear. “I’d get out of the car business if I was you. Next time, Marty won’t be so nice.” He turned around and walked to his car. It took everything in me to not chase him down. I took another deep breath as I watched him drive away. I walked back to the car, opened the car door, and saw Maddie crouched over still.
“You can sit up, he’s gone.”
“Okay.” Her voice was cold and she jumped out of the car. “Did he decide not to buy it?”
“He bought it, he’ll pick it up later.”
“Oh.” She looked at me and then away again. “That’s good, then.”
“Yeah.” I stared at her standing in front of me, clutching her plate of cookies. “Look, I want to apologize.”
“Don’t bother.” Her eyes flashed in anger. “I’m glad you were honest with me.”
“You’re mad.”
“Does it matter?”
I bit my lip as I stared at her. Damn, Maddie was making things hard for me. “We can be friends.” I sighed.
She looked up at me in surprise. “You want to be friends?”
“I didn’t say all that. I said we can be friends.”
“I guess that’s a start.” She grinned and linked her arm through mine. “I knew you couldn’t resist me.”
“Well, you knew wrong.” I shook my head at her. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”
“Did you get a lot of money for the car?”
“No.” I turned away from her, frustrated. I needed to be alone. I needed to think about everything that had just happened and where I went from here. I knew that I was a threat to Marty now, and my brothers and I were his targets. Frustration ran through me, along with another emotion—I was scared. I had no idea where to go from here. And I had no one to turn to for help. There wasn’t time for Vincent to get through college and law school anymore. Our lives were in the balance, and it was all the mayor’s fault. I stared at Maddie, and Jared’s words came crashing down on me. It was true; Maddie was the apple of the mayor’s eye. If anything happened to her, he would be crushed. I knew that a simple heartache wouldn’t do the trick, though. He had screwed my father over and ruined his life. If I wanted to get revenge for my father, mother, and my brothers, I had to make sure it would be something that affected the rest of his life, just like he had affected mine. Ideas crashed through my mind, and suddenly it struck me. What would make the mayor’s blood boil more than anything? A baby. A Martelli baby in his family. And as I watched Maddie, smiling down at me, with her seductive purple-blue eyes, I knew exactly what I had to do.
Chapter 7
Maddie
I was so angry that I had a hard time looking at Logan. He was insufferable and I was fast losing my patience and the ability to just get over it. I hadn’t expected my feelings to be so hurt at his words; I mean, I knew he had issues, and I had told myself that I could wait it out. I could make him fall in love with me if I had enough time. At least that is what I had told myself. I heard the sounds of a family walking towards us, and I turned to smile at them, needing to focus on someone else, if just for a few moments. I stepped away from Logan, glad I didn’t have to pretend I was okay for a second. I smiled at the little girl skipping along and blowing bubbles, and I was reminded that I used to be that girl: innocent, carefree and happy. I could still be that girl if I wanted to, but I knew that too much had happened and I wouldn’t change any of it.
“Let’s go find a car.” Logan grabbed my arm and I looked at his face. I couldn’t read his eyes or the expression on his face, and I wondered if he was okay. There was so much going on with him, and I wished he would trust me enough to let me in. But I suppose that would all happen in good time.
“A car?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I thought we were taking the bus back.” I paused. “Are we going to steal another one then?” I whispered and looked around to make sure no one was around to hear me.
“No.” He grinned at me, and this time his eyes were sparkling with mirth. “We won’t be stealing it.”
“So then why are we looking for a car?”
“So we can window shop.” Logan shook his head. “What’s up with all the questions?”
“Do you think you can just talk to me however you like and I’m just going to take it?” The words spurted out of my mouth angrily and I let out a deep breath. I guess it was harder for me to keep it in than I thought it would be.
“Huh?” He frowned at me, and I could see a brief flash of anger and respect in his eyes.
“You practically went off on me in the car earlier. Do you really think I’m going to just be friends with you and we could go look at potential cars for you to steal? I know you think I’m some silly girl who is kinda crazy and infatuated with you. But lookey here, mister, I’m not a doormat, and I’m not going to allow you to talk to me however you want. You want to go off on me because of something I’ve done to you, then fine. But to take out the issues that you have with my dad on me, which I don’t even know about, well that’s f**ked up.” I took a breath and looked at the shock in Logan’s eyes and I grew even more incensed. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked. Did you think you were the only one who could get angry and spout off?”
“Are you done?”
“Look, if you just wanted to have some fun with me, then fine. We had fun. I’m not pushing you for anything else. I don’t need you to be my friend.”