FEVERISH UnbRoken

to control the roiling feeling in his gut and his turbulent emotions.
Garrett could deal with Raymond stealing his wife and the company he built from scratch but not for stealing his son. Replaying Dr. Mainke’s words, explaining that the test excluded him as his son’s biological father, forced him to fight like hell to keep the pain from rising up and choking him. He’d spent the last two and a half years thinking Garrett Jr. was his son only to discover that he wasn’t.
Shannon had lied to him. They both had. He wasn’t confident about how long the affair lasted, but he was sure it started well before Shannon and Garrett met.
His marriage had been a sham. He could understand Shannon’s motivations, but Raymond’s? For what? Money? Garrett would have given him anything. He didn’t have to steal from him.
His gut said this betrayal was about more than a woman, and that Raymond’s motivations were deeper than what it appeared to be on the surface. Unfortunately, Shannon was too full of herself to realize she was being used.
Slowly, Garrett lifted his head and gazed around the room if only to turn off the spigot of his mind. Personal pictures, posters of boy bands, Prince, and Michael Jackson were hung all over the walls. His eyes landed on one picture in particular. It was of a young girl in a cheerleading uniform maybe ten or eleven. She was all arms, legs, and nothing else. She stood on top of a human pyramid smiling so hard that her eyes appeared almost closed. It was that smile that captivated him—innocent and genuine. Those were two things Garrett could say he’d never experienced. He wasn’t innocent, and neither were the people in his life.
The family he was staying with had apparently put him in her room. Garrett wondered what it was like to have a moment of being carefree and not having to worry about the next meal, or where to find the safest place to sleep without being violated.
Garrett shook off those memories. It was in the past. All he knew was that no child of his would ever have to worry about their safety. He returned his attention back to the photo. The guy he’d met at the airport, he couldn’t remember his name exactly but thought it might be Maddon . . . Jones? He had the same facial features as the young girl. It was almost uncanny except that Maddon was a bit older. She must be his little sister.
The one bright spot in this cesspool of hell had been Maddon. After everything that happened recently, Garrett should have been warier of him or anyone that hadn’t been in his inner circle. But there was something about the man that said he could trust him. They sat next to each other on the plane from Phoenix to Atlanta and struck up a conversation. It probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been bumped from first class to the last available seat in business class.
Garrett’s desire to get back to Chicago, as soon as possible, to receive the results of the DNA test was his only priority until he received that fateful phone call. That moment in time would always be frozen in his mind. He was walking to gate G8 when Dr. Mainke’s office called him. Once Garrett received the results, there was no longer a need to rush. After Garrett had learned the truth, all he wanted to do was crawl into a hole and rot. Getting drunk had quickly moved up to the top of his priorities list.
Garrett wasn’t sure if it was because Maddon was easy to talk to, after sharing a drink with him and the fact that Maddon had no idea who he was, or because he was so overwhelmed with life, that he divulged more about himself than he had to anyone . . . ever.
A heavy knock on the door sounded and brought him out of his private hell. Then came a now familiar voice. “Garrett, you decent?”
Garrett stood and glanced down at his clothing. The wrinkles were deeply embedded in his shirt and pants because he’d slept in them for the last two days. If he hadn’t met Maddon on the plane, he was certain the man would have thought he was homeless. “Yeah. Come in.”
He opened the door but didn’t walk all the way inside. He just stood there staring. The space between his eyes wrinkled. “Dude, you look like shit.”
Garrett couldn’t even attempt to muster up a smile as he stroked the two-day-old scruff that formed on his face. “It mirrors how I feel.”
After everything Garrett had told him, Maddon couldn’t help but feel some compassion. That was why he had invited him back to his parents’ home. The Jones’ were good at fixin’ up emotionally scarred people.
Maddon lifted the corner of his lips in a half smile and responded. “One step at a time.”
“Right. The problem with that is each step I take leads me closer to a cliff.”
Maddon waved him off. “Don’t think about all of that right now. You’ve got plenty of time to figure things out. In the meantime, take a shower. . .” He handed him a toiletry bag. “Shave and change into some fresh clothes. You’ll feel better. Not to mention, I can’t have you looking crazy downstairs at breakfast. My sister has this thing about serial killers. When I told her you’re in her room, that was her first thought. I know she believes I let a serial killer sleep in her bed.”
Garrett finally cracked a small smile and pointed to the picture on