CHAPTER 44
Adam
"A dam. Wake up." She's shaking me. "Adam."
"What? What happened?"
"There's a man outside." Her voice is quiet as though she doesn't want anyone else to hear her.
There's a man outside? I bolt out of the bed. "Where is he?"
"Backyard. He's just standing out there watching the house."
I run to the window to look out. Our window looks out over the backyard and part of the pool.
He's there . A man is standing there in the dark, unmoving.
He's looking toward the house but it's too dark to make out any of his features.
I turn and grab Eve by the arms. "Stay here.
Lock the door and call the guys. Tell them to get over here. "
She's shaking her head vigorously. "No way. We go together."
"The hell we will. You stay right here and call them. Do what I fucking say, Eve."
She looks at me with nothing but defiance and determination. "We go together."
"He's going to get away if you don't listen to me, damn it."
"He's going to get away if you don't realize that you aren't going anywhere without me."
"Fuck, Eve! Fine. Call them." I know that when I turn to leave this room, she'll be right behind me. She's so close to me that I hear Cal's voice when he answers the phone.
"Eve, what's wrong?" His voice is wary and thick with sleep.
Eve speaks quietly in the same way she did to me in the bedroom. Does she think someone is inside the house? The alarm would've gone off.
"There's a man in the backyard. I think he threw a lounger into the pool to get our attention."
I hear rustling on the other end of the phone. "Where's Adam?" Pounding footsteps and "Get up! There's a man outside Adam's house."
"He's here with me. We're going back downstairs to see where he is."
"No, Eve. Go up to your room right fucking now! Tell Adam to wait for us."
"We don't want him to get away. I'm not letting Adam go alone."
A door slams and more footsteps pound on the ground.
Car doors shut and tires squeal. "Eve, I swear to hell if you get yourself hurt, I'm going to fucking skin you.
" Cal's voice is angry and shaky. He's scared .
He hates to feel out of control. It's something that the three of us have felt before and we didn't like the experience.
"We'll be okay. I have a bat and Adam."
I turn quickly to look at her and see that she does in fact, have a bat.
Was she holding that the whole time? Where did she even get it from?
Damn. My girl is so fucking brave . I'm equal parts proud and pissed the hell off.
She wouldn't listen to me. That could get her hurt one day.
That day won't be today. I have the rest of our lives to teach her to obey me but deep down, I know. ..she's too strong to bend.
We reach the double back doors and look out into the yard. There's no one. He's gone. Fuck! I look to Eve and she's still scanning the yard. She looks...confused . "You saw him, right?"
I narrow my eyes, wondering what she's really asking. "Yes. I saw him from the window. Why?"
"Just making sure."
She turns her attention back to the phone. "He's gone. There's no one there."
"Don't go outside. We're almost there. Wait for us. He could still be out there." One of them ends the call and Eve turns her attention back to the glass doors.
I'm confused by her words, but I need to know if he's still out there. I move away from the door and go into my office. As I open the gun safe, I feel Eve's presence in the room. Without turning to face her, I ask "Do you know how to use one of these?"
"Yeah."
I turn to look at her. I'm surprised by her admission. "It's not like a paintball gun. This is more powerful, harder to aim."
Her lips thin and her eyes turn menacing. I've flipped her switch . "Hmm. Well, good thing Eli taught me gun safety and took me to the shooting range. I'm not a marksman, but I know how to shoot a gun."
Eli. That mother fucker. I find myself in a constant battle of appreciating him for what he's done for my girl and hating him for being so close to her.
It's maddening . Lights come through the office window, and I move to it to peer outside.
It's Cal and Cotton. They're both armed and scanning the front yard.
"They're here," I tell Eve. She runs out of the room and soon I hear the locks on the front door disengaging.
I walk into the room just in time to see Cotton come through the door first. Eve launches herself into his arms and he's ready for her.
I almost can't believe this is the same girl I met a few short months ago.
Cotton grabs her up, lifting her feet off the ground putting his face in her hair.
Relief is scrawled all over his face. He needed to see her safe.
Cal comes through the door right behind him and grabs Eve from his arms, scooping her up in the same way.
"Why are you the way you are?" Cal asks her in his 'this is bullshit and I'm not taking it' tone.
