“You will. We both will. As soon as you come back to me. And if it’s not tonight, I’ll come for you tomorrow.”
She blinked a few times. “Did you not hear anything I just said? I need time.”
I shook my head. “I’ll give you tonight, but I’m coming back tomorrow. We’ve already wasted six years because we both have too much pride, and I don’t want to waste one more day. But for you, I’ll give you just that. One day.”
"My God,” she breathed. “You haven't changed at all, have you?" She made it sound like I had a disease.
"No, I haven't changed, but I have learned not to make the same mistakes twice. I’ll be here tomorrow."
"Well the same goes for me. No more mistakes. You can't force me to come back, Adam." And with that, she threw the door open, jumped out of the truck, and ran up the stairs without looking back. I just watched her go and fought the urge to follow her until I couldn’t fight it anymore.
She opened her front door and damn near fell inside. I jumped out of my truck, because I refused to let the morning end like this.
But by the time I made it halfway up the stairs, I changed my mind and turned to go back. I’d only piss her off more and she’d asked for time.
Tomorrow was time enough.
And then I was running as if the devil himself was on my heels and fire filled my veins.
“I don’t know!” I heard Mia’s scream again.
My heart pounded behind my chest and blood rushed through ears from adrenaline. Only when I made it to the front door, did I realize it was left open and I barreled through.
Mia was against the wall being held up by her neck with tears in her eyes, and rage seeped out of every pore in my body.
Her attacker turned, spotted me, let Mia go and she fell to the floor. I didn’t pause, didn’t even have time to think and I was rushing toward him with every ounce of power I possessed. He moved to run around me, but I tackled him. Both of us grunted and he struggled, but I wrestled him to the floor.
I vaguely heard Mia rushing around and then I heard her voice giving her address and my name, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything but ripping apart the son of a bitch who touched her.
“Get off me,” he grunted and struggled, and then he shoved and swiveled, swung and missed.
“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you,” I vowed as I swung and landed a right, and then another right, and I kept going until he stopped struggling as much. I hit him and hit him and hit him until he was no longer moving.
“Adam, stop!” Mia shouted, and I hit him one more time, before my arm was caught mid-air.
I twisted, more than ready to keep slamming my fist into someone’s face, when I realized it was a uniformed officer.
“Calm down, Sergeant, you’re gonna kill him,” the uniform said, which pissed me off because that was exactly what I wanted to do. I ripped my arm from his grasp and rose to my knees, still high on adrenaline. I looked down at the unmoving asshole who deserved to die and wished I had it in me to murder him in front of others.
“No, I want to see him!” I heard Mia’s frantic scream from somewhere behind me and I pushed to my feet and twisted around to find my woman, but I couldn’t see her. Another uniform was standing in front of her, blocking my view, trying to escort her outside and I could tell she was struggling against him.
“Let her go,” I barked to the uniform’s back and he spun around. When his eyes hit mine, his body visibly stiffened, surely from seeing the pure fury on my face.
Mia wasted no time, shoved out from his hold and ran. She slammed into my chest, jumped into my arms and I buried my face in her neck to breathe her in as I squeezed her tight.
“Tell me you’re okay. Tell me right fuckin’ now, Baby,” I ordered, needing to hear her voice.
“I’m okay...I’m okay. You came back for me,” she breathed, and kissed my neck, before trailing her lips higher. I lifted just enough to crash my lips to hers quickly, needing to know she was really with me…really okay, but when reality started sinking in, I pulled back.
"Let's get out of here. I don't want you inside if he wakes up," I told her and she whispered, "Okay."
I scanned the room on the way out and noticed it wasn't just trashed, it was fuckin' demolished. Furniture shredded, lamps shattered, cupboards open, and items scattered across the floor. There were even holes punched in the walls, but I didn't have time to process it all because, thirty seconds later, Mia and I were standing outside the apartment complex on the ground floor.
