funny thing, becoming the mayor. I’m privileged with more information than most people in the town.”
Oh god. I wished I had just signed the papers and offered him my body. At least then Nolan couldn’t have threatened me with something worse than his slimy touch.
Nolan captured Maddox’s attention with a veiled warning. “As mayor, I have access to police reports and files. I learned everything about the fire that destroyed Sweet Nibbles.” His gaze fell on me, enjoying how I squirmed, panicked, silently begged him to stop. “Did you know about the anonymous tip called in after the fire? Someone pinned the arson on you, Maddox.” He grinned. “And here’s the thing about anonymous tips. They aren’t so anonymous.”
My heart didn’t break—I no longer had one.
“Do you know where the call came from?” Nolan asked.
Maddox shrugged me off his arm. “Where?”
“Freedom General Hospital. It was a female caller, and she refused to give her name.”
The world crumbled beneath my feet, but I didn’t fall. My lies pinned me, immobile and agonized.
Trapped in Maddox’s pained stare.
“I always wondered if you knew who framed you for starting the fire?” Nolan enjoyed my misery. “And what you’d do to her when you found out.”
Tears rolled over my cheek.
Maddox said nothing. The truth spoke for us both.
I was the caller who slipped the police the tip about the arsonist. I was the one who said it was Maddox that burned down my shop. I was the reason he went to jail.
And he’d never forgive me for it, even if it saved his life.
16
Josie
One Year Ago
The wine tasted bad—even more bitter than usual. Nolan asked how it was. I forced a smile and spat most of it back into the glass with a disguised nod. I never got tipsy so quickly. I felt awful, and it wasn’t the company I was keeping.
Or the threats he made.
“Do we have an agreement?”
Like I had a choice. I already broke up with Maddox at his request, but Nolan wasn’t satisfied with me sleeping in an empty bed.
Not when he wanted to lie next to me.
“Why?” I whispered. “He’s nothing to you.”
“But he’s everything to you.”
“I won’t let you hurt him.”
“Then all you have to do is sign.” He toasted our deal once more. “Come on, Josie. To our business and our future. Drink up.”
Drinking gave me time to think of a plan, but every gulp dizzied me more.
I couldn’t do this.
“No.” I rose to my feet. My legs didn’t want to hold me upright. “You won’t get my shop. You won’t touch Maddox. And I swear to god, I’ll expose you for threatening him and propositioning me.”
“If you leave here tonight without me, he dies.”
“I’ll protect him.”
“Josie—”
I ignored his shout, stumbling from Jackson’s as I fought the wine’s hold and forced step after step towards my shop. The road blurred and shifted. I fell into Sweet Nibbles’ door. It swung wide open.
Unlocked?
Why?
I smelled the smoke, but my body felt too heavy to move. I crashed through the dining area, tripping over a chair. Then another. I blinked, and I was in the kitchen. Couldn’t remember getting there. I turned, and my toe caught on the stair case. I tripped. Hit my head. Or was I already in pain? How did I get upstairs?
The heat surrounded me. I coughed. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t hear anything over the crackling.
The walls groaned and splintered. The stairs creaked. It wasn’t safe.
But his arms grabbed me, held me, and he promised to help.
The world turned to smoke, and I woke in the hospital. Nothing made sense, and no words stuck in my mind. They told me I survived the fire. The shop was destroyed. Granddad was hurt.
The doctors injected me with something that made it even harder to think over the beeping machines and fretting nurses. The fire was only Nolan’s first retaliation. He wouldn’t stop until he destroyed everything I loved.
Maddox wasn’t safe. How could I protect a man everyone feared?
I needed a plan to separate Maddox from Nolan, to prevent Maddox from murdering Nolan before Nolan killed him.
But what could I do while I was trapped in the hospital?
Present Day
“Maddox, please listen to me!”
He didn’t, and I deserved the betrayed silence.
He packed his clothing and belongings into a duffle bag. The motel emptied of his things, but Chelsea’s still lined the counter. She left in a hurry when he burst through the door and didn’t even give me a second glance.
But I saw her and her badly blackened eye.
Maddox’s jaw flexed tight.