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Prologue--Maddox

Six weeks It’s been over a goddaone

It tookdevice I had placed on her car--down in some small Podunk town in south Florida Even if she had been trying to hide, she’d done a shit job of it One search for her parents would have brought et eyes on her than it had to find her She was holed up in some cheap-ass hotel for three weeks She called in her meals and never left the room And unfortunately, I had to leave and rush hoain had to pull Asher’s head out of his ass Now I’et my hands on her

She doesn’t want to be found I know that, but daood I’ve pushed and pushed her away Every bone infor years I’ve seen her, I knohat she wants, but I won’t let my demons hurt her Not reatest te innocent that is Emmy and let my blackness take her Because that’s ill happen It rap around her soul and slowly choke the life out of her Just like every other person I’ve allowed in

I’ll taint her I’ll ruin her And in the end, it will destroy her

One smile from her made me fall So I pushed her away I told her that she would never be what I need--that I would never want her God, if she only knew I crave her and everything she keeps trying to hand ivecalls out to her, and I work daily to refuse it

So I pushed

Until she ran

But that ends right now

Looking up at the gaudy neon lights thrown on the top of this hellhole, I know that wasstrip club

This is not a place where ht of her inside this cluba force of its own as the blackness ininsidemy breaths co to pound into, soht Every vein in oing to explode

The bouncer doesn’t even give lance as I pay the twenty bucks to gain my access into the hellish place I i in every inch of the roo, stereotypical red carpeting and leather booths lining the rooht with the smell of this place--sex and sin with a es set up around the rooest and two sainst the back wall and one on the top floor

The whole top-floor bar area is set up on a glass floor, giving these douchebags around the roos Taking my eyes off the top floor, where the bartenders are clearly working the glass floor to their advantage, I scan the roo and heavy smoke

That’s when I spot her

"What The Fuck," I snarl under h my body starts to boil It’s almost as if my body beco free

There she stands, not even five feet away, looking exhausted, wearing next to nothing Her skirt--if that’s what you want to call it--is more like a napkin sohtly to the side--I can justout the bottoether and held in a tight bikini top, the fabric so thin that I can see the outline of her nipples clear as day