Shattered Hearts A MFM Love Story

~ ~ Maddy ~ ~

Pulling the truck to a stop outside of Whitney’s home, she shifted in her seat to face me with a weighted sigh. “Maddy, are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

The small amount of light coming through the windscreen into the truck didn’t hide the worry in her eyes. “No. I’m good. You get on inside.”

She didn’t move for a moment, adding. “And you’ll call me or get Casey to call me when you find her?”

I had to put effort into my smile. “Yeah. I promise.”

Her bottom lip wobbled.

“Whitney...” I reached across and squeezed her clammy hand. “None of this is your fault, you know that, right?”

Jerkily shaking her head. “I should never have left her there.”

“Look. I know where she is and I’m going to drive over there and fetch her home.”

She heaved an enormous sigh. “Okay. If you’re sure.” She opened the truck door and slid out, shutting it behind her.

I waited till she was up the porch steps and opening the front door before I put the truck in reverse and started my journey to a house I’d never thought I would have to go back to. Gripping the steering tightly, I mentally prepared myself. My time in that house was not something I could look back on fondly, even when Cooper was in high spirits.

But it left me with little choice. I had to deal with him and whatever crazy plan he had going on inside that tiny mind of his because Casey had nothing to do with it. She was innocent, caught in the crossfire.

I almost jumped out of my skin when my phone started ringing out. It had wedged itself between my ass and the seat and as I reached for it, the car swerved toward the side of the road.

“Oh, shit.” I adjusted the steering wheel and glanced at the lit screen. It was my sister.

Oh hell. And my heart thumped hard against my ribcage.

Was she ringing to tell me daddy had died? I felt a sharp pang of guilt. I’d not even given him a thought since I’d spoken to Cooper.

How terrible was that?

Connecting the call, I hit the loudspeaker.

Riley Jo got right down to business, not even sparing a hello. “I’m not happy about this, Maddy.”

Neither was I, but I deflected her frustration. “How’s daddy? Any word yet?”

“Adam rang me whilst I was heading to the hospital. They took him straight into surgery. It’s gonna be awhile till we know more.”

I sighed out. At least that was something. He hadn’t died on the way there.

“What’s the news on Casey? Where’s she at?”

“I already told you she’s with Cooper.”

“Where—at his house?”

“I don’t know.” I lied, biting into my bottom lip.

“Do not piss on my leg, Maddy Lockwood, and tell me it’s raining—you hear me?”

I hated telling fibs, but on this matter, I had to because I couldn’t risk her driving over there. “I ain’t feeding you a line. I don’t know,” I repeated, my voice stronger now.

“Fine!” she gritted out, and I knew she’d be narrowing her eyes and standing with her hand on her hip like she did. “Have it your way, Maddy. But I’m ending this call and then making another.”

Oh heck. I knew what was coming before the words left her mouth.

“Let’s see what Logan and Jackson gotta say ’bout all this... hmm?”

My guts twisted up a storm and I knew she wasn’t bluffing.

“Fine. Yeah. I just dropped Whitney off at home and I’m heading on over to his place now.” I could hear the cogs of her brain working overtime. “Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

“You are not going over there by yourself. Stop the car wherever you are right now and I’ll come get you. Then we’ll do this together. Me and you.”

Oh, hell, no. I shook my head, practically growling down the phone. “No, Riley Jo.”

“What?” she blustered. “Don’t you say no to me!”

“This is my problem and I’ll deal with it.” Cooper already hurt her badly once. Did something unforgivable. And he would have killed her that night with his best friend if I hadn’t drugged him. Heck, she almost was killed.

And that was all on me. And no way was I putting her in harm’s way again. Not in this or any other lifetime.

“And before you say anything else. I won’t be changing my mind.” She tried to butt in and I carried on. “Please Riley Jo, just stay with Daddy and call me if anything changes.”

She was seething, I could feel it, but instead of arguing, she said. “Fine. But I want to know the second you find her!”

As much as I was happy to hear those words, something didn’t feel right. “What? So you’re gonna do as I’ve asked?”

“I just said so, didn’t I?” she quipped.

“You promise?” I had to be sure, and Riley Jo wasn’t one to go back on her word.

“Fine.” She paused. “I Promise.”

“Thank you,” I said, just about to hang up.

“Maddy.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you. Do nothing crazy, alright?”

