The Secret (Boston's Best 1)

Chapter Sixty-Six

Matt

Seán fucking Johnson is one of the luckiest fuckers I've ever come across.

Because if I had my way he'd be shipped off to Antarctica with a broken nose and no dick.

But no, of course the grandson of one of the most famous people in Ireland, gets let off easily with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

He mentally and physically abused Maddie and she gets to live her life with the fear inside of her for the rest of her days and all that shithead gets is sixty days house arrest and two hundred hours of community service.

But we should be lucky that he was even found guilty? No, fuck that. He needs much more done to him.

Court adjourned twenty minutes ago and we're all still sitting right where we were when the judge announced Seán's 'sentence.'

Maddie hasn't even moved. I think nothing happening to him would've been better for her than this pathetic excuse of a punishment.

Riley sits down on Maddie's right side because I'm on her left and they link their sister's arm through theirs. "Maddie." They start, "Do you want a drink or something?"

She shakes her head and Ri –they left me call them Ri now, looks at me with wide eyes. "Maddie, do you wanna stay or leave or tell us all to fuck off for a few minutes?"

"No." She stands up, "I'm fine. No, I'm not fine. But I need to be, because this is what's happened and I need to accept that."

"You can still be upset though." Ri adds.

"Oh I'm plenty upset. But I'm not gonna cry or throw a fit. I wish this outcome was different but at least something happened, a lot of people don't even get that. So, I'm going to be seventy percent grateful and thirty percent pissed."

"That's fair, I guess."

Maddie smiles at us all, "Now, let's go then?"

We all mumble our variants of saying yeah and all eleven of us start to walk out the back entrance of the courthouse so we can avoid any more press encounters.

I make it maybe five steps out of the building before I nearly trip over Maddie as she just stopped where she was about halfway down the stairs.

"Mads, you okay?" Alex says from behind me.

"Inès?" Maddie says.

I look to where she's staring at and see two women, two little boys, and an older woman and man.

Niamh walks down the rest of the stairs past all of us, looking equally as shocked as her daughter. "Inès?"

The tall, slim, blonde woman who I'm going to assume is this Inès woman, walks forward and smiles at them both. "Hello, Niamh. Maddie."

Holy fuck, she has a French accent.

Maddie told me about how she found her French side of her family about two years ago, and she's been visiting them without her mom knowing because apparently there was some big drama.

I turn to all of our friends and clear my throat, "Hey, guys, I think it's best if we all go. This is a family thing."

Everyone looks at me a bit weird but nods nonetheless and turns around to leave.

I do the same but someone grabs my hand, at first I think it's Maddie but she's still frozen looking at her aunt. No, it's Riley that's holding onto my hand. They take a breath and look up at me, "Stay, please?"

I wrap my hand in hers, "Of course, Ri."

We both walk further down the stairs and stand beside Maddie.