"I'm gonna need to go back to talk to the officers in a minute, Mia, but can you tell me what happened? What was he saying?"
At my question, she blinked rapidly and a single tear slid down her face as she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
I pulled her into my arms again. "Don’t do this, Baby. It's not your fault."
She shook her head against my chest and whispered, "Yes it is. He was asking for Max."
I stiffened and my hands fisted behind her back as I repeated Max's name over in my head and pictured his motherfuckin’ face.
"Excuse me?"
She pulled away from me completely and looked apprehensive.
"I have no idea who that guy is." She glanced up to the apartment door. "I've never seen him before." She closed her eyes for the briefest second and when they opened, they were filled with pain. "He yanked me inside as soon as I opened the door and started asking me where Max was. I told him Arizona, but it wasn't good enough. He kept pressing me into the wall...demanding I tell him where Max is, but I couldn't tell him because I swear I don't know," she cried.
I tugged her to my chest again and she wrapped her arms around my waist.
Whoever that guy was, he hadn’t just been looking for Max. He was looking for something that belonged to him, and immediately, I knew. It happened all the time with narcotics officers...taking pay offs, pushing drugs, seeing easy, fast money - lots of money - and Max - that motherfucker - just involved the one person that meant everything to me.
"Hey, look at me," I ordered and to my surprise, Mia lifted her head and beautiful, big, dark green eyes locked on mine, calming me instantly. "Don't think about it right now. Let me talk to the officers first and we'll figure this out later."
“Okay,” she whispered.
I bent, kissed her, and hated the taste of fear on her lips, so I deepened the kiss and gave her a long, sweet caress.
“Da-yum, boss man! Ain’t you supposed to be investigating, not doin’ the investigating? I get you’re on vacation and all that shit, but still... beatin’ people up, uniforms all around, and still stickin’ your tongue down Ginger’s mouth.”
Dee Fuckin' Johnson.
Mia ripped her lips from mine and I closed my eyes and groaned at the loss.
It just gets worse.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want a woman for a partner,” I muttered to myself.
“Oh, boy, please, you know you love me. Now, what the hell happened here?" she asked, walking closer. I hugged Mia tighter to my body. Johnson saw my reaction, scowled and stopped to stare.
"Is she all right?" she asked, her voice having lost all sarcasm and replaced with concern. She glanced at Mia, who was now resting her head on my chest.
"Freckles, you with me?" I asked and Mia nodded, but she wouldn't look at me. I pulled a hand back to lift her face, but it froze mid-air when I saw the blood covering my knuckles.
Shit!
I dropped both of my hands to my side.
"Mia, I need you to let me go for a minute so I can go back upstairs."
She shook her head and I looked to Dee who gave me raised brows. At that exact moment, more officers arrived, as did EMS, who were now about to start catering to the asshole upstairs.
"Come on, Baby. I'll only be gone a couple minutes. I have blood on my hands and I don't want it touching you," I said softly. I felt her take a deep breath before she pulled back, and to my surprise, she wasn't crying, but she did look upset.
&
nbsp; "Dee, can you stay with her?" I asked, and Mia turned. "Mia, this is Dee Johnson, my partner. Dee, this is Mia, my wife."
"Adam," Mia muttered in warning.
"So it's true? You and Ginger here are really married?" Johnson asked in surprise.
I rolled my eyes while speaking, "Yes, we're really married."
"But...but there were other women..." She said the word like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "…and you were married this whole time?"
Mia’s body locked tight.
"Goddamn women,” I muttered to myself before talking to my partner. “Nice to know we have partner solidarity and all that shit, Dee. Thanks a lot."
"Oh, puh-lease! Female solidarity will always trump man-whore solidarity. If I'd known you were married, I'd have knocked some sense into your overactive libido's ass."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Mia muttered and I looked at her. Her face was pasty white and she was breathing hard.