“I love you too and—” I crossed my fingers and toes and lied for the second time tonight. “I promise.”

Pulling up outside of Cooper’s house, I cut the engine. Filled with nervous energy I had to clamp a hand down on my knee to stop it bouncing. Leaning forward, my eyes wandered past the windscreen and climbed up to the front of the house.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

I climbed out of the truck to close the door quietly as I gathered my nerve to walk up to the front door.

They say your body can pick up on bad vibrations and if your gut tells you something ain’t right, trust it.

And that’s what I was feeling right now.

“Quit stalling!” I muttered. Dragging my shoulders back, closing the distance between me and the front door, I lifted my hand to knock.

I had to jump back when it opened before I’d even managed to knock.

There he stood. Cooper Stanton.

The arrogant cool stare reflected on his face made me shudder. He wet his lips and gave my body a skin-crawling examination. The chills riding down my spine despite the humid night was the first sign that this would not be as easy as turning up and getting Casey out of there.

“Ah, Princess,” he said, cocking a brow at me.

And if rich, entitled jerk had a look, Cooper personified it.

But at the same time, he looked the same as I remembered. Whiskers shadowed his jaw, his skin bronzed from the sun. A mountain of a man, all shoulders from years of playing football.

“C’mon in.” He stepped aside, and I hesitated. “I was just ’bout to send out a search party to come get you.”

My feet wouldn’t work.

Cooper chuckled at my obvious struggle to cross the threshold. “I ain’t gonna eat you, Princess.”

I hated him calling me that, and he knew it. I lifted my foot and again a chill whispered across my skin, telling me not to go inside.

You’re doing this for Casey. I reminded myself as I stepped inside his home, moving past him, shoving the unease deep down. “Where’s Casey?” Angling my head to look inside the front room.

It was quiet. Dark.

“Tied up at the minute.”

I spun around and he was leaning up against the edge of the door, making no attempt to close it behind us. “What do you mean, tied up?”

“Y’know busy. She’s entertaining my boys.” He smirked, and my eyes widened. “Don’t look so worried. She’s having a good time.” Cocking his head, I saw something flicker in those blue eyes of his. “Nothin’s gonna happen that she doesn’t want to happen.”

“Can I see her?”

He shook his head. “Princess. Me and you are gonna have a little talk. So move that sweet behind into the kitchen, because I don’t know ’bout you, but I need a drink.”

My eyes tripped in the kitchen’s direction and then back to the open front door.

He must have read my mind.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll leave the front door wide open so you can make a quick getaway if needs be.”

His offer surprised me and although I still felt uneasy, I didn’t feel trapped any longer.

He walked past me, and I followed.

Stepping into the kitchen, my feet came to an abrupt stop, and I gasped.

All his guns were laid out on the kitchen table.

Cooper’s gaze darted to mine, his expression oily and maybe a little hostile now. “Pay them no mind,” he said. “I was just cleaning them.”

He then made his way over to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. And shutting the door, he flipped around, popped the cap and leaned up against it. “Damn, where are my manners? You want one, Princess?”

I steeled my spine, shaking my head. “You wanted to talk. Talk.”

On the drive here, I had questions about his family and mine, but now that I was here. They just didn’t seem important. I just wanted to get Casey and leave.

Never to come back.

He just stood there relaxed, but then his face changed to one I recognised and it sped up my pulse.

The hunger staring back at me was raw, almost tangible.

No good thing came from that look. “What do you want, Cooper? Because if this is ’bout the annulment, well, that’s out of my hands now. It’s with the judge.”

He shook his head and lifted his beer to his lips and I watched his throat work up and down. Finally lowering it, he was still saying nothing.

So I carried on talking. “I ain’t never coming back if that’s what you want?”

Maybe I should have lied to him. But he would see straight through them.

He laughed, pushing himself off the refrigerator he came toward me.

I walked backwards until the base of my spine bumped the kitchen countertop. My voice wasn’t as strong now as I asked. “Is this what it’s all about? You wanting me back?”

He didn’t answer and his silence was starting to unsettle me.

“Because the way I see it. You never wanted me. All the time we were together, it didn’t stop you from having sex with anyone with a pulse.”

His eyes widened slightly.

What? Did he think I didn’t know?

The space between us vanished as he leaned in, his expression cruel. “Damn straight I had sex with other women,” he scoffed. “Women who could actually satisfy me. Women that enjoyed sex and wanted my cock inside them.”

