I wish he’d let me watch over him, too. He’s been through so much in so little time. He’s seen and done things no one should ever have to go through.
It’s changed him. He won’t admit it. He avoids my questions about it. There’s a piece of him I can’t touch, not for lack of trying, but because he won’t let me close enough.
And it scares me.
He hasn’t slept through the night once since we came back from Iowa. He gets up and walks around the house in the dark as if he’s hunting ghosts. Maybe he is.
But he always comes back. He slinks into bed and lays an arm around me. I pretend to be asleep as his lips graze my forehead or my shoulder or my hand, whichever is closest. It’s like he doesn’t think I’m real and he has to touch me just to make sure.
“Give us one last smile, Roxie!”
I pause outside the theater and turn back around to give them what they want. The crowd waves and screams my name. Cameras flash, blurring my vision until I see spots.
One last smile.
I stretch my lips wide. I hold a hand high. In my head, I say goodbye. Adios. Sayonara.
The door opens ahead of me and my assistant, Lena, waves me inside. I pick up my pace, following her in and leaving the red carpet behind for the last time.
“Finally,” I murmur, exhaling hard.
Lena’s stiff lips twitch. She’s done her fair share of these things, too. Later tonight, I’ll tell her my plans to retire. Hopefully, it won’t come as too much of a shock to the poor girl, but I know plenty of colleagues who would kill for an assistant like her. She’ll find work again in no time. I’ll make sure of it.
She gestures me to the left. “This way,” she says. “They’re funneling the talent through the employee hall to steer clear of the lobby.”
“Awesome.”
I follow close behind her with my head down. The lobby is already packed with PR reps and gossip reporters, but I’ve already fulfilled my contractual obligations.
Lena holds the door open for me and I walk into the shadowed back hallways. She closes it behind us, blocking out the noise.
The back of my neck instantly turns cold. Fox’s watchful eyes aren’t on me anymore.
I pause.
“Come on,” Lena says, stalling a few paces ahead until I catch up.
My shoes clack along the dirty linoleum floor. “Where is everyone else?” I ask.
“Just ahead,” she answers, barely glancing back.
The farther I go, the larger the stone in my gut grows. I’ve been to dozens of these premieres, been led through so many back exits that I’ve lost count, but something about this feels so unnerving.
We round the corner and I realize why.
There are six of them standing side-by-side along the walls. Black masks and tactical vests. The same as the ones worn by the squad that killed Senator Lamb and attacked me in my apartment.
Snake Eyes.
I spin on my heels to run but they grab me before I even take a step.
“Help—”
A hand clamps down over my mouth. At least three take me down to the floor. They jerk my arms behind me, locking my wrists together with a zip-tie. I hear the sudden rip of duct tape as they tear off a piece and slap it over my mouth.
“Wait...” Lena says above me, her voice shaking. “You said you wouldn’t hurt her—”
Thwip. Thwip.
She falls silently to her knees and tumbles to the floor in front of me. Blood spills out of two wounds in her face. A bullet through each eye.
I scream as the black hood pushes over my head and tightens around my neck.
They raise me up and shove me forward. If it weren’t for two of them tugging on my arms, I’d trip down to the floor. They hold me up until one of them tosses me over their shoulder like a rag doll.
Tears spill down my cheeks. I want to scream. If I do, they might kill me, too.
Dammit. Think fast, Dani…
What would Fox do?
I have to fight back. I don’t stand a chance against a Snake Eyes agent — let alone six — but I can at least buy some time for Fox to catch up and find me.
I twist in the man’s arm, rolling off his shoulder. The floor smacks hard and I grunt as pain fires through my elbow. Strong hands grip me again, but I squirm in their grasp, shrieking and fighting against the duct tape to break my lips free. The corner slips off and I open my jaw wide to rip the rest of it open.
“Help me!”
Fingers clench the bag, my hair along with it, and they tug upward. I scream in agony, putting the full force of my lungs into it. It echoes down the hallway. I scream again until something hard hits me in the back of my head.
Spots take over the darkness in the hood. Dizziness plagues my guts and for a second, I think I might be sick. Fuck, it hurts so bad. I may pass out, if only to make this pain go away...
They pick me up again. I can’t fight at all anymore.
A door opens. I feel a warm breeze along my arms and legs. We’re outside. Movement echoes around me. The parking garage, maybe?
They hold me tighter. Fingers dig in deep enough to leave bruises.
Fuck, this hurts. Everything hurts. I can’t see anything.
Fuck.
