In Her Space

by Knight, Amie

  “Jesus, I’m coming. Calm the hell down.” I heard from the inside.

  The door swung open and there stood the source of all my concern in a baggy sweatshirt and sleep shorts, fuzzy socks pulled to her knees. Her hair was in a messy knot on the top of her head and her face was fresh and clean of makeup. She looked good enough to eat.

  I wanted to push my way in and take her right to her bedroom, but something about the way she was looking at me told me she wasn’t having the same thoughts. No, she just looked pretty pissed off to see me at all.

  “Are you going to invite me in?”

  She opened the door a bit more and leaned against the doorjamb, pursing her lips. “I don’t think so.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Is there a reason why not?”

  She blew out a long breath. “So many reasons, Adam. Too many to damn count.”

  I wasn’t a patient man. I never had been and whatever game she was playing was starting to get to me. “Okay, Liv. What gives? What the fuck is going on?”

  She pushed herself off the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her body. “I can’t do this right now. I have so much going on. I can’t deal with you, too.”

  It hurt. Those words. She couldn’t deal with me, too? Like I was a problem instead of her forever. “What does that even mean?”

  Her face was a steel mask of determination. “It means that my world can’t always revolve around the great Adam Nova.”

  But fuck if that wasn’t rich. Since for years and years she hadn’t had anything to do with me. No contact. Her world hadn’t revolved around me at all. And all my old hurts, insecurities, and hostility about it came flying to the surface.

  “You have got to be fucking joking right now. Your world hasn’t revolved around me in a long fucking time, Liv!” I yelled. I slammed my hand on the doorjamb and she jumped. “What the fuck is going on? Why are you all of a sudden pushing me away again?” I was pushed past the point of frustration and had moved straight into pissed off territory.

  Before she could answer me, a familiar face appeared over her shoulder. A face I surely didn’t expect to see, especially in the condition it was in. “Mel,” I whispered, confused.

  My eyes roved the planes of her face. The bruises, the scabs, the swelling on her cheek. Who’d done this to her?

  Liv’s face whipped around to Mel. “You’re up.”

  She seemed more surprised to see Mel than I was and maybe that’s because she wasn’t expecting her to interrupt whatever confrontation we were having.

  “Yeah, I think I’m finally hungry,” she said to Liv and then she gave me a sad smile and then winced as the scab on her upper lip pulled. “Hey, Adam,” she said through her wince.

  Liv gave me a hard look that told me to behave myself and opened the door wide. “Come on in. I’ll make us some lunch.”

  Apparently we weren’t going to have a knock-down, drag-out in front of Mel. I could see why. She definitely didn’t need our shit drama.

  I walked in and sat on the sofa while Mel sat in a chair catty-corner me.

  “I’m going to go whip up some food. You two behave.” She glared at me as she walked away and I knew it was my warning to be kind to Mel. Of course, I’d be on my best behavior. I could see something horrific had happened to her. Besides, Liv could hear every word we were saying from the damn kitchen that was only like ten feet away.

  I leaned over and rested my elbows on my knees and pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes. God, I couldn’t think about how this had happened to her. She looked so terrible. If someone had done this to Liv, I would lose my mind.

  And then my mind ran rampant as darkness and a burst of stars danced behind my eyelids from the pressure from my hands. What if Sebastian had done this, or Braden?

  And then finally, fucking finally my mind went there and I snatched my hands away and my head snapped to her.

  Her sad eyes were already on me. Her eyes telling me a story I knew all too well, and then I felt the burn in my nose, behind my eyes as emotion built inside of me like a volcano ready to erupt.

  “No.” My voice sounded strangled as my head moved from side to side, not just my mind in denial, but my body, my fucking heart.

  And still she just watched me silently, her lonely, broken eyes pushing me further and further over the edge. Because with her silence came the lack of denial that I was right. Her silence was the knife to my gut, the sword to my heart.

  I hadn’t been able to stop him, after all. I’d come home promising myself I wouldn’t let him hurt another woman, but he had. I’d become distracted with Liv and the prospect of loving her again.

  I’d tried finding women he’d come into contact with only to be thwarted time and time again by the very women he’d hurt. They wouldn’t step forward. They were scared.

  And looking at Mel, I could understand why.

  “When?” I breathed.

  Her soft, sad smile was back and this time it was accompanied by tears that tore at my very soul, ravaged my spirit.

  “Night before last.”

  My heart bled for this woman as she sat there sobbing. All I could think of was my own mother. All I could see was her sitting on a chair in my old apartment, broken for the very same reasons Mel was.

  “Does Sebastian know?”

  She nodded.

  He was probably off somewhere killing the man. And then my mind immediately went to Braden and fuck if I didn’t feel sorry for the bastard. She’d been his best friend for most of their lives. They’d all been best friends. This was a fucking mess.

  But more than anything, I hurt for Mel. And not just because of the physical bruises and cuts on her. I hurt for the hidden bruises, the proverbial cuts. Because those took the longest and were the hardest to heal.

  She was curled around herself in that chair all alone and I couldn’t stand it another minute.

  “May I?”