His crude words may have sickened my stomach, but they did little to upset me. “Can we just get to the reason I’m here, because I want to go home.” I tried to move sideways, but he stepped with me clicking his tongue, his mouth twisting up into a smirk.

He reached for a stray strand of my hair, twisting around his finger as I pulled my head back. “So pretty. Pity you’re more fucked up than me.”

I was the messed up one?

I bit back a reply.

He let go and stepped back. The distance was welcome as relieved air eased out of my lungs and I stood straighter.

“I don’t want you back. That ship has sailed—gone. Sunk to the bottom of the deep-blue sea.”

Oh. Well, that was good. “Then what’s all this ’bout, Cooper?”

He half-hitched his shoulder. “Just ol’ fashioned revenge, Princess.”

Gooseflesh travelled up my arms and dread bloomed in my stomach whilst soaking up his words. “I don’t understand.”

“Just because I don’t want you back doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten you making me a laughing stock.” He shook his head. “And I ain’t forgotten that bitch of a sister murdered my best friend.” He turned, walking back toward the refrigerator to grab himself another beer. “Only fair. I seek some justice on his behalf—his family’s behalf. Don’t you agree?”

Oh. My. God.

I sucked in a gasp as his dark chuckle sent prickles of fear all over my body and my anxiety, which I’d been managing fairly well up to this point, kicked into high gear, sending my heart pounding. “Y-y-you s-s-stay a-way from my sis-sister.” The words had to be forced out of my mouth as my throat was tight with each word catching.

He turned back around, smirking. My words had little effect on him.

“It would be a shame if another fire got started. I mean, your sisters got a kid now—ain’t that right?”

My breaths got sharper and shorter, gasping now. “I’ll ne-never let y-you hurt them, either of them.”

I couldn’t wait a second longer. I was done. He was insane. I started toward the door. It was time to find Casey and get the hell out of there.

But I felt him at my back before I made it out. His hands fixed themselves to my upper arms and spun me around as my mouth kicked out my thoughts. “Your best friend wouldn’t be dead if you’d both stayed away. His death is in your hands, Cooper. Not my sisters or mine!”

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the back of his hand across my face. The gush of blood from my nose did exactly what it was meant to do.

It froze me to the spot.

He’d struck me many times out of anger. I swallowed and my hand cupped my cheeks. The sting caused my eyes to water.

What now? Stand here and take more of what he was about to dish out?

No.

As one hand wiped the blood away my other curled into a fist. He could hurt me all he liked. But I was done standing here and taking his shit. And about to punch him, an ear-bleeding scream stopped me in my tracks.

Casey.

My eyes snapped to Coopers. He went still, lips flat, eyes hard, and that was how I left him as I pivoted around and ran.

“Casey!” I yelled out, and another scream led me toward the stairs.

“Casey, I’m here!” Hitting two stairs at a time. And at the top, she screamed again, and I headed toward it.

Up ahead, past where the bedroom was that I shared with Cooper.

Voices.

Harsh laughter.

And I burst through the last door to see Casey struggling.

Paralysis gripped my limbs. Air was punched from my lungs.

And my entire world was brought to a stop.

Three men. One woman.

One man, bare-chested, with his jeans undone had hold of her chin in a punishing grip and in his other hand was some kind of material, a cloth maybe, as he stuffed it into her mouth to quieten her.

Casey tried to fight it, her teeth snapping at him.

“Hurry the fuck up,” a gravelly voice drawled. “I want a go next.”

My stomach solidified with ice. As the realisation of what I was staring at hit me from every direction.

Two bodies joined.

Casey’s pretty dress half torn off.

Everything inside me both imploded and exploded and I wanted to scratch out my eyes to un-see what was there.

And every one of my heartbeats careened toward expiration.

Harsh grunts.

I didn’t want to feel the sharp stabbing in my head... nor my gut as the room spun with pulsing, uneven breaths.

I couldn’t not see. I couldn’t look away.

And I couldn’t run and leave Casey here alone with them to suffer.

This was my fault.

Do something. The voice inside me screamed.

The helpless rage I felt boiled my blood, and I did something.

I screamed and launched myself at the first man. My fists balled tight, and I hit him square on the side of his cheek.

Pain exploded in my hand.

