Chapter 28
ONYX
For once, I was up and out of bed before Lucero could wake. I left the shower running water so he’d think that’s where I was. I noticed that when I did, he went back to sleep. However, this time, I had to go see Adam. I had to.
Once I was dressed in a pair of jeans, a plain black T-shirt, and my sneakers, I was out the door.
I caught a taxi to my brother’s place. When I knocked, I heard him shuffle inside before he opened the door.
My breath caught. I wanted to hug him. After seeing my father, I needed to, but I didn’t. I respected his space.
“Hey,” I muttered. “Can I come in?”
Adam looked me up and down. “Yeah,” he said. When the door closed behind us, he walked after me. “You’re not all dressed up today.”
“Guess I didn’t feel like it,” I mumbled.
Adam frowned. “What’s the matter?”
I wiped a hand down my face. Yes, I needed to tell him. To make sure he knew how real the danger was getting. I finally moved deeper into the apartment and leaned against the wall. Adam stared at me.
“What the fuck? You’re worrying me.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “Régis is in town. I know you know but… he set up a gala and tricked me into going to it. I-I don’t want you here alone anymore.”
Adam’s face had collapsed into a cool mask, but I saw the tremor underneath it. He crossed to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of pills. I watched as he shook out two pills and chewed them. Probably the antianxiety meds he lived on now. When he came back, he sucked in a breath.
“That’s a problem, but I don't have anywhere else to go.”
“What?” I asked, my voice flat. “You know you have somewhere else to go! I have a place.”
“You have a husband,” Adam shot back. “A life. A home.”
“Why won’t you ever let me help you?” I snapped. “Every single time I offer for you to come with me, to stop isolating yourself, you shut me down!”
“Because I’m not going to ruin your fucking life more than I already have!
” he yelled. “You’re over here all the time.
You have no friends. And honestly, when I see you, I’m miserable, Louis.
All I can think about is how much of your life I’ve ruined.
What am I supposed to do? Come see you be happy with Lucero while I die inside? ”
“Adam…”
“You have a life to live,” he snapped. “And I won’t be the reason you don’t live it. I hate myself enough. You really want me to hate myself more?”
I sucked in a shaky breath. My chest ached, the pain spreading as I looked at him. The way it hung in the air made me flinch. So many words filled my lips, but they fell away. What was I supposed to say to that?
“Just go home, Louis,” he said quietly. “If Régis comes after me, he comes. It’s not like I don’t know he hates me. You’ve done everything you can.”
Except I hadn’t. If I had killed the bastard years ago, he wouldn’t be here now destroying me and Adam without ever even touching us. I stared at my brother and swallowed hard. I wanted to punch him. For the first time in ages. I knew he was hurting, but fuck, wasn’t I allowed to hurt too?
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll make sure you’ve got food and then I’ll go.”
Even if I was upset, I was going to take care of Adam. I didn’t care how he acted. He could get mad. I was going to take care of him whether he wanted me to or not. That’s how family worked.
Shit. If Lucero had just heard me say those words out loud he would have grinned and been like, see I told you. God, that giant man is messing me up.
“I have food.” Adam sighed.
I didn’t believe him. Instead, I opened his fridge, expecting trash but it was all cleared out.
The freezer was the same. And then I froze.
Slowly, I reached up and pulled out a container.
The contents were frozen, but still looked vaguely familiar.
But it wasn’t just that. Adam never put anything away right, he never took this much care.
On the top was a label, the letters looping with the kind of care I had only seen one person use toward food.
“Adam?”
“Yeah?” he muttered, sounding distracted.
“Was Lucero here?”
Only silence greeted me. Slowly, I turned around, and he stared at me.
I saw a flicker of something in his eyes, like he was warring between telling me or not.
But then, over the back of one of his chairs, was a familiar shirt.
Lucero’s. I picked it up slowly, my eyes going back to my brother’s before I pressed the fabric to my nose and stuttered out an exhale.
“What? How?”
Adam shrugged. “You think I ask questions too deep? I don’t,” he said. “He just came over, cooked, and cut my hair."
My chest throbbed. “Yeah? What else did he do?”
“He just asked me to teach him French. What the hell is your problem?”
I blinked. My anger had nothing to do with Adam and everything to do with my so-called husband. I pulled back and shook my head.
“Nothing,” I bit out. “I’ll take care of things.”
Adam blinked. “Fuck, Louis. What the hell? You looked so scary right then.”
Did I? I didn’t even feel it anymore. But what I did feel was the pure, ugly betrayal. From my father, from Adam keeping me away, from Lucero breaking the one and only rule I had ever actually put on our relationship.
“Gotta go,” I muttered.
“Wait,” Adam called as I snatched up the shirt and stalked away. “What’s wrong? Talk to me,” he said. “Hey, don’t leave.”
“I’ll be back!” I snapped.
I always came back for him. Didn’t I? My first call was to Cara as I jogged down the stairs. When she picked up, I didn’t waste minutes on courtesy.
