Secrets of a Prodigy

Catch up with Max and Charlie in Secrets of a Prodigy, the 2nd book in the Maxwell Cole, Protect and Honor Series. Maddie Nichols' entire life had been a lie…a fabrication…an invention…and spent on the run from an unknown menace. She didn't even know her real name. Or her parents' real names. Or where she came from. Or what in Holy Hell she was supposed to do now. Run! The single warning was communicated through a stranger in a hoodie carrying the backpack he thrust into her arms before he disappeared down the busy street. The same stranger who knew the code word between her and her mom so Maddie would know he was legit, seeing as Maddie had no way of reaching her parents for confirmation. She'd neither seen nor heard from them since they handed her a new set of aliases along with false ids and a ticket across the country to New York City when she was sixteen and told her she was on her own. Maddie turned the single sheet of paper her mother's note was written on over in her hand, looking for any clues as to her parents' whereabouts. Run! To where? What or who was she running from? Who was she supposed to run to? Maddie realized she couldn't just stand there on a Manhattan sidewalk bemoaning her lost dreams for a future she was just beginning to believe could be hers. She recognized giving into the burning anger and resentment, building, still building inside her against the two people who could give her the answers she needed, but who were, as always, conveniently absent when she needed them most, wasn't going to get her anywhere she needed to be right now. Maddie bent down to retrieve the backpack the stranger left, slid her arms through the straps and slung the weight of it onto her back. She wouldn't find the answers she longed for standing still or looking back. One thing she realized early in life, there was no such thing as a rearview mirror. West, she decided, as she set off in the direction of the nearest subway stop and began going over her options. Since New York was pretty much as far east as she could get and still remain in the United States. Once the immediate danger was behind her, whatever that danger was, she was going to stop running. She needed to make a life for herself. Which meant she needed to find out the truth. She couldn't build a meaningful life on the shifting sands of lies. It was a start. Another new beginning, after a life built on them. But this time, Maddie was digging in. She was going to find her real name, her true beginnings, her real life. Failing that, she was going to find someone who could. Tag along for a wild ride with Maddie's sometimes fun, sometimes fitful two steps forward one step back search for the truth about her past, her parents, and her efforts to carve out a life of her own. With the help of Maxwell Cole, the head of Cole International, an international private security juggernaut, Maddie digs deep into her childhood memories to try to unlock the past and free her from the menace stalking her.