On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (32 page)

Pushing the cover back, he stood up and walked over to the bedroom door, opening it. Reed stood in the dark hallway fully dressed and groomed despite the earliness of the morning. Maxim’s internal clock told him it was somewhere close to four a.m.

“Reed.”

“Sorry to wake you, but our man in OPD called with a hit on one of Ms. Samora’s credit cards. I called and confirmed it was a motel in Big Sur. The man who answered the phone stated a woman matching her description checked in alone a little after midnight and hasn’t checked out. We have a window.”

“So she’s slipped her guard. No doubt she’s trying to find her way back to me.” Maxim looked behind him at the woman stirring on the bed. “I’ll meet you back at the cabin. Bring my woman to me there.” He paused. “Try to ensure she’s not harmed, Reed. I will be very disappointed if any more injury comes to her because of my men’s incompetence.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Reed…”

“Sir?”

“If the mutt happens to be there, leash him and put him in a cage so Eddie can tame him. Might as well extract as much pleasure from the dawning day as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

Maxim shut the door and turned to see the woman sit up on the bed. He watched her tie a blue wrap dress around her body. How could he have ever used her? She lacked the radiant earthiness of the woman he truly wanted.

The escort donned a black trench coat, which fell to just below her knees. Maxim was impatient to get to his cabin without notice, but first he had to deal with the matter at hand.

The woman looked at him and waited in surly silence before pulling out her phone and running her fingers over the keyboard in rapid clips before sliding it back into her pocket. “It’s been real, sweetness, but I’ve got to get going.”

He waited for her to leave and raised his brow when she continued to stand there expectantly.

“It’s extra if I stay past midnight.”

Of course.

Maxim walked to his bedstand, picked up his wallet, and pulled out a few bills totaling a thousand dollars. He held on to the money as she grabbed for it. “Do you have a card?” he asked. He knew he wanted to feature her in one of the discipline rooms during Basir’s unauthorized Consortium gathering.

She smiled. “That’s cute. Like I’ve got Fortune 500 pussy. Just have your man call the service again, and Darwin will handle the rest.”

Once she’d left, Maxim hastened to the bathroom to wash off the last traces of her vulgarity. She had been a desperate man’s diversion. Being cooped up in the hotel room these last few days, recovering from the wounds the bodyguard had inflicted on his body, had left him with little choice. He couldn’t go out and hunt down someone of Sabrina’s caliber. Plus, the San Francisco police were keeping a watchful eye on him. No doubt he had the Oakland PD to thank for that bit of extra care.

Eddie was the only person in the living room when Maxim entered. Both he and Eddie wore shabby jeans, scruffy sneakers, and SF Giants hoodies. Urban disguise. He grinned.

“Looking good, sir. How are you feeling?”

“In sore need of retribution.”

He would see the mutt who had mauled him dead and dismembered before the day was done. First would come the lesson where Zeus would know pain, the punishment for stealing Sabrina away. Then, but only after he was broken and begging Maxim for forgiveness, death would follow.

“I’ve had our men set a false trail for the cops and anyone else who has you under surveillance. We’ll let the team create a little space for us, then head out.”

Maxim nodded. “And let’s have me back in town in enough time for Sabrina and I to put in an appearance at Basir’s
secret
gathering.”

“Of course, Mr. Kragen. I’ll see you downstairs in thirty. Remember, I’ll be in a brown 1992 Honda Civic.”

Maxim smiled. “Charming.”

Once he was alone in the suite, Maxim retrieved the small bag he was unwilling to let anyone else touch. Inside were items he had bought for Sabrina—designer clothing, accessories, diamonds, and other precious jewels, all infinitely more expensive than the common canvas bag that bound them. He wanted to spoil her with all the finer things she’d gone without since leaving his care.

Making his way out of the suite, hood concealing his identity, he took the elevator down to the garage. He waited in the shadows until he spied Eddie in the ragged Honda. Eddie pulled up to him and popped the trunk, coming around to help Maxim fold himself inside of it.

“Only for love, Eddie.”

The densely muscled black man grimaced. “If this is what comes from lovin’ a woman, I pray love never finds me.”

