“But”—I swallowed and stepped forward—“what about what we had?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped as he tensed. “It was the job. You know who I am and what I do. I was there to take Hut down and—”
“I love you.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I desperately wanted to throw my palm over my mouth and take them back, but they were out there now, ready for the world to hear—ready for Brody to listen to.
His eyes flared as his lips parted. “I love you, too.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and framed my face. His smooth palms slid over my cheeks, his thumbs rubbing back and forth on the wetness that marred my soft flesh.
This was it. This was where our lives would change forever. It wouldn’t be easy to be together, I knew that more than anything, but when two people loved the way we did, it was only natural to need to be together.
I gazed into his eyes, searching for the promises I hoped he would make. It wouldn’t matter what he said, all I wanted was him. “Brody, I—”
“But it’s not enough.”
The words echoed around us, batting off the walls with the same force a bat hit a baseball before it flew out of the stadium. My breath caught, my pulse slowing down as my heart skipped a beat. It felt the loss before I could register what he meant.
“I love you, Lola. But I owe my wife everything.” His hands dropped from my face, the loss of his warmth causing me to shiver. “She’s everything to me, and I won’t push that aside, no matter how much I want you.”
“But—”
“I just had to make sure you were okay.” He nodded like he was affirming his decision in his mind. “Now that I know you are, we can part ways. You’ll never have to see me again.”
I couldn’t form words. Not when he took a step away from me, not when he turned, and not even when he walked away, taking my heart with him and leaving me with nothing.
I blinked at the closed door, my hand clutching at my stomach. The tears finally stopped, and a renewed energy replaced my sadness. If he didn’t want me, then that was okay. I’d do what I had to do, be who I wanted to be because he’d just told me the truth.
I wasn’t enough.
I’d never been enough.
* * *
LOLA
People said time was the best healer, and that was all I thought about as the days passed, rolling into one another uneventfully. I craved the normalcy of it to keep me occupied from everything that had happened in the last month.
My first year of college was done. Finished. Finito. And I had just under three months until I had to go back. I had to make a plan for those three months, put things in order, and channel all my efforts toward that. Plans got destroyed. Plans were never stuck to. Plans sucked. But it gave me a driving force.
Butterflies took flight in my stomach as I locked my apartment door behind me. Today was the day. The day where everything would become real. Part of me regretted not telling Brody I was pregnant the other morning, but the other part of me was glad I hadn’t. It wasn’t like I was going to keep the baby from him.
I would tell him, just...not yet. He’d told me where he stood—next to his wife—and that was okay. I refused to be one of those women who used her child as a bargaining chip. If he had really wanted me, then he’d have told me. So for now, it was me and the growing fetus in my belly against the world.
I pushed open the door to the apartment block and brought my hand up above my eyes to shield from the blinding sun.
“Lola!” My head whipped around, spotting the red car that Jan was sitting in, waving her arm out the open window. “Hey!”
I walked over to her and pulled the door open, cringing at the heat inside the car. Apparently, she didn’t have air-conditioning—open windows it was then.
“How you feeling?” Jan asked as she pulled out onto the road. Jan had become a friend in the time I’d worked in the diner, but since I moved into my apartment a week ago, she’d become more than that. And when she found out I was pregnant, she’d decided she was going to take me under her wing. Any other time, I’d have pulled away and gone it alone, determined to face it by myself. But I had no idea what I was doing, and it was about time I opened myself up to real friendships.
“Okay, I guess.” I shuffled in the seat and stared out the windshield. “I didn’t throw up this morning, so that’s a good thing, right?”
Her tinkle of laughter floated on the air between us. “Yeah. But you know the whole morning part of morning sickness is just a myth, right?”
I frowned and turned to face her. “It is?” I asked.
“Yep.” She took a turn and pulled into the lot of a doctor’s office. “It can hit you at any stage. When I was pregnant with Aria, I’d only ever get sick at night.”
“Well, shit.”
Jan pulled the car into an open space and turned the engine off. “And don’t even get me started on the smell of lemons.” She shivered and pulled a face. “They churned my stomach each and every time.” I laughed. Bacon I understood, but lemons? “You ready?” Jan asked, her jovial face turning serious.
My hand fluttered to my stomach, and I inhaled a deep breath. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
She pushed out of the car at the same time I did, and together we walked to the doctor’s office. This felt like a huge moment, one that Brody should have been there for. Maybe I should have told him after all?
No.
I wasn’t going to second-guess myself. I’d have this appointment, get all the dates in order and then decide for sure what to do. Besides, he was still undercover. It wasn’t like he could do anything right then anyway.
The doctor’s office was cool, bringing relief from the heat outside, and my body thanked it silently. I’d felt like a human furnace for the last week, and nothing I seemed to do would cool me down apart from leaning against the cold tiles in the bathroom naked.
Jan walked us up to the front desk, and for the first time in years, I felt my age. I was nineteen—twenty in a couple of months—but I had no idea what to do when it came to this sort of thing, so I let Jan do all the talking, and when she passed me a clipboard with some paperwork on it, I realized I didn’t even have insurance.