But I attacked him again, with my fists and then my nails. Scratched his face, his neck. Tearing at his hair.

Anything to stop him.

Turn his attention on me.

“Fucking bitch!” he snarled, and a hand wrapped itself in my hair and I was yanked backwards.

My eyes landed on Casey’s. They screamed out in sorrow for what she was going through. How her life would be forever changed.

But her eyes stared at nothing, rimmed red, dripping tears as her body jerked with that sick monster's assault on her small body

More grunts as violent tremors attacked every living part of me and my hands flew up to scratch at the hand hurting me.

“Stop,” I cried, unable to free myself or save Casey.

Then another hand grabbed my shoulder, wrenching my body at a painful angle. I was being hauled to the door. My legs twisted and dragged and my hair was ripped at the roots, scoring pain across my scalp.

A scream wrenched from my throat, as large hands kept hold of me and I doubled over with a surge of nausea.

My knees buckled and his arm tightened, digging into me with excruciating pain. I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was.

Dragged from the room, he tossed me out into the hallway, slamming me face-first into the wall as he banged shut the door, rattling the walls, and trapping Casey inside with those monsters.

His large hand gripped my shoulder and spun me around. His hand moved to the centre of my chest, holding me there.

I tried to push against the weight of it, but he didn’t budge as my eyes climbed up to meet his.

His chest heaved from the exertion. “I wasn’t done talkin’ Princess!” was all he said.

“Cooper. You have to stop—stop them!” I screeched. “This is wrong. Casey has done nothing—”

My words were cut short as wrenched me up, lifting me almost off my feet as he started dragging me away.

I scratched, pulled and kicked out at his grip on me.

At the top of the stairs, he whipped around, fetching his face close to mine. “You think that’s the worst I can make happen to her?”

I froze and blinked.

“Quite struggling and obey me.” His firm grasp punctuated his command. “You try to go back in there and I will give the word and she dies.”

Sharp, acidic loathing hit me hard, everywhere. I’d never hated a person so much as I did right there.

“Now me and you are gonna finish our little chat—you got that?”

He didn’t wait for my reply, pulling me downstairs with him.

The front door was still wide open, and I wanted to laugh hysterically at the crazy idea I had earlier—that I’d be safer with it open.

Cooper dragged me past it and into the front living room, which was only being lit by the light from the entrance.

But it was there I had a crazy thought, which struck a match to set a flame of hope inside me.

The kitchen.

Or more to the point. Cooper’s guns were laid out on the kitchen table.

I just needed to get away from him and grab one, then I’d have a chance to get Casey free.

“Cooper,” My voice was quite calm as he turned and I would not waste this chance. With all my strength, I brought my knee up, right into his groin for him to hiss out and let go of his hold on me.

I ran.

Dashing, almost slipping on the smooth wooden floor, I made it to the kitchen.

Which one?!

I picked up the one that looked like it could do the most damage. But honestly, what did I know?

He was still there, doubled over, cradling his balls when I returned.

“Cooper!” I pointed the gun at him, holding it like I’d seen in the movies.

I’d never held a gun like this before, never mind, fired one. Riley Jo was the one who learned how to shoot when we were kids. Our grandfather had taught her, and I’d opted out, thinking it was a waste of time.

Hindsight was a cruel mistress.

“I’m going up those stairs and you can’t stop me.”

His head lifted as his eyes clocked the gun in my hand.

Cooper forced himself upright and moved directly to stand in front of me.

“Stay back or I will shoot you.” My hands shook.

Cooper cocked his head to the side and spread his arms wide. “Take your best shot, Princess, and make sure you don’t miss because I won’t.”

I knew only one of us would leave this room and it had to be me. I couldn’t leave Casey.

I squeezed the trigger with a hollow click, and the hope I’d felt all but drained from my body. “Noooooo.” I pulled the trigger. Again. And again.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

No bullets. I took three steps back and then hurled the pistol at him in frustration.

It hit him square in the chest and dropped to the ground.

Cooper looked amused because he already knew that was gonna happen.

His hand went around the back of him and when he brought it back around. In his hand was a gun.

A gun I recognised.

One that he had often used to threaten me with. Forced into my mouth.

Pins and needles crept up my legs and deadened my insides. I held up both hands, shaking in surrender as tears slipped past my lashes.

I wasn’t crying for me.

I was crying for Casey.