“Trust me; you’ll thank God and the devil when it does.”

“Yet another reason to stay an atheist,” Eddie mumbled.

“You say that,” Maxim said knowingly. “But when the right…er, person, comes around, you will be absolutely powerless.”

Eddie shut the trunk on Maxim’s declaration.

Eddie would see. Just the sight and smell of Sabrina had ignited an awareness, a compelling connection that would always identify her as his. Though the day in her apartment had ended in his shame, shame was sometimes a necessary evil. It helped to reorient one to his own humility, his own humanity. This was a truth his father and his father’s cronies couldn’t seem to understand. From shame came resolution, a call to be more, be better. He had to be better for Sabrina. She would soon see he was stronger and wiser. She was intelligent enough to conclude the talking ape watching over her was little more than an idiot. A man with limited future options, Zeus could never be wise, but once he was caged, Maxim would grant him the gift of a slow and painful death.

* * * *

“Stop touching it!”

“It’s mine. I’ll touch it when I want.”

“You sound like a child.”

“I sound like a man speaking the truth.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Let me see it.”

“No.”

“Zeus…”

“No.”

“Okay, keep it, but when you rub it bald, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I won’t.”

She angled her head, peering up at him with patience he knew was false. He couldn’t care less. He wasn’t handing it over to her. He had given her his lifelong protection, his body. He’d given her a free pass for stealing his car, and he’d extended the bond of the blade to her. He wasn’t offering up any more pieces of his eroded soul just for her to poke around in.

“Why’d you pull it out if you didn’t want me to touch it?”

“Because.”

She waved for him to continue, but he remained silent. The truth was he didn’t know why he’d pulled it out.

She jumped up and straddled his legs, pressing a hand against his chest as she tried to pry the ring from his fist. She was so weak.

If she were smarter, she’d take her blade, cut the flesh and tendons that allowed him to make a fist, and pick the ring right from his palm. Instead she sat on top of him, stirring his body to readiness.

She grabbed his head, splaying her fingers over his ears as she pulled his face closer to hers.

Zeus leaned up and kissed her. Just a little taste.

Sabrina groaned in defeat and slid down to lie beside his chest.

“I just want to see it for a minute,” she whined, sounding like the child she’d accused him of being.

He shook the gold band in his hand. Maybe he could stand to be a little benevolent if it ended in her expressing her gratitude. “There’s a cost to everything, Sabrina. You willing to pay?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “Bad bargaining. Always know the price before you commit.”

“Whatever. Just tell me what you want, Zeus, and I’ll give it to you.”

It’s been over an hour, his dick reminded him. More than an hour was too long. Too long, too long, his dick chanted.

He opened his palm, and the delicate gold band gleamed.

Sabrina picked it up reverently and stroked it as if enraptured. He would’ve only been half surprised if she began to salivate and call it
my precious
.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, sliding it onto the ring finger of her right hand. It only went halfway down before stopping.

“She must have been a tiny thing,” Sabrina reflected.

“Sisters said she was. Sister Agnes said it was a miracle she was even able to deliver me.”

“How big were you?”

“I don’t know. Average, I guess.”

“What does your birth certificate say?”

“Eleven pounds, four ounces…twenty inches long.”

Her eyes bugged, and she blinked at him like a sleepy owl. He reached out and twisted the ring around her finger. “What?”

“Condoms,” she whispered. “
Jesus Christ
, we really should have used condoms more than we did.” She struggled to pull away from him, but he pinned her thighs against his.

“I’m clean, Sabrina. No worries.”

“No worries?”

Why did she sound so panicked? He had enough money to take care of her, his kid, and ten others if they had them. “Jesus Christ, I could be pregnant with God-fucking-zuki. My goodness, what she must have gone through to give birth to a fully formed toddler.”

Zeus turned his head, blindly looking at the motel room’s wall.

“Think that’s why she left?” He’d wondered about the answer to that question for the first few years of his life, but then he’d decided the why wasn’t important. He had to live with her decision no matter what the answer was.

