Adam, Enough Said (This Can't be Happening) (46 page)

Uncontrollable t
ears rained down my face, but they weren’t in sadness, they were in helplessness. My body shook as I watched in horror while Max walked to a chair, wrenched Adam’s left arm behind his back and heard Adam cursing in agony, “Motherfucker!”

I saw his eyes squeeze shut from the
pain and I screamed, “Max, stop!”

Max moved to swing the gun in my direction, and that was all the time Adam needed. He
swung around, so fast I never saw it coming. He slammed his head into Max’s nose and blood gushed. He body slammed Max to the floor and shouted out in pain when his left side hit the floor.

Max’s gun hit the floor
, but not before a shot was fired beside my head.

I dropped to my knees as they fought,
and I could see Max was having trouble using his left hand, but one wrong move and Max was digging his finger into the wound in Adam’s back.

In no time at all
, Max’s gun was back in his hand, and back in Adam’s face, which was the only way Max was able to handcuff Adam to the chair on the floor.

Max was breathing hard and bleeding nastily from his nose. Adam looked sick and pale.

“Kill me. If that’s why you’re here, just kill me. Leave him alone,” I begged in a whisper.

He faced me
and sneered, “Don’t worry, bitch, you’re good as dead, but not until I get what I need. But if you want him to live, you’ll do whatever the fuck I say.”

“Anything,” I responded without hesitation
.

Adam barked, “Don’t do a fuckin’ thing
, Mia.”

But I
had to. I couldn’t let him die.

“I’ll do whatever you want as long as I can call him an ambulance.”

“Then you better hurry the fuck up,” Max snapped. “I’ll give you thirty minutes to get what I need. I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit anything vital, but if you don’t make it back by then, Adam’s dead either way. And bitch, you call the police, you call anybody, I’ll kill him before I kill myself.”

I looked in Adam’s devastated eyes and read in them what he couldn’t say out loud. They were telling me that if I left
this house, I better not come back. That I better call for help and live my life without him. But he was out of his ever-loving mind if he thought for a second I’d live without him again and I let my eyes tell him just that.

If I had to play this out Romeo and Juliet style
, so fuckin’ be it.

“Mia,” Adam growled in warning, but all that did was confirm that he understood me.

And sixty seconds later, I had all the information I needed and I grabbed Adam’s keys off the counter.

“Mia, don’t do this,”
Adam pleaded roughly.

I stared into his eyes
as he sat uncomfortably on the floor and I said, “I love you.”

His eyes closed at the determination in my voice and on my face. He didn’t want me to do this, I knew that, but I didn’t have a choice.

My eyes moved to narrow on Max’s disgusting face and I threatened, “Not sure if you remember, because you’re pretty fucked in the head, but I have a fantastic memory. A fan-fucking-tastic memory, and I’ll get you the account number you need, but the only way you’re going to get it is when the numbers come out of my mouth. No paper, I’m not writing it down. You touch another motherfucking hair on his head, and you’ll have to kill me before I give you shit.”

I couldn’t help but take pleasure in watching Max’s breathing accelerate as every muscle in his face twitched.

Fuck him.

It took fifteen minutes to get to my apartment on a normal day, but obviously today was far from normal. I made it in seven-point-five minutes and as long as the account number Max wanted was exactly where he’d said it was, I’d have just enough time to make it back to either save Adam, or die with him…

Well, that had been the plan, and like most of my plans, it didn’t go quit
e like I’d expected.

T
he moment I walked into my darkened apartment, something or someone slammed into my back, shoved me against the wall and - surprise, surprise - another gun was pointed in my face.

Now
, I was pissed off, and a little crazed. I didn’t have time for this shit.

“Get the
fuck
off me,” I hissed at whoever’s hand was shoved in my back.

B
ut they ignored me and stayed put. I tried to twist my head around, but I couldn’t, and a nanosecond later, I heard a muttered, “Ay dios mio.”

I didn’t know what it meant, but the guy sounded annoyed.

“Don’t move,” the voice ordered again and I noted it was heavily accented.

Like I’d said earlier, had this been a normal day, I wouldn’t have done a lot of things, but it wasn’t
normal, which is exactly why I said, “Look, I really don’t have time for this shit.”

But of course he ignored me.

He dropped the gun, but didn’t drop his hand from my back and next thing I heard was him talking, and it sounded like he was on the phone. All his words were in Spanish and I growled because I couldn’t understand him, and I was frustrated as hell. My tears threatened to spill, but I refused to let myself fall apart when my entire world was on the line.

I heard him finish the call and suddenly I was free. I spun around, but it was dim, and the only light came from the open door
- which was slammed shut a moment later by the man holding me hostage. And then a lamp was turned on.

I was surprised the light
bulb had survived the devastation.

“Tres minutos,” he said, and a
ny person living in the state of Texas would know he’d said, “Three minutes”, but why he’d said it, was another question.

“Three minutes for what? I don’t have one minute to spare let alone
three
,” I snapped, but all he did was lift his gun, point it at my face and I bit my tongue.

I kept it that way
for three of the longest minutes of my life - I’d counted. Counting to sixty, three times over, sucked when you were in a hurry.

When the front door opened,
I sucked in a sharp breath at what…or who I saw.

I could see perfectly and
at what I saw, I decided there was no way this dude was a bad guy. He just couldn’t be. He was way too good looking to be a bad guy.