  Her tear-stained face looked confused. I was confused too, but I wanted to help her, ease her pain any way I could.

  “Can I hold you?”

  She nodded and I was up and off my seat and picking her up off the chair and sitting her in my lap. I cradled her to me and hugged her while she cried into the shoulder of my shirt. And all I could think the whole time was that I wished I’d been big enough, strong enough, mature enough to do this for my mother.

  When she calmed, I leaned down and whispered into her ear, “What happened?”

  She looked up at me. “He just caught me off guard, but he only roughed me a little, Adam. I had my taser. He didn’t get very far.”

  That was the best thing I’d heard since I’d walked through the door. He hadn’t raped her. She’d protected herself. It was hard to see from the bruises on her face, but she’d beaten him.

  “Did you go to the police?”

  Her eyes went wild, crazed. “I can’t. He is the police.”

  She crumbled against me again and I wrapped my arms around her tight. She’d have to be brave. Braver than my mother was.

  Liv came into the room with three bowls of soup on a tray, Harry trailing behind. Her eyes were troubled as they looked Mel and me over.

  “Ready for some food?” she asked in a pretend cheerful voice. She was right when she opened the door today. She really didn’t have time for my bullshit. This was much more serious.

  I set Mel back in the chair and gave her a bowl of soup and spoon while Liv went back in the kitchen to get sandwiches and drinks.

  I could tell by the looks Liv had been shooting me since I’d gotten here that she was just trying to take care of Mel, and I wanted to help her, too, but someone had to be the one to say it. Someone had to be the one to give a bit of tough love and I guessed that someone would be me.

  I sat down with my own soup on the couch and looked over at Mel. She was spooning tomato soup into her mouth and staring off into the distance. It was apparent she was still shocked. But every day that she sat here trying to escape what had happened was a day Carlis
le Rothchild was winning and I was done with letting that fucker win.

  “You have to go to the police,” I said it with a finality that didn’t brook argument and still her eyes flashed at me, full of defiance.

  “I can’t. You don’t get it.”

  Liv came back in the room with more food, but that didn’t stop me from saying what I had to say. “I do. I get it. My mother’s life was ruined by that man.”

  Mel’s face crumpled and she wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her blue shirt. “I’m so sorry about your mom, Adam. But I can’t change what he did. Me going in there isn’t going to change the past.”

  Liv’s weary gaze was on mine in warning, but I couldn’t stop.

  “You going in there won’t change the past, but it will sure as hell change the future. Think of all the other women he’s done this to. Think of who he could do this to tomorrow. Think of your future daughters.”

  I put my soup on the table and stood up. I couldn’t reason with her when I was like this, so overly emotional. I didn’t want to make matters worse, but I couldn’t not say my piece.

  I opened the front door and walked through it. Carlisle Rothchild was fucking suffocating me even though he was nowhere to be seen. I stepped onto the porch and dragged in deep breaths of air.

  A warm chest hit me from behind. Soft arms slid under my arms and wrapped around my waist. I reached down and held a hand in mine that had my mother’s ring on it. Liv buried her face in the center of my back and took a big breath.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Liv was everything good in my life. I didn’t want all the ugly to touch her. I wanted to protect her from it, emotionally and physically.

  I turned in her arms and gathered her up close to my chest and kissed the top of her head. “Because I don’t want you to hurt.” Because knowing the things I knew ate away at me on the inside. It stole some of me. It took away some of the good parts of me and I wanted Liv to be happy and free of the emotional chains I struggled with every day.

  Her chin tilted up, her eyes meeting mine. “It hurts me that you don’t share things with me.”

  “That’s not true. I share everything with you.”

  She backed out of my embrace. “Except for the things you don’t. It’s not fair. God, Adam. You just don’t get it. You hide from me. Even after all this time. All these years. So much love and still you don’t give me all of you. And here I am, baring my soul, my heart, fucking begging you to jump all in. You wanted me to look up and so I did. You wanted me to go to the island and I did. When are you going to let go, finally, and give me everything? Not just a piece of you here and there that you deem good enough for me. But the good parts, the raw parts, the sad parts, the fucking scary parts. I want them all because I love all of you.”

  I shook my head. “But you don’t understand. You don’t know.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. And it’s because you don’t let me. You hide things from me. Why didn’t you tell me your mother worked for Carlisle? Why didn’t you tell me what he did to her? Why didn’t you tell me you’d been by to see Sebastian and Braden? Just why?” Her voice was near hysterics now. “How do you expect to cope with things if you don’t share your burdens, Adam? Will you just carry them around all by yourself until the weight of them breaks you completely?”

  I ran my hands through my hair and boomed, “I’m trying to protect you!”

  She scoffed. “I don’t need protecting. I don’t need you to keep me from knowing things that could hurt me. I just need you.”

  I pulled on the ends of my hair with my hands clenched, my eyes closed. Why couldn’t she understand? What I knew? The secrets I held were so dark they would ruin her.

  But her? I could tell she felt betrayed.

  “Why did you even come back here? Why did you move to that damn island?”

  “To protect you,” I gritted out in a tortured voice.

  She shook her head as she walked toward her door. “You can’t even answer me. Even now, you stand here feeding me half-truths. Keeping your secrets. What else are you keeping from me, Adam?”

