Free Bound by Rapture by Megan D. Martin Page A

details of the case with you at this time. You are welcome to call your lawyer and settle the details with him. For now, you have to come with me.”
    “Like hell I do. This is bullshit.”
    “With your history, I don’t think so, buddy. Just because you have a lot of money, doesn’t change the fact that you’re a convicted murderer.” 
    I expected Cole to deny it. To laugh in their faces or even attack them for saying such things. But he did none of it. Instead he just stood there. His face was a blank slate of emotion. After several beats, he stepped forward and held out his wrists. 
    “What are they talking about?” I grabbed his arm. “This is a mistake,” I said to Officer Dillon. “You have the wrong guy.” Sure, Cole acted like an asshole, he was possessive, and he had killed Jay, but only because he’d attacked me. He would never hurt me or Mandi. 
    What the hell is going on?
    “Your boyfriend didn’t tell you about his past?”
    “Don’t,” Cole snapped. 
    “What does that mean, Cole?” I pleaded. All of a sudden I was terrified. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew I was about to lose Cole. He was about to go to jail, and where did that leave us—me? “Talk to me.” But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even look at me. 
    “Randy, you and the guys get her home. Don’t let her out of your sight. I’ll get this shit handled.”
    And then they were leading him away. 
    “No!” I tried to rush after him, but strong arms captured me, stopping me in my tracks. I flailed, hysterical. “They can’t take him. He didn’t do anything!”
    “Let him go, Jewel.” The voice belonged to Vic.
    “Let me go! Now!” Suddenly all I could think about was the fact that we had hardly said a word to each other since what happened in the bathroom yesterday. He had barely touched me, even in his sleep. And now they were taking him away and he wouldn’t look at me. It was as if I didn’t exist. As if there was something more, something deeper I wasn’t a part of. 
    I twisted my body back and forth, trying to break free, but I didn’t succeed. Vic held me tight, trapping me against his chest. It seemed surreal, all of it. Only moments ago, I had my face pressed against Mandi’s casket and now I was watching the cops arrest Cole for trying to murder me. For murdering her. 
    Officer Dillon opened the back of his police car and Cole climbed in, but not before looking my way. His gaze only met mine for a second, but his expression was frighteningly sad. As if it was all over. That sorrow called to me, but it also scared the shit out of me. I slowed my movements and pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. 
    What did you do, Cole?

 
     
     
     
     
     
    SEVEN
     

    Julia.
     
    I sat on Vic’s ugly, flower-patterned couch in my living room. A show played on TV, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too lost in the information I had learned over the last few hours since Cole had been carted off to jail. 
    The articles were there. Just a simple Google search away. Endless pages, stories people had written on the gruesome murder of Garrett Maddon, Cole’s older brother, and the murder trial that ensued. I vaguely remembered it now when I thought about it. I’d been thirteen when it happened. It had been on the news, sure, but I didn’t pay attention to that stuff. I was more concerned with my Gameboy and the crush I had on Jake Reynolds at school. A twenty-five-year-old billionaire, who viciously murdered his brother and then buried him in the pasture behind his mother’s house, hadn’t held my attention. 
    But it held it now, because Cole Maddon was that man. He was the man who had murdered his brother. He was convicted of the crime, but received a light sentence on a technicality that only got him three years in prison and a non-existent parole. 
    “I can’t believe it,” I said out loud for what had to be the hundredth time. 
    “I know. I’m so sorry.” Chris patted my knee.