Adam, Enough Said (This Can't be Happening) (28 page)

“
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.

W
hoever 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.

"H
ey, 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.

"
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
.

"Godd
amn 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 s
ix 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? M
y 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 s
ix? 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."