Billionaire's Perfect Revenge [18+]

FIFTY

I had seen Maddox angry. I had seen him throwing a fit.

I had seen him dazzle a million-dollar grin just so he could get on my nerves.

I had seen him snap my father's wrist with no hesitation at all.

But never had I caught him with tears in his eyes. I never thought he was capable of it. I always thought it was humanly impossible for him to feel anything other than vanity and narcissism. It kind of broke my heart a little when worried tears rolled down his cheeks as he clutched the steering wheel too tight, his knuckles turning pale and stiffening every time his phone buzzed with a notification.

When I asked him to take me with him, he only nodded before sucking in a deep breath, pulling himself together, as if hoping for the best.

Now, we were in the hospital, and Louis was in the Emergency room. Nathan met us at the reception, looking just as dishevelled and worried sick as Maddox was. I could see Nadine trying not to unleash the tears glimmering in her eyes.

It was only yesterday Louis showed us the family albums. She looked so cheerful then, pointing a finger at a seven-year-old grumpy Maddox. She had chuckled and talked about his contempt for beans and bees. A twelve-year-old Maddox making a weird face in the camera, chasing after his little brother and wrestling him to the ground in the next. Louis admitted that her love and concern had always tipped more towards her elder son. While Nathan had always been more grown and grounded, Maddox was the one with actual issues. On the emotional spectrum, he always perched on the extremes. No middle ground for him. He either cared too much or didn't care at all. Perhaps that was the reason on our way back home I had been a little miffed. I knew nothing about him and it bothered me, made me see this void between us that no amount of lust or passion could fill.

For the first time in my life, I felt the starvation to know who Maddox Richmond was behind that mask of an asshole.

Of course, I couldn't admit it.

"Zara!" The moment Nadine noticed us, she hurried over to me. Instinctively, my arms opened and drew her delicate frame into a soft embrace.

"Calm down," I told her, my eyes sneaking glances at Maddox to see how he had been holding up while conversing with Nathan. During the entire drive, he had been painstakingly quiet, something I would have been normally glad for, but not today. His phone kept ringing with unknown numbers, but he was too determined to make it to the hospital to give a damn about anything else. It was a rare sight of Maddox Richmond, for him to appear so frail and forlorn and frightened.

While Nathan filled Maddox in on how and when the attack happened, I helped Nadine to a nearby chair and asked if she needed anything. She told me that after our family dinner, they had stayed the night. "Around six in the morning, when Nathan was ready to leave for his usual run," she snivelled, wiping the tears that just kept racing down her face, no matter how much she tried to hold them back. "...he heard a loud thump and...and rushed to his mom's room. She was on the floor. She was in so much pain, Zara."