Beautiful Broken Promises(98)
“Get in, babe. I want to go home,” I told Lane and gently pushed him in the direction of the driver’s side.
Adam groaned loudly. “We were supposed to be together again. You were going to take me back! Remember when I came to visit you again in New York?”
I did, unfortunately. He had come to see me a week before we’d been taken. He’d said he wanted to talk and I agreed to meet him. I didn't know what he wanted to tell me, and I had no idea what my feelings were when it came to him. I cringed to think that more than likely I would have taken him back. At least now I knew better.
“Yeah, I do remember, but I guess fate stepped in… in her own cruel way.”
“That wasn’t supposed to f*cking happen!” he roared. “They weren’t supposed to take you or that other little girl. It was just supposed to be the boy.”
My entire body turned to ice and my head snapped up to face him. Jaxon moved to my side in an instant, and Jace barreled around the car toward Lane.
“What did you just say?” I spoke each word with a punch of rage.
“It wasn't supposed to happen like that…” he continued.
I moved forward but Jaxon grabbed my upper arms to hold me off. “Cut to the chase, dude,” Jaxon ground out. I looked back at Lane, who had gone as white as a ghost. Jace was barring him from moving forward, but it didn't seem like Lane was physically capable of moving anyway.
“It was just a bet,” Adam said simply. “I gambled against Flores in a fight, but I didn’t have the money to pay him off. I did have something he wanted more though.”
I lunged, but my movements were pointless with Jaxon containing me. Mentally, I was clawing his eyes out. “Please, don’t say what I think you’re saying!” Tears rushed to my eyes and the world around me blurred before me.
“Don’t you understand how much I love you? How much I wanted it to be just the two of us again? That’s why I did it,” Adam hollered back. “Flores was a powerful guy. He always bitched about his old lady wanting kids. Well, I had a kid!” His words were knives, and yet he had no f*cking idea that he was killing me slowly.
“YOU DIDN’T HAVE A KID! I DID! LANE DID!" I pointed across the car. “YOU HAD NOTHING!”
Adam turned with wide eyes toward the man who could easily crush him with one blow. “That girl was yours? You were the police officer?”
Lane’s body hurled across the hood of the car in an action that would have made the Dukes of Hazzard jealous. Jace couldn't react quick enough to stop him, and Jaxon was too busy pulling me from his disastrous path. Lane’s landing was flawless as his feet planted him inches away from Adam’s frozen form.
“You gambled your son in a bet with Flores and lost?” Lane bit out.
“Flores thinks I lost. You don't win against a guy like that and live. I gambled something that he would think I was losing,” Adam returned, trembling slightly as he spoke.
I had always known Adam was a gambler. Hell, he used to tell me all the time about his wins. I was the na?ve one who thought he was in Vegas just working some blackjack tables. Not this… never this kind of gambling.
Adam’s body hit the ground before any of us even realized that Lane had just punched him square in the nose. Blood poured from his nostrils and he moaned on the ground, while trying to scamper away like a petrified crab.
“You’re an idiot!” I screamed down at Adam. “You did lose! He took both of us!”
“Yeah, that wasn’t the f*cking plan. His bitch had to get involved, and I guess when she met you in the park, her greedy ass wanted all of you. You were mine, Rae. First, that boy took you and then Flores took you.”
In the blink of an eye, Lane flung himself on top of Adam and pummeled his face. I turned and tucked my head into Jaxon’s chest to shield my eyes from the carnage.
“Please, stop him,” I whispered to Jace, who stood directly next to us.
“The guy got his daughter kidnapped… I don’t know if I can…” Jace stared with wild eyes down at the mess before us. Jaxon shoved me into Jace’s arms, and I vaguely heard him tell his brother to call the police.
Jaxon grunted as he manhandled Lane with all of his strength, pulling him from Adam’s limp body.
“How did they get into my apartment?” Lane barked down at Adam.
I peeked over at Adam as he groaned while writhing on the ground. I didn’t want to see all the blood I knew would be covering his face and Lane’s fists, but I wanted to know the answer just as much as Lane did. I watched Lane’s body in my periphery as it hovered over the man who I now knew had destroyed my life as I once knew it. When Lane jumped to attack again, Adam cried out.