And I don’t have to wait as long as I thought I would. It’s nearly five in the morning when I spot him walking across the back of the lot behind the club with a young woman under his arm.
I jump out of my car and cross the asphalt in a fast-paced walk. He hears my footsteps first, turning toward me just as I find myself within punching distance.
“Hey, asshole,” I mutter before throwing a right hook that lands with a satisfying crunch against his nose.
The girl screams and runs away as Brett falls to the ground, holding his face as blood pours from his nostrils.
“What the fuck?” he bellows, but before he can try to get back to his feet, I grab him by the collar and jerk him upward to land another punch against his cheek.
“You think you’re fucking tough?” I grit out with a sneer as I hit him again. “Did you think you could hurt her? She came home in fucking tears, you piece of shit.”
I punch him again, and this time, he goes limp. My fist aches but not enough. I want to tear it open, crack my knuckles, and break the bones in my hand on his face.
Am I fighting fair? No, but I don’t care. I’m done with fair.
I just keep thinking about how scared she was. I think about her tears and her anger, and it makes every assault of my fist against his face feel so fucking good.
“Wake up, Brett,” I bark before shaking him again. His eye is already swelling shut, but as he slowly peels it open, I hit him again and again and again.
Everything starts to blur around me. Somewhere there’s a girl screaming and sirens in the distance. I can’t hold my hand
in a fist anymore, so I drop his limp body on the pavement.
When I stand up, a sick and twisted feeling of satisfaction washes over me. As I stare down at him, hearing his moans and watching him struggle to move, I feel as if I’ve made a wrong thing right. Which is fucking juvenile, I know that, but I’m not doing this to be mature.
I’m still breathless, with a cold sweat running down my spine, when the night turns into a flash of red and blue around me.
When the police shout at me to put my hands in the air, I do it—with a smile.
Thirty-One
Adam
“G oode. Adam Goode,” a deep, unfamiliar voice calls.
When I peel my eyes open, my head pounds with the assaulting bright light. And when my eyes finally adjust, I recognize my brother, Caleb, standing next to the officer who processed me sometime this morning after I was hauled in.
Caleb is wearing an expression that’s somewhere between smug and amused. His hands are in his pockets and he’s staring down his nose at me as I peel myself off the bench and move to stand. My broken hand is wrapped in medical gauze, and I remember the medic giving me strict instructions to have it looked at once I was released. But I probably won’t. I hope it leaves my hand fucked up and scarred forever. The pain feels good, like it’s the first thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
After I sign the papers clumsily with my left hand, I walk out of the station in silence with my brother at my side. He doesn’t say a word as we climb into his Volvo SUV, and I don’t bother complaining about my head or my hand. I just give him the address of the Laundromat and ask him to take me there instead of my apartment. With a quizzical expression, he does.
Maybe she’ll fix me up like she did before. And it makes me wonder if she’ll be mad or proud.
“I think I like this new version of you,” Caleb finally says as we pull up to a stoplight. “And I feel weird saying that, but causing a little trouble might actually be good for you.”
“Why am I the one causing trouble?” I ask, turning toward him.
“That’s a good question,” he replies with a laugh.
“No, Caleb. I mean…why have we been following that asshole our entire lives? Letting him treat us all like shit. Why am I the only one causing trouble?”
“So this is about Dad.”
“Isn’t it always?” I reply with a grimace.
“What did he do this time?”
“I found out he owns a sex club,” I mutter, staring out the window. The car nearly comes to a complete stop as Caleb stares at me in shock.
“What the fuck?”
“I found him there. Face buried between some woman’s legs.” As I turn to look at my brother, I’m actually sort of pleased to see the horror on his face. At least someone else can feel it too.
“He’ll ruin us all,” he says. “He’s really willing to risk everything he’s built for what? Sex?”
I don’t reply. Suddenly I’m feeling sick, like I have a hangover from the events of last night. And from this whole conversation.
“Is that what this is all about?” he asks as he pulls up to Sage’s apartment.
“Sort of,” I reply because I just don’t know anymore. It started out about him. Then it became about me. And now…
it’s about her. And I don’t care that my car is still parked at the club or that my broken hand is throbbing. I just want to see her.
“Jesus, Adam. This is insane. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, turning toward him. “Because he’s in my head, I guess. I don’t know if he’ll ever get out.”
“What about her?” he asks, and I know he’s talking about Sage. “Is that real, or is that just…”
“It’s real.” With that, I pull open the passenger door and stumble out. Every step makes my head pound. Before closing the door, I look back at Caleb, seeing the way this news is hitting him. The same way it hit me. And I almost feel bad for him. He never put as much faith in our father as I did, but it’s
still hard to accept that the world doesn’t work the way you think it does.
“Thanks for picking me up,” I say with a grimace, and after he nods in return, I shut the door and cross the street toward her apartment. The entire way up the stairs, I’m silently praying she’s not mad at me. Of course if she is, I can’t blame her. I took off in the middle of the night.
I’d be no better than Brett if I kept her after what I’ve done. After the way I treated her. In fact, no man would ever truly deserve her, so what the fuck gives me the right to even try?
As soon as I rap my left hand against the door, it opens, and I’m so fucking relieved I can hardly move. She lets out an audible gasp when she sees me.
“Oh my god, Adam,” she shrieks with fear and relief. Then her arms are around my neck, my face pressed to the crook of hers, and I breathe her in like this is somehow the most pivotal moment of my life. The epicenter of my entire existence in this very moment as I come back to her a changed man. I’ve shed the lies and deceptions. It took more than the last few hours, but giving in to that darkness, feeling the cuffs around my wrists and the flash of the mug shot camera, I changed.
I fed the beast last night, and now it feels as if that beast is me.
“I was so worried about you,” she whispers into my neck.
“Why did you do that?”
I pull away from her embrace and stare down at her as she pulls me into the apartment, closing the door behind us. “I have to tell you what I did,” I mumble, but she’s already shaking her head.