How was I meant to raise a child when I couldn’t even pay to see a doctor?
I stumbled over to the chairs in the waiting room, tears burning my eyes and making it difficult to see the paperwork. How was I meant to do this on my own? Could I do this on my own? I’d finally gotten away from Hut and into my own place, but now I had this to tackle. Life was throwing things at me left, right, and center. The only difference was, I’d caused this. I’d had sex with Brody without protection, so I was the only one to blame.
“Hon?” Jan placed her hand on my arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” I looked over at her, the tears slipping free and tracking down my face. “I don’t have insurance. How am I meant to do this when I can’t even pay to see a doctor? What if this is all a mistake? What if I’m a terrible mom? What—”
“Hon.” Her smile was small, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “One step at a time, okay?” I sniffled and wiped my arm over my face. “First thing is your insurance.”
“I don’t have—”
She nodded. “You do.”
“I—”
“I told Sal that I think you have the flu and don’t have insurance.” She shrugged, her lips kicking up more on one side. “You know what that man is like. He added you on to his right away.”
“What? But…” I trailed off.
“Listen, we’ll have this appointment, and we can worry about all the rest later, okay?” Jan plucked the clipboard from my lap and started to fill in some of the sections. “You don’t have to tell Sal yet if you’re not ready. I know you have some things going on, and I won’t pry.” She paused and looked up at me, her brow raised. “But know that I’m here if you do want to talk.”
I blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair. Everything
was moving too fast, and it was taking my brain a few minutes to catch up with everything. She was right, though. One step at a time. Get this appointment done, and then I could tackle the rest.
“Here.” Jan passed me the clipboard back. “Fill in the rest.”
I stared down at the paper and she’d filled most things in. All I needed to add was my last name, my birth date, and my social security number. She’d even added herself and Sal as emergency contacts. I focused on my task, filling it in, and I’d only just clipped the pen to the top when someone called my name.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Jan asked.
“No.” I shook my head. I had to tackle at least one thing today on my own. “I’ll be okay.”
“Good.” She smiled the kind of smile my mom used to give me when I was a little girl and I’d done something to make her proud. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”
“Thanks, Jan.” I walked over to the woman waiting next to the door that would lead to the examination rooms and handed her my clipboard.
“This way, Miss Martin.”
I wanted to tell her it was Lola. Just Lola. But my words had made a hasty retreat, and my mouth refused to work.
She led me into a room, shutting the door behind us. “If you get undressed, the sonographer will come in and do the ultrasound scan. Then the doctor will come and see you.”
I stared at the bed and the big machine next to it. “O-okay.”
She turned around, opened the door, and exited, leaving me on my own with my thoughts. It was a dangerous place to be right then, but Jan’s words echoed in my head. One step at a time. Step one was to get undressed, and I did so with shaky fingers and a stomach that thought it was on a roller coaster. I pulled on the paper-type gown that was on the bed and stood there, waiting. Should I actually get onto the bed? Or did I—
The door swung open, and a woman with graying hair and light-blue eyes appeared. “Lola Martin?”
I nodded and clutched my hands in front of me as she clicked the door closed. “That’s me.”
“Wonderful.” She moved over to the machine and sat on the small rolling stool in front of it. “Take a seat while I get us all set up.”
Trying to keep your dignity in a paper-like gown and climb onto one of those beds was almost impossible, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. Either that, or she’d seen it several times over.
“I’m Joy Grey.” She clicked some keys and looked over at me. “We’ll be doing an internal ultrasound today. Is that okay?”
“I...yeah.”
She plucked a wand-type thing off the side of the machine and covered it with what looked like a condom and then squirted something on it. “I know this can be scary,” she said, her soft voice relaxing me. “But it’ll all be over in seconds.”
I swallowed and opened my legs when she told me to. I wasn’t sure what to expect when she pushed the wand inside, but it didn’t hurt, and seconds later, the screen lit up. She turned it so I could see it better and moved her fingers on a ball between the two sides of the keyboard, creating lines on the screen.
“There it is,” she announced, a big smile on her face.
I froze, not really sure what I was looking at. “What…”
She chuckled and created a yellow circle around a white blob. “This is baby. From my measurements, I’d say you were around seven weeks along.” She clicked another button, and a thumping echoed from the machine, almost like horse hooves. “And that, Mom, is baby’s heartbeat.”
A lump formed in my throat, tears leaking from my eyes like water from a broken tap, but I did nothing to stop them. “My baby,” I whispered, staring at the screen in awe.
Something happened at that moment.
My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, and my world seemed to brighten. It didn’t matter what would happen to me from this moment on. It didn’t matter if Hut found me, and it didn’t matter if Brody was only in my life to be a father. All that mattered was that little blob on the screen.
My baby.
Chapter Seven
BRODY
“It’s happening,” I grunted down the line to Jord. “Suit up.”