I groaned. "Dee, either shut the hell up or get the hell out of here," I barked, before I faced my heart. "Mia, Baby --"
"Just…Shut up, Adam. I need to sit down," she finished, before facing Dee. "We're married only because he refuses to divorce me, but we're not together. And believe me, I've tried to divorce him. I even had break-up sex with him last night...and this morning, but it only seems to have made things worse. Nice to meet you."
Dee looked at her like she was crazy and it was my turn to sigh hard. I wanted so badly to rub a hand over my head and down my face, but I couldn’t because it was bloody.
"Dee, stay with her so I can take care of this and make some calls. Mia, I’ll be right back, but be prepared. You're gonna have to tell me what you know."
She closed her eyes, waited a second, opened her eyes and nodded.
Four minutes later, I walked down the outside stairs and headed back to my woman, who was now sitting on a park style bench looking lost and tired. Dee stood off to the side pacing and talking on her cell phone, making wild hand gestures.
"Freckles, you okay?" I asked and she looked up. Her face was still pale, eyes still troubled. "You don't look so good, Mia. You need water or something?"
"I told her what happened," she said, nodding toward Dee, whose blazing eyes hit mine and I read in them that whatever Mia told her wasn't good.
“I can see that,” I replied and then mouthed, “I’m taking her,” to Dee.
Then, I held out a hand for Mia and she took it. I continued to talk as we walked to my truck.
"We need to go to the station so you can give a formal statement. Internal Affairs already knows what happened here and they're gonna meet us there."
I stopped talking when we reached my truck. I opened the door for her, she climbed in and I shut her door and walked around to the driver's side.
"Do I have to go to the station?" she asked in a quiet voice just as I started the truck and I froze.
"You're gonna protect Max? He brought this shit on you and you’re going to protect him?" I asked in a near shout and her eyes widened in surprise.
"What...no…brought all what shit on me?" she rambled, her voice an octave higher than before. "I just...I never got to shower and I don't want everyone to see me wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. They’re going to know we slept together.”
I stared.
Then I blinked.
“You’re worried someone will know that you slept with your husband?”
“I really wish you would stop saying that,” she hissed. “Stop calling us husband and wife. It sounds ridiculous. And don’t yell at me like that again.”
"Baby, you bit me,” I said, and her eyes flew from mine and went straight to my shoulder where her teeth marks were probably still embedded in my skin.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
I gripped the collar of my shirt and pulled it aside. “Is it still red?”
“Oh my God!” Her eyes grew huge and she ripped the collar out of my hand to pull it back further. “You can still see my teeth marks…like I was a dog!”
“Well there you go, Freckles. Keep thinking about me showing that off to the guys at work, and that should take your mind off what you’re wearing. ”
She gasped.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mia Bryant
I was exhausted, starving and really starting to get pissed. Other than a small sandwich around one this afternoon, I hadn’t eaten anything. Though, three cans of Coke did serve to fill me up in the meantime, but my body was shutting down. I glanced at the wall for the millionth time.
Six o’clock.
I’ve been here six hours, though, only about three have been spent actually questioning me.
"Mrs. Bryant --" The overly annoying Internal Affairs investigator started, and the hold I had on my patience snapped like a twig.
"Dayes! I keep telling you people... it's Mzzzz... Dayes... Dayes! Like days in a week! Do I need to spell it out for you? D-A-Y-E-S. Surely it can't be that hard to remember," I snapped.
I was tired of feeling like a criminal. Max had apparently gotten himself into a shit load of trouble with money and drugs - they wouldn't say exactly how - but because of my relationship with the bastard, they were making me feel like his accomplice.
I still couldn't imagine Max getting involved with drugs, but what the hell did I know anymore? My feelings were so conflicted, but with the way the investigators were treating me, I wanted to break Max's neck for putting me in this position.