  My chest rose and fell rapidly, and my heart beat like it was going to jump right out of my chest. Panic took over me like never before. I’d never shared with anyone what Carlisle had told me the night he’d arrested me ten years ago. It was too awful. Too ugly. Too horrid.

  I’d never once uttered the words. I’d never told anyone that he’d murdered my mother and I couldn’t make the words come now either. It felt as if I uttered the words the whole world would end.

  Liv shook her head as she opened the door to the apartment. “Go home, Adam,” she muttered softly, the door shutting into place as she disappeared behind it.

  Fuck, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell her. It was that I couldn’t.

  I FOLLOWED MEL AND LIV from the Madison Police Station all the way back to Liv’s apartment, staying far enough behind they couldn’t see me. I was in my black Escalade but was really living in my own walking, talking nightmare the past couple of days.

  Sebastian had come for me and relayed everything Mel had told him and I’d had to listen to it and take it like a man when really I’d wanted to fall apart. How could it be? How could he dare lay a hand on Mel? He’d known how I loved her. Sebastian and myself had been looking for my father since the incident, only he hadn’t been home or at work. And now an investigation on him was in the works because Mel had come forward with an account of the day he’d attacked her. He was clearly hiding. Georgina hadn’t seen him in days. Which to me only further proved that he was guilty. Besides, I knew Mel would never lie about something like that.

  This year had been a hard one. Finding out my father wasn’t the man I thought he was. Hearing my mother talk about him like he was a monster. He hadn’t been an especially great father. He hadn’t been the most supportive or kind. He’d mostly been absent because of his job. But he’d never abused me.

  I watched as they went inside the apartment before getting out of my black SUV and following them. Sebastian and I had been watching the apartment the last few days and I was expecting him any minute. Mel had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. And now she was going to marry my other best friend, Sebastian. Needless to say, she meant a hell of a lot to me. More than a lot. She was family. I would protect her at all cost. And Liv had once been the girl of my dreams. I’d adored her. I would have done a lot more if she’d cared for me.

  I was outside of the apartment door when I heard the first scream. I pulled my Glock 9 mm from its holster and eased open the front door, checking the parameters, praying I was fucking wrong. But no one had seen my father in days and my hope was dwindling by the damn second. The living room was empty, so I skirted the wall and around the corner to the hallway for what I knew to be Liv’s room from my last couple of nights of surveillance.

  That’s when I heard voices. My stomach sank and saliva filled my mouth at the sound of my father’s voice. I didn’t want it to be true. I’d begged for it to all be rumors, but in my heart I’d known. My father was a rapist.

  “Who’s going to protect you now, you little bitch?” My father’s slurred words hit my ears like a hundred tiny needles. They wounded me more than a sword slicing me open. I willed myself not to throw up as I walked closer on silent feet, my gun ready. I’d do what I had to do. What was right. Even if it fucking killed me inside and it probably would.

  He was my father.

  The man who loved me.

  The man who’d raised me to be who I was.

  How could it be?

  “You little bitch. You think you can ruin me!” my father yelled. He sounded like he’d been drinking, not like his normal well-composed self, and my blood went cold in my body.

  How could he hurt her?

  I turned the corner and scanned the room quickly from the hall. The girls were both on Liv’s bed, bundled up together, and my father was at the end of it, his back to me, a gun pointed at both
of them.

  God, I was going to be sick, but I had to keep my shit together. I couldn’t afford to fuck this up. Too many of the lives I loved were at stake.

  “I should fucking kill you both for trying to ruin me. Just like I killed that little fucker’s mother from the mainland.”

  The cold blood in my veins transformed straight to ice. Fuck no. God, no. Please tell me he hadn’t. Please tell me my father was not a murderer, too. I didn’t think I could go on. That I could live with that knowledge. My vision swam and I pressed my head to the wall so I didn’t pass out, my breath coming fast, my heart racing.

  Liv let out a sob before throwing her hand over her mouth like she was going to be sick, too.

  “You’re gonna take it back. You’re going to go down to that police station and tell them I never laid a hand on you.” His voice was deadly calm.

  There was a heavy stench of liquor and sweat in the air and I was worried the gun he was holding was going to inevitably go off, turning matters from really fucking horrible to worse.

  “Do you understand me?” he boomed and the girls jumped nervously on the bed, tears running down their faces. They huddled further into each other and my father stepped closer to the bed.

  I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had to act now. I took deep breaths as I stayed close to the wall, moving closer to the door, my gun in my hand ready, my mind knowing what I had to do, my heart revolting.

  “Or maybe I’ll just kill you now. Just the way I did to Adam’s mother.” His voice dripped of evil. “Maybe I should have some fun first. Hmm.” He used his free hand to start undoing his belt and the food I ate for lunch yesterday started to come up.

  I stepped into the room, my gun raised, pointed at the man I loved. The man who’d ruined so many lives. “Dad.”

  His gun never wavered from the girls, but his head snapped to mine. “Braden.”

  I was shaking as I stared at him, my gun on him, his on Liv and Mel. It was a nightmare.