nbsp; The owners lead me into her home and I hesitantly step inside. Memories of Halloween, prom, and the day I found out about Craig seep into my mind. As I travel into the living room, I imagine her sitting on the sofa, talking to her mother. Her smile glows bright and melts my heart as I fall for her all over again.

A hand grasps my shoulder and I spin around to face the new man of the house.

He offers his hand to me, “Hi, my name is Alexander and this is my wife, Maggie.”

I shake his hand and shake Maggie’s as well while offering a small smile and letting out a deep breath.

“I’m Duke Grayson, nice to meet you. I apologize for my behavior, but being in this house has brought back some memories that I don’t want to recollect at the moment.”

Maggie gasps, “You’re Duke? You’re the one the songs are about.”

I stare at her, puzzled, “Songs? I didn’t know.”

She turns to head upstairs and tells me to follow her. She leads me into Raya’s old room and enters the closet, pulling out the box. She offers it to me and I take it from her.

“Here, she wrote about you. The songs are so emotional; like I said, they brought me to tears.”

I take a look inside the box and see a few shirts, probably her dad’s, and several notebooks. I grab a notebook and flip through it. As I flip, I see pages and pages littered with words. Skimming through a few, I read about fear, love, forgiveness, and most of all, hope.

As I read her words, it almost brings me to tears to finally get a glimpse inside her mind. I close the notebooks and thank Alexander and Maggie for passing them along to me. I grab the box and hurry home to read some more. For the next couple of hours, I scour through her notebooks, reading about her hopes and dreams. My name is in a few of her songs and I smile at her revelations of adoration toward me. Knowing that she felt the same way for me, too, brings a huge smile to my face.

Reading her words, I imagine her singing them to me. Her amazing voice reflects such poise and sophistication, but also unveils the natural talent that she possesses. I imagine staring at her crystal blue eyes and experience a whole new world around me. Her eyes express so many feelings and I hone in on them. Her angelic voice echoes throughout the room and warms my soul to its core.

Glancing at my watch, I realize I’m late to class. Shit. I haul ass and run across the campus to the Criminal Justice building. This semester is almost over and I can’t wait for the summer. I found a job as an assistant to a private investigator which I’m dying to start.

I run into class just in time and hope the professor didn’t see me sneak in. I take a seat next to Brooklyn, apparently she wants to be an investigator, too, but I don’t buy it. For the past two years, she’s weaseled her way into my life, one way or another. I haven’t talked to her much, except for the usual small talk, but nothing substantial.

She smiles at me as I take a seat and smile back. The professor starts to discuss criminal behavior and how to examine the different typologies of it. It all rallies off any psychological issues that the criminal may have, which in turn, can result in the act of a crime.

I immediately think of Craig and my blood starts to boil. He’s a fucking prick and I’m happy he’s behind bars. But honestly, for what he did, I would rather see him dead, and I have no problem with taking care of that myself.

As we dissect criminal behavior, we dive into discussions about motivations for the crime. I think about Craig and can’t figure out his motivation. I know he hated Raya and wanted to hurt her to get back at Genna, but was that really the motivation? What about the alcohol? Was that a factor in his behavior? It had to be.

For the remainder of the class, we continue our discussion and even dip into a little bit of sex offenders, psychopathic behavior, and serial murderers. As I walk out of class, my mind is still on Craig as I try to decipher his actions. I just can’t figure them out. What was the whole point of his actions with Genna and Raya? Was there something underneath it all? Was he hiding something?

I remember Raya saying that he was constantly away on business. Perhaps he was hiding something that they never figured out. As I rack my brain, trying to uncover his secrets, someone grabs hold of my arm.

I turn around quickly and see Brooklyn holding on to me. I pull my arm out of her grasp and start to walk away from her.

She runs to catch up to me and calls out to me, “Wait, Duke. Hold up!”

I stop and turn around to face her, “Brooklyn, what do you want?”

“Do you want to come over tonight? It’s the last week of class before finals and I was wondering if you wanted to chill later.”

I sigh and run my hands through my hair, “Look, Brooklyn, I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but I’m not interested. I have other things to do besides you at the moment.”

She frowns and crosses her arms, “It was just to hang, not to hook up.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got to be somewhere. I’ll see you around.”

As I turn around, she says, “It’s been three years, Duke. When are you going to let go of her?”

Her incompetence boils my blood and I spin to face her, “I will never let go of her. I promised her I would do everything I could to protect her and that’s what I’m going to do.”

She recoils, “Duke, she left you! Why can’t you see that she didn’t want you?”

“She didn’t leave me because she wanted to, but because she felt it was necessary for me to live a better life. I loved her with all of my heart and I know she loved me, too. One thing’s for sure…I’m going to find her and show her how much I love her. Because when’s she back in my arms, she will never escape them.”

Tags: Madison Street Second Chances Romance
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