“Triple-fucking-check that Adam is buried so deep no one can find him,” I growled. “If Régis is poking around, something is up. And somehow, Lucero found him. If he can find Adam…”
“Shit, anyone can,” she muttered. “Okay, I’m putting my fingers to work, boss. Talk to you soon.”
Cara hung up, and I knew she was already on her job. I raised a hand and grabbed a taxi back to my side of the city. Every mile etched between us felt like too damn long. Adam needed protecting.
He doesn’t want it! Just let him fend for himself.
No, that wasn’t an option I tried to tell my brain.
Adam always thought he was good on his own, but he wasn’t.
He never was. I bounced my foot up and down in the back of the taxi, a volcano opening up in my chest. When we reached my building, I tossed my tip and fare before I slipped outside.
The moment I moved into my apartment, I smelled food cooking and heard the radio playing loud Italian music.
I turned the corner, and there Lucero was. His shirt was off, his big pecs and soft tummy on display as he sang along to the music playing. The sweats he wore hung low on his hips. It was a familiar sight. One I had gotten used to. But now? Now it strangled me.
My finger pressed against the power button. The music disappeared and Lucero whipped around. When he saw it was me, the cold danger in his eyes was replaced by warmth.
“Hey, bella! I was just working on my lemon squares recipe,” he said as he put a piece on a plate for me and dusted it in powdered sugar. “You’re just in time to taste it. Let me know what you think.”
I stared at him.
“Bella?” he asked when I didn’t move.
I laid his shirt on the counter beside the lemon square. When he looked at it, he was quiet before realization dawned on his face. Finally, he dragged his gaze up and stared at me as a tremor shot through him.
“What is this, Lucero?” I asked, my voice even. “Do you know where I got this from?”
Slowly, he shook his head.
“Liar!” I snapped. “Don’t stand here in my face and fucking lie to it,” I growled. “I got it at Adam’s place.” I stilled. “Were you at Adam’s place?”
For a minute, Lucero was still. He looked at the shirt before he finally looked at me. His eyes were glassy.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “You were… doing badly, and I thought maybe something was going on so I…” He sucked in a short breath. “Well, I met Adam by mistake and he needed help so I helped him, baby. I made sure he was okay.”
“I didn’t ask you to help him!” I screamed at him.
“That’s my job. Mine! The one thing I asked you for throughout this whole goddamn sham of a marriage was that you not follow me there.
That you leave me one speck of privacy in a sea of you giving me no goddamn privacy!
” I panted as I stared at his hunched shoulders.
“You have no idea what you’re messing with.
What’s going on. You could have set him into an attack. Could have hurt him?—”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Lucero said darkly, his voice flat as he stared at me.
“Not on purpose,” I said as I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You don’t get it.”
“Then help me get it,” he said as he rounded the counter and walked toward me. Lucero grabbed my hands and held them in his. “Explain it to me.”
I stared up at him. Some part of me wanted to do just that. But he had crossed a line. I’d put up a ton of boundaries in this marriage and he had hopped every last one. This one, though? This one was sacred.
I ripped my hands away from his.
“I shouldn’t have to explain shit,” I snapped. “That’s the point. You barged your way into my life with this marriage bullshit, and then into my home. Like I wanted you there. Like you belong.”
“You don’t mean that,” Lucero said.
“Oh, I do.” I laughed. “I mean every word of it. Look at how you threw my trust away so quickly. Like it was nothing.”
“You were?—”
My hands slammed onto the counter. “I don’t give a fuck how I was,” I hissed through my teeth.
“I told you to stay away. You couldn’t stay away,” I growled.
“You think this is the fucking sitcom Everyone Loves Lucero ? Be serious! You don’t know my brother.
Don’t know that my father was the one to fucking rape him repeatedly growing up.
That he’s fragile and sick. That your barging in could have terrified him into another attack, another hospital stay if I found him in time again.
” I laughed harder. “No, you didn’t fucking care about the fact that I had my father hounding me at that goddamn gala.
Régis is breathing down my neck. I should have killed him.
I failed Adam. I fucking failed him because I was too chicken shit to pull the knife again. ”
Every venomous word I spoke felt like my world was imploding. But he’d wanted to know so badly? Fine. He could take it. He could have this poisonous shit.
“I asked you not to do that. Not to follow me there. You did it anyway,” I said, finally, as I shoved myself upright.
“You know what that tells me?” I asked, my voice hollow in the penthouse.
“I can’t trust you. Not even for a single second.
” I sucked in a breath. “Get out. Get the fuck out of my place or I’ll have you removed whether you want it or not,” I snapped. “I’m done.”
I snatched the ring from my finger and threw it at him. This was enough. We weren’t married, it was a joke. A scam. I watched as the ring hit him square in the chest.
“My lawyer will send over the divorce papers,” I said finally. “Sign them.”
I turned on my heels and stormed out of my own place. He needed time to pack, and I needed to get away from him. Lucero was the one person I had slowly started to trust that wasn’t Adam or Cara.
Now? I remembered why I never allowed myself to fall for anyone. Why trusting people was a fallacy doomed to end in my destruction. I was left with more trouble than it was worth. I shouldn't have ever allowed him so close.
My trust was discarded. I’d never make the mistake again.
We were through.