And Then The Devil Cried [3] Page 6
We drove in silence for the rest of the distance.
At the hospital, they took some x-rays and found out I had a broken tibia. The other injuries were not serious. They gave me some painkillers and anti-inflammatory and sent us on our way.
Rho drove in silence again, it wasn’t like him. Finally, at an appropriate place, he stopped the car.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“Don’t you hate me enough already? You really want to know why I did it?”
“It will be better than all the things going in my head!”
“First it was just to get him to back off,” I told him. “I knew he had feelings for me, and I wanted to use it.”
“I’m guessing there’s a second part of that response.”
I hesitated. “I wanted to.”
He looked devastated. Rho was terrible at hiding his feelings. “Are you saying that to hurt me?”
I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. “No, Rho… I didn’t…” finally the tears came. “I would never hurt you.”
“Except that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
If I could I would have walked away. But I wasn’t going to be able to walk away from anyone for weeks.
“Rho, I don’t know what to say.”
“Why are you telling me now? What are you getting out of this?”
I was hurt. “Do you think that’s what I do? Huh? I sleep around with people to get something from them?”
“Adam, that is what you just told me! You slept with Ian because you wanted his favor and the guy doesn’t even know it! What else are you hiding, Adam? What other secrets are buried in your fucked up selfish brain!”
I didn’t protest. I didn’t say a word in my defense. “The day I went to Ian’s place,” I said. “I came back, and Wade was in the driveway. Waiting.”
“Wade? As in the Superior?”
“Yes. And I fucked him in the same bed I fucked you the previous night.”
“What do you want, Adam?”
“I don’t want—”
“No, I mean what do you want from me? Do you want me to forgive you? Do you want me to hit you like an abusive lover, so you can get redemption? What’s your deal?”
I didn’t know the answer.
All I knew was that I was wrong for him. And something had to be done. Someone had to look out for Rho.
“The way you saved me just now,” I began. “The way you took me to the hospital despite everything I just told you, even when you were hurt, when you could have given in to anger, you didn’t do it.”
“We both paid heavily, you most of all when I gave in to my anger. If I hadn’t been this person, none of that would have happened!”
“Rho, Marcus would have done what he did with or without your assistance. I know that now. Sergei…” it was strange that my voice still trembled saying that name aloud. “They had planned this for a while. We just didn’t know.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Rho. The way you loved me, now and before, no one’s ever loved me like that,” I said. “I don’t know if what I have with Ian is real or just some fantasy I hung on to, so I could make the torture more bearable. The only thing I can be certain of is that what I had with you was real. And that it feels different… with you.”
He got tears in his eyes then. “And how does it feel with Wade?”
He was still angry.
Good.
Angry was good.
“Wade… is… work.”
“Work?”
I turned to him. “Sometimes the only way to take the golden goose from the giant is to let the giant fuck you in the ass!” I started seriously but by the end of the sentence, I was laughing like a maniac.
“Adam!”
“Come on, Rho, these pills are fucking amazing! You need to stop ruining my high. Just… mellow out!”
He turned to me. “Mellow out?”
“Please, just take me home. And then go back to your life.”
In case you didn’t notice, Rho. Adam Delaney is a fucking whore. Just like his mother.
RHO
The worst feeling in the world isn’t losing the one you love.
The worst is to see them in agony, watch them be miserable, knowing there’s nothing you can do but watch them struggle.
I knew he was in pain. I knew he was suffering. Some of it, maybe a lot of it, was my fault.
I pulled the covers around him and he was looking at me with his tear-filled eyes. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood, hoping to let him rest but he grabbed my arm. “I’m sorry…” his words trailed off because he was crying. “I’m sorry, Rho! I don’t know what I’m doing… I keep fucking it all up!”
I sat down with him. “Do you even love me?”
He was crying harder. “I never wanted to hurt you, Rho…”
“Adam—” I started to say but he wouldn’t let me speak.
“All this guilt inside me,” he said. “I hate myself for everything I’ve done!”
“Adam listen—”
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Rho… it’s all… a mess!”
“Adam,” I raised my voice this time to get his attention. It worked. “I forgive you.”
He stared blankly at me. It was the last thing he was expecting. He started breathing hard, shallow breaths. Like he was on the verge of a panic attack. I tried to calm him down. “Adam, you can’t solve everything today,” I said. “And you can’t get rid of me. I won’t let you. I haven’t given up on you. On us. There’s nothing you can do to make me hate you, Adam, don’t you get it?”
He stopped panicking then. “I just… I wanted to fight them. I tried. I tried to fight but they… they overpowered me.”
“Adam, there was five of them and one of you,” I said. “I couldn’t have come out of there alive if I wasn’t carrying a weapon and if I hadn’t shot one of them! You did fine!”
“But I wanted to show him. Just this once, I wanted to steal that grin from his face!”
I hesitated in speaking out the name. “Sergei?” he looked away, giving me my answer. “You saw him today?”
That’s when I understood why he was so messed up. Seeing that guy again did a number on his head, no matter how much he tried to prove it didn’t matter. Of course, it must have made everything worse. I knew how vindictive and how complacent that man could be. When Adam said he wanted to fight them, he didn’t mean those men, he meant Sergei. Those men were nothing more than a representation of Sergei. Losing to them must have been devastating.
“His men jumped me,” he said. “He was hiding out in one of those unused boardrooms in our building. I was on my way to the office, but I think they tampered with the elevator. I had to fight this weird, huge, insane bruiser type. I did. I managed to even take him down, but then they were all coming for me. I guess they couldn’t use the empty office floor for long, so they put me in a car and took me to the parking garage.”
I wondered if he knew he had cheated death today. “That parking garage,” I said. “Its where the Russians dump their bodies.”
Adam looked surprised to hear it. “How did you know where to come?”
“I got a call,” I told him. “They told me someone was in danger. They gave me this address. Told me not to get back up. So, I went to check.”
“It could have been a trap, Rho!”
“But it wasn’t.”
There was silence for a long time. “I feel like my head’s about to explode.”
“You had a rough day,” I said. “Get some rest. Things will be better tomorrow, I promise.”
He was looking at me. “I missed you.” His eyes were filled with tears again.
I hugged him, careful not to hurt him. “I’m not going anywhere, Adam. I’ll be right here. All night. Every day. Right next to you. You’ll never have to fight alone.”
He hugged me even tighter. “I love you, Rho.”
I wished I could tell him how good tho
se words felt.
I knew then that it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew that nothing would ever change unless Sergei was out of the picture. I finally understood Adam’s need to be rid of him. That man represented everything wrong that ever happened to us. Not just to Adam but to me as well. He had made enemies of us both. If I wanted Adam to have a chance at a better life, I had to help him finish off the Russian and watch him suffer.
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