If Fox doesn’t find me now, he’ll be too late. They’ll shove me in a car and drive away.
Dammit, Fox. Where are you?
I slip from the agent’s grasp again. Gravity pulls me down to the ground and I slam onto my knees. I cry out in pain as another pair of hands try to pick me up again, but they fall away just as quickly.
Knuckles strike skin. Feet shuffle around me. Bodies fall to the ground following loud grunts of pain.
I roll over and slide backward until my head collides with a car door. Someone trips over my knees and falls. They don’t get back up. I kick the legs away as I breathe a sigh of relief.
Fox found me.
I stay back, curling into a ball to get out of the way, listening to the carnage of grunts and fists and splatters of blood.
Finally, the violence ends.
I whimper in the silence. “Fox?”
Boots tap along the concrete toward me. He kneels beside me and lays a hand on my shoulder to draw me forward. I lean to expose my tied wrists. He carefully cuts the zip-tie with a knife.
I rub my temples, soothing the pain for a moment, before pulling the hood off.
“Fox—”
I freeze. The man beside me isn’t Fox.
He’s a few years older than him. Thin, dark hair. Chiseled, handsome face. Dressed in black from head-to-toe. I look over him at the red-haired woman behind him, casually standing among the mountain of dead bodies with blood on her hands.
I fill my lungs to scream.
The man places his knife against his lips in warning. “Yeah, please don’t do that,” he says, his voice calm and deep.
I bite down, shaking in fear.
“Dani...” the woman says, glancing around. “Where is Fox?”
“Who?” I ask.
She rolls her big eyes.
The man closes his knife and yanks the remaining duct tape hanging off the edge of my chin. I cringe at the flash of pain along my lips.
“Dani, they didn’t come alone,” he says, nodding his head toward the nearest body. “Help us help you. Where is Fox?”
These people... I don’t even know who they are. How do they know Fox? What do they want with him? How did they manage to kill this many Snake Eyes agents so quickly? They must be highly trained. They might even be...
I stare into the man’s eyes. “What do you want with him?” I ask.
He stands up and extends his hand to me. “Let’s just say he owes me a drink.”
I look between him and the woman, making a split-second decision. I take his hand and he pulls me off the cold concrete floor. A few spare spots dance in my vision, so I lay a hand down on the car behind me to make sure I stay standing.
The woman steps forward, forcefully kicki
ng a limp hand out of the way as she slides a little flip phone from her pocket.
“Call him,” the man says to me. “Fox had you memorize a number, right?”
I hesitate. Yes, he did. For emergencies, in case something happened and we got separated. In case of this exact situation… but how would they know that?
I still don’t know who these people are or what they really want with Fox. I could be a moment away from death right now. But if that’s true, then I want to hear his voice one more time.
I reach for the phone with a quivering hand. They wait, watching me closely with trained eyes. I blink to sharpen my vision as I dial the number in.
“Speakerphone,” he says. “Please.”
I do as he says and turn it on. The dull ringing echoes throughout the garage and I cringe with the throbbing pain still lingering between my eyes.
“Dani?” Fox’s voice comes through almost instantly. “Where are you?”
I stay silent and look up at them for instruction. The man glances back at the woman behind him and they both nod.
“Hey, Fox,” he says. “It’s been a while.”
There’s a short pause. “Dante?” Fox asks.
I blink. Dante Hart?
The big brother of Elijah and Lilah Hart, the twins who attacked Caleb and Boxcar and shot up our house.
Oh, crap.
A fresh fear chills my bones.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Dante says. “We need to talk.”
* * *
Thank you so much for reading MAD LOVE! If your heart is broken, don’t worry.
Revenge is sweet.
The saga continues on November 19th, 2019 with CRUEL LOVE. You don’t want to miss what happens when Fox and Dante are finally reunited in the war against Snake Eyes…
Click here to pre-order CRUEL LOVE today!
Books by Tabatha Drake
Killer Love Saga
Killer Love
Secret Love
Tainted Love
Broken Love
Mad Love
Coming Soon…
Cruel Love
Endless Love
For more, go to
tabathadrake.com/books
About the Author
Tabatha Drake is the dark and dirty alter ego of USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Tabatha Kiss! She lives in Chicago, Illinois. You can probably catch her huddled up in a hoodie, reading a good romance beneath a tree with her trusty husky by her side. She enjoys roller derby, sushi, and is always searching for her forever bad boy. In the meantime, she writes.
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Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Tabatha Drake
All Rights Reserved. Kindle Edition.
Cover Design by Cover Me Timbers
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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