"No idea what you mean by that." Eve chitters back to him.
"You know good and damn well what I'm talking about, Eve. I told you to stay in the bedroom and you wouldn't listen."
"Eve? Since when am I Eve?"
"Belle didn't try to chase Gaston out into the night with a damn bat. That's some Eve bullshit if I've ever heard it."
He turns to me then. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you let her come with you? What if he wasn't alone?"
I can't even be mad at this mammoth asshole. He's upset because he was scared for my girl. He got here in record time, and I know that his nerves were fraying the whole drive.
"He told me to lock the door and stay in the bedroom. I declined."
Cotton speaks up for the first time and he's clearly as exasperated as the rest of us. "You declined. Maybe we just tie you up next time. You can't seem to stay out of trouble."
His words sting and I see it in Eve's eyes even though her face remains in that unaffected mask. Cotton lets out a breath and scrubs his face with both hands. "I'm sorry, Mason. I didn't mean it. I was just worried. We all were."
Eve nods and gives him a small uneven smile.
"Any idea who it could've been?" Cal asks no one in particular.
Eve looks around the room at each of our faces. "We're sure this isn't Paul Hastings, right?"
My brothers and I look at one another, asking a silent question of how much we're willing to tell her.
Ultimately, it's Cotton who wants to keep a lid on what happened to Paul.
None of us want it to get out but Cotton, is the one who said we wouldn't tell a soul.
Both Cal and I look to Cotton letting him be the deciding factor.
He holds our gazes for several seconds before giving one short nod.
"It's not Paul. It can't be." Cal tells Eve.
"He's dead." I follow up his statement with the grim revelation and look to Eve to watch her response as she processes this news. There's nothing. No shock. No disgust. No relief. She knew.
"Tell me everything." Eve's face is impassive, giving nothing of her feelings away.
I recount the events of the night, starting with paying Paul's bail anonymously and then lying in wait for him in his shitty little bad guy home. I follow that up with everything that happened after Paul woke up in that warehouse strapped to a chair.
........................
"Mmmm.....ugh."
Paul's head hangs forward as he moans, slowly coming back to himself.
I don't have the patience to wait, so I wave the salts under his nose.
His head shoots up and he looks around the large open room frantically.
He looks from Cal to Cotton and finally to me.
"You." His voice is trembling. "What am I doing here?
" He pulls at his bindings, struggling to get free.
Cal rubs around his eyes, seeming exasperated. "Listen you dumb fuck, those ties are rated for five hundred pounds of pressure, so save us some sanity and yourself some energy and just fucking stop with the jerking around."
Paul jerks his face to meet Cal's glare.
"Listen man, I don't want any trouble here.
I haven't done nothing to you. Just let me go.
" I'm amused that this cretin is looking to the biggest man in the room for mercy.
There's something about Cal that looks kind and.
..he is kind mostly. The thing with Cal is that you just don't want to see the other side of him.
Unfortunately for Paul, that's the only side Cal has for him.
"Paul, can I still call you Paul?" He nods, unsure how to respond.
"Paul, as I explained to you before, you attacked my girl.
I won't tell you her name because I'm afraid you might say it and.
..if you say it....well Paul, you see my big friend over there?
" Paul looks in the direction that I gesture and surveys Cal.
"My girl is like a sister to him and if he hears her name fall from your lips, I'm afraid I won't get to do all the important things that I have planned for you, and I really want to get to everything before my girl goes to bed. "
Paul's breathing quickens and he squirms in his seat.
There's a massive knot on the side of his head from where Cal knocked him out earlier.
I turn toward Cotton, who's laying multiple items out on a sleek metal table.
"What do you think, brother?" He's perusing the various instruments laid out before us.
He hands me a curved needle and thick black thread. "For the eyes." Damn. You'd never guess what lurks beneath his cool-as-ice exterior.
Smiling at my brother, I take the offered instruments and turn back toward Paul. "We need you to remain alert Paul. You're going to see what's happening to you just like all of those women watched helplessly as you assaulted them."
"I didn't assault anyone. I'm tellin' you. All them charges were dropped 'cause they had the wrong guy. You need to listen to me."