I ended the call and leaned against the side of the SUV as I waited for Ford, Hut, and Quinn. The last week had been quiet, at least as quiet as it could get with Hut on the rampage. He’d been sending people searching for Jace and Lola, but no one had found either of them. A couple of people had come close to finding Lola, but I thwarted their attempts before they could get too close.
I may have told her she wasn’t enough for me. I may have walked away from her for good. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t protect her. I was doing what was right for all of us. She didn’t know what it meant to have me in her life. She didn’t understand the danger she was already in, never mind what would come her way. It was the best thing for her. That was what I kept telling myself.
I’d lost my head for a second, but now everything was back in its rightful place. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t smiled in days. It didn’t matter that my chest hurt. It didn’t matter that my heart had been shredded to pieces. All that mattered were the people I’d made a commitment to. I was here to do a job—nothing more.
And today, that job would end.
Footsteps pounded and a door slammed as they all piled out of the house, ready for this exchange. Everything we’d been working toward for the last six months had come down to this. Normally, my body would be buzzing with an energy I couldn’t contain, but today it was absent. I just wanted to get it over and done with, and then to go back to my life. I had some rebuilding to do.
Hut didn’t say a word as he sat in the passenger seat and I climbed in behind him. Ford took his usual spot as the driver and Quinn next to me. A dark cloud had resided over Hut and everything he did since Lola had left, and I’d realized she kept him grounded. She’d kept some of his darkness at bay with her light, but he didn’t deserve it. Had we not been so close to ending this case, I’d have taught him a lesson on how to treat the people you cared about most.
I was a hypocrite.
I’d hurt the people I was meant to care about most by getting closer than I should have with Lola, but I hadn’t cared at the time. I’d done what I’d wanted, not a second thought for the consequences ahead. I wasn’t violent, but I’d hurt people just the same.
I ground my teeth together, shuffling on the seat and feeling my gun at my back. It would be drawn today, that much I was sure of.
“You all ready for this?” Hut asked, a hitch in his tone. He was about to deal with some of the biggest players in the States, and his nerves were obvious.
We all grunted our replies as Ford pulled to a stop in front of Jack’s house, the warehouse Hut had brought me to all those months ago. The product never sat there long, maybe a few hours, half a day at most, so this was the ideal time to do this. Capture them in the midst of the deal.
Jack wasn’t sitting on his wraparound porch like last time, he was probably hiding away in the house until the deal was done, but that didn’t mean he’d get off free. He’d be arrested, just like everyone else in this car.
Tires crunched on gravel, and an SUV pulled to a stop next to us. No one moved for a second, and then Hut jumped out. We all followed after him, Eduardo and his guards joining us.
“Welcome!” Hut said, spreading his arms wide as if he was welcoming them to a show about to take place.
My lips twitched. A show was going to take place, he just didn’t know it yet.
“Hutton,” Eduardo greeted and tilted his head to the side. “The product?”
“Ahhh, yes.” He took a step toward the warehouse. “Right this way.”
We all followed him and watched as he put the code into the lock, scrambling the numbers afterward, and I shook my head. He still hadn’t learned that bolt cutters would work.
Ford and Quinn stepped forward and pulled both giant doors open, but it wasn’t until Ford switched the light
on that my stomach dipped and my body vibrated. It was the biggest amount of cocaine I’d seen in one sitting, and we were about to take it all away from him. Not only would he be out by a lot of fuckin' money, but his name would be dragged through the mud. You only had to have one buy interrupted by law enforcement, and the trust evaporated.
Eduardo whistled and sauntered forward. “This is a lot of snow.”
“The best snow you’ll find too,” Hut said like he was a proud father talking about his son’s achievements on the football field.
I stayed toward the back, keeping my gaze on them for a second and then flicking it out toward the SUVs. It would only be a matter of minutes until the guys showed up with reinforcements, but I itched to take Hut down. I wanted that fucker all to myself.
“I think I should be the judge of that.” Eduardo raised his brows. “Let’s have a taste.”
Hut grinned and pulled one of the blocks away, piercing his knife into it and offering it to Eduardo. He shook his head and crooked his finger at one of his men.
“I don’t use my own product.” His knowing eyes stayed focused on Hut, letting him know he knew what he did with his product. “It’s detrimental to the business.”
His guy stepped forward, taking the knife off Hut whose nostrils were flared at the obvious put down from Eduardo. I wanted to laugh at the exchange, but I was counting down the minutes until this was all over. Until Hut was in cuffs, locked away, and finally, Lola would be safe—from both him and me.
“It’s good,” his guy said in his deep baritone.
“Great.” Eduardo clapped his hands together and grinned like he was the cat who had gotten the cream. “Go fetch the payment.”
You’d think in the twenty-first century, bags of money wouldn’t be exchanged at a deal. With the technology that was now available, you could transfer it in seconds, but Hut was old school. At least that was what he tried to say. I knew he was full of it and just liked to stare at the green notes.
Down Fall: Fallen Duet: Book Two Page 6