"I apologize, Ms. Dayes," Investigator Spencer said softly as I stared him down. He was cute too, all sandy-blonde spiky hair, caramel-colored eyes, strong jaw, maybe five-ten, maybe muscular behind his buttoned-down shirt, maybe mid-forties... maybe a complete asshole. "I'm trying to get you out of here as fast as I can, but we have to get every bit of information from you that we can. You'd be surprised that the littlest thing could help us the most."
I sighed and waved his apology away. "I understand, really I do, but I can't even think straight anymore. I'm starving and I want to go home...well, I don't really have a home right now, but I want to get out of here," I whined on the verge of crying. "I swear I'm not a criminal. I'm a travel agent. That's how I met Max, when he was planning a trip to Arizona to visit family - or so he said. I told the other investigator this. I've only been with Max...maybe a little over four months, but he goes to Arizona a lot so we've probably only been together a total of three months if you count the exact number of days," I enunciated the word like my last name, "we've been together."
"I understand and I apologize. I have just one more question: When was the last time you heard from Max Lowe? By phone or text?"
Oh shit!
Out of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, I never once thought about Max calling. I mean I did, but it never dawned on me that he hadn’t called to check in once since last night.
"Yesterday, around six? I'm not sure. Max knew I was going out with a couple friends after work to celebrate a promotion. He called to check in and to make sure I was okay. And then around nine he sent a text message saying he was going back to his hotel for the night and told me he loved me," I finished, feeling sick. Max was always so sweet and I’d cheated on him with Adam last night.
I didn’t want to tell the investigator that, even though he probably already knew, but my voice got low when I said, “I haven’t heard from him since.”
Investigator Spencer gave me a nod. "All right, Mia. I’m going to talk to my partner. I shouldn’t be much longer. The only thing I ask is that you call me if Max calls you and do it as soon as he calls you. It’d be so much easier - for him - if he turned himself in."
I sighed again. “What do I say to him if he calls? As much as I want to tell him to go to hell, I also want to know that he's okay.”
Investigator Spencer smiled. "If he calls, tell him you were attacked, tell him you’re scared. Make a play to his emotional side. Then, explain the mess he got you in and ask him to
turn himself in. But, whatever you do, don’t let him guilt trip you in to doing anything irrational for him because you feel sorry for him. And if that’s not enough, I’m sure Bryant can coach you through what to say," he finished and I nodded, even though I didn't realize I was doing it.
“I’m going to step out now.” He stood from his chair and walked to the door. “Just a little more time and I'll get you out of here.”
And with that, he walked out...
For forty fucking minutes.
I couldn't sit still any longer.
I stood up, stretched my legs, and decided to walk to the door. I knew there was a camera in the room watching my every move, but I didn’t care. I grabbed the handle, just to check to see if it was unlocked, because I wanted out of there, so badly I could almost taste freedom. I turned the knob and, to my surprise, it clicked opened.
My heart picked up speed and now I really did feel like a criminal, but truth be told, it was a little exhilarating. I wondered for a moment if I could make an escape. I pulled the door open further and there, standing in front of me with raised eyebrows to his hairline, was Investigator Spencer.
“Everything all right, Mrs. Bryant?” he asked politely which had me narrowing my eyes on his face. I was so annoyed, frustrated and disappointed, I didn’t even bother correcting his use of the wrong last name again. Instead, I stepped outside the room and into the hallway.
“No, everything is not all right. I’ve been here six flippin’ hours and I’m starving,” I snapped. “Do I need an attorney or something? Because really, I feel like a criminal. I mean I could have had my cellmate’s name tattooed on my neck in Old English lettering for as long as I’ve been in here. At least my skin would have something to show for doing all this time, because my stomach sure as hell doesn’t.”
The investigator looked stunned for a moment, and then he smiled.
I glared.
“Was that funny?” I asked, offended.
“Actually, it kinda was,” he said, lips still tipped up and I growled. Men were idiots.
“Can I go now please? I’m really tired and I really don’t have anything else to tell you people.”
Adam, Enough Said (This Can't be Happening) Page 19