The panic Sabrina had shown a few moments before quickly transformed into something much more serious. She pulled the ring from her finger and held it in front of his face. “She left you with the only valuable possession she likely had. Look at the inscription inside.”

“It’s her name.”

“Zahira Sauvageau. Did you ever search for her?”

“
She
left me.”

Sabrina stroked the left side of his chest as if attempting to soothe a heart that had long ago forgotten how to ache. The languid caress eased the rage that surfaced when he thought about the woman who hadn’t believed he was worth keeping.

“She could have searched for you.”

“I know she didn’t find me.”

“Doesn’t mean she didn’t try. How old was she when she had you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Shit, she was a
child
. Likely with very few options. She could have been pressured by her family. She could have been… We don’t know what she went through, but I imagine, as a young girl, she believed she had little choice about what happened to you, or hell, what happened to herself. She gave you this and left you with people she thought were bound by God to watch over you and care for you.

“It’s painful to be left behind, to be abandoned. Trust me; my mother did it often enough when she was using, but she came back. And sometimes I believed I hated her when she did. When she was gone forever, I knew I’d never hated her; I was just angry. I was just a child, and despite everything she put us through, I loved her. She was my mom, and she was an addict. Don’t think because your mother made the choice she made, that she didn’t love you. This ring tells me she loved you without question. That she wanted you to carry a piece of her with you.”

She plucked him on the forehead. “Despite the pain your big head may have caused during birth.”

There had to be something wrong with him. He’d always believed that. His mother was French and Algerian, his father was Greek but unnamed on the birth certificate. Was it because he was a mutt? Was it something in his blood, something in his eyes, some deficiency, some evil in him that made her walk away? Maybe it had been what the nuns and priests called his “unholy taint.” He’d always equated her abandonment with an act of hate, never an act of love, not until Sabrina’s words hinted at the possibility.

He squeezed her hips. “I’m not using condoms. If it’s meant for you to give birth to Godzuki, you’ll give birth and thank me for him after.”

“I never thought about bringing kids into this world.”

“Don’t think about it,” he said as he stroked her ass.

“Zeus?”

“Sabrina.”

“When all this is done, can we go on a search for her?” she asked, gripping the pendant around her neck that she never took off. “We have to hold our family close to us. Because when they’re gone, we lose a part of who we are forever.”

“Anything you want.”

“Anything?” she said, tilting her hips, slowly sinking on top of him.

“Shit, woman, anything.”

“Bad negotiating practice, big man.”

“Whatever,” he growled, pushing into her as the world literally exploded around them.

SABRINA SCREAMED WHEN the motel door imploded, sending shards of wood, glass, and Sheetrock into the already shabby room.

In one fluid motion Zeus spun around her and grabbed his blades, advancing on the men spilling through the gaping hole. Before she could grab her blade, Zeus had fatally stabbed three men, and left one screaming and clutching an eye streaming blood. Sabrina sliced at the first hand that grabbed her arm and kicked the balls of one man so hard she cringed and rejoiced at his anguished cries. She fought her way toward Zeus when a shot rang out. She saw Zeus jerk back and fall to his knee, where he sliced open the thighs of two intruders before cutting their throats once they had fallen to the floor.

Another shot and Zeus tumbled to the floor face-first. Sabrina heard herself scream. She fought to reach him as more men came through the door and advanced, guns aimed at the back of his skull. Every fiber of her soul screamed she would protect him, protect Zeus. She fought hard, some part of her aware these men didn’t seem to want to hurt her like the ones before them.

She would kill them. Resurrect Zeus in a river of their blood.

Save him, her heart cried, and she fought. She fought as if the spirits that possessed his blades possessed her body. She fought like a woman possessed by the power of a love she didn’t believe existed. She fought with desperation bred from an unwillingness to lose another person she loved.

Reaching Zeus, she knelt over his exposed back and pressed her lips to his ear. “Don’t leave me, crazy man. I need you. I need you to live…”

Something cold and metallic slammed against her temple. Her ears rang, a high-pitched tone that made her momentarily deaf. She slumped onto Zeus’s back, her vision engulfed in blinding white light that ebbed into the unending black of unconsciousness.