However, he looked killing mad and I took a step back as he
stalked me like a tiger until his eyes held me in their death grip. All I could see were his eyes, bright, piercing, hazel eyes that stared into mine and demanded I tell him everything he wanted to know.

“Please
let me go. I have to hurry,” I breathed.

“You know where my money is,
Sirenita. And you know where Max is,” hazel eyes stated without a hint of doubt and I stiffened when realization set in. Then I panicked.

This was Alfredo, the
drug lord that Max owed money to.

Oh
my God!

I
said nothing, because if I told him, he’d probably kill me before I could get back to Adam, but I knew if I didn’t tell him, he might kill me anyway.

Before I could decide
whether I should talk or not, he said something that made my face pale. “You belong to the cop.” His voice was husky and firm and it wasn’t a question. My heart sank. I didn’t know if belonging to
the cop
was a bad thing or a good thing because his face gave nothing away.

But h
ow does he know that
?

“Yes,” I whispered
, deciding to tell him the truth, because I didn’t have time to waste considering every word I should or shouldn’t say. “Max is going to kill him and I don’t have much time. I have to leave now.”

Surprisingly,
hazel eyes nodded. “Entiendo, Sirenita. I understand we can’t let anything happen to your cop, but we’re going to make a little deal first.”

I growled and narrowed my eyes
on his face, feeling completely indifferent to who he was or what he could do to me. “Okay, but make it quick, because I’m really tired of men fucking with my life. And what the hell does Sirenita mean, anyway?”

I should have gotten shot for speaking to a drug lord that way, but no. What did I get? I got lit up hazel eyes, pe
rfectly straight white teeth and dimples.

N
ot
the face of a bad guy.

“Mermaid
, Babe. Sirenita means mermaid. For you hair.”

Well, okay then.

“You’re lucky you fuckin’ made it
in time. Four more minutes and he’d be dead,” Max shouted when I walked in, but I only had eyes for Adam, who looked pale, yet furious. He’d been moved and was now sitting in the chair with his hands behind his back instead of sitting on the floor cuffed to it.

“Baby,
tell me you’re okay,” I whispered.

His frustrated eyes were already on mine and I knew he was upset that I’d come back for him.

“I love you,” I pushed, because I had to make him understand that everything was going to be okay. I could feel it deep down in the pit of my stomach.

“My heart,
Freckles,” he growled back, regardless of his frustration, as if me being his heart was something that would never change, no matter what happened.

My first tear escaped.

“Shut the fuck up and give me the goddamn account number!” Max shouted again.

“Uncuff him and let him go first
, or I won’t give you shit.”

He put his gun to Adam’s temple and Adam closed his eyes. I didn’t let my fear show
, but everything nerve in my system seized in terror.

“Mia, he’ll kill me anyway. Get
the fuck out of here,” Adam said, sounding tired, but I ignored him.  No way was I leaving.

“Give me the
number and I’ll let him go,” Max countered.

“Max, I don’t think you understand me. Uncuff
Adam or I won’t give you shit, and if you’re not going to, kill me now and get it over with!” I shouted in return.

The pussy.

“Mia,” Adam warned through a groan.

Max
narrowed his eyes and studied my face as if there was a chance in hell I might actually change my mind. Then, clearly seeing the seriousness in my eyes, he dropped the gun to his side and I considered making my move, but Adam wasn’t free yet.

I
’d never risk him.

Max bent - never letting go of his gun -
I heard the click of the lock and Adam did exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do. I wouldn’t have even thought he’d be able to move through his injury, but I’d underestimated his strength.

“Adam, no!” I screamed when he lunged and used his good arm
to swing and knock the gun out of Max’s hand.

“Get out of here, Mia!
” Adam ordered on a shout, trying to be the hero I already knew he was, but this wasn’t supposed to happen, this hadn’t been the plan. But Adam had changed the game and I couldn’t just stand there doing nothing even though, not surprisingly, gunshot wound and all, Adam was kicking Max’s ass.

U
ntil Max - the disgrace to all men in the universe that he was - pulled a knife from the front pocket of his jeans.

“Adam, move!”
I shouted in a tone filled with so much alarm I didn’t even recognize my own voice. Adam heard it and lifted as much as he could, but his wound debilitated him while he still tried to fight off Max, but it wasn’t enough.

My hands were shaking,
my arms were shaking, but I walked closer and didn’t even think. I just reacted. And like Adam had taught me six years ago, I gripped the gun tight in my hands, aimed at Max’s head and pulled the fucking trigger.

But
I missed and hit Max in the shoulder, only not before he stabbed Adam in his side.

“No!”
I screamed when Adam fell to the floor and Max shuffled out from underneath him. I was shaking so bad that I knew I couldn’t shoot again.

“You fucking bitch,” Max hollered
in pain, reached for his gun, aimed it at me, but he wasn’t fast enough.

T
he next gun shot came from my right and this one didn’t miss.

Hazel eyes
shot Max straight between the eyes and I watched it all happen in slow motion, but it didn’t even phase me.

I dropped
the gun Alfredo had given me earlier, ran to Adam, but stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen when Hazel eyes shouted, “Stay where you are, Mia!”

He knew my name.

My eyes flew to him and I watched as he walked directly to Adam, bent at the knees, gripped him under the arms and dragged him as far away from Max as possible. I could have kissed him, because it wasn’t until then that I saw all the blood. I covered my mouth with my hand and swallowed hard.