Men In Control (Smith Brothers Complete Series)

by Brenda Ford

  Tami: Ruby, help me. I need cops. My house.

  It isn’t much. I don’t know how much she will understand of it all. I can’t read it enough to check that my words are correct but that’s all I can do right now. This is a message that she needs to see. She hasn’t seen any of my emails, clearly, because she hasn’t come to help me, so I really hope this time she does. I’m relying on her. I don’t know what time it is in the morning, but there’s a chance. She might be awake. Sometimes, she is depending on what time she needs to get to the salon. Luck might be on my side today and help me out.

  Perhaps I should message some other people as well, just to be sure. Brad’s brother, Wesley, seems to always be on hand, and I do have his phone number, but it’s more time and it’s risky. I glance up and see Maria sliding backwards away from Brad because she’s finished saying what she needs to. She might be coming back for me now. To finish off what she started. I don’t know if my head can take any more smacks.

  I lean my head backwards and act again like I have been knocked out. My heart continues to pound, it races rapidly, but there isn’t anything else that I can do now. I have at least reached out to someone. There is another human in the outside world who now knows about the danger that I’m in.

  Now, it’s just more of a waiting game.

  “Well, well, well.” Maria sounds far too pleased in herself. “Looks like I’m right where I need to be. The slut knocked out; Brad all fucked up just as a little punishment for what he has put me through… so what should I do now? Maybe I should take some pictures of the scene that I have created to send to the girls. See what they think about all of this. That could be fun, couldn’t it? They might even want to come along and help me…”

  Oh God, I don’t know how much hate the girls from work have for me. Would they really want to do this?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Brad

  Everything is destroying me, the agony is far too much, but Maria is getting worse. She has just whispered to me that if anyone else comes here, they won’t want witnesses so Tami will end up dead. I don’t really think that someone I have had sex with could be this insane, but there’s just no telling anymore.

  So, with everything that I have left inside of me, I push my ailing body upwards and I just about manage to get to my feet. Everything wants to lie back down already and give up, but I strongly resist that urge.

  “Maria, I can’t say this enough times, but I will repeat it in case you don’t understand it. Your problem isn’t with Tami, it’s with me. You are angry because I don’t want to be with you, and that isn’t Tami’s fault. It’s just the way that it is. I don’t feel that way about you and I honestly never will.”

  “You could have been with me if it wasn’t for her. She ruined it all.”

  “But Maria, I wasn’t with you even when I wasn’t with Tami. What does that tell you?”

  “You just weren’t ready then, that’s all. Now you are and it’s our time to be together.”

  “Maria, I don’t want you. I want Tami. That isn’t going to change. It doesn’t matter what you do to me, what you do to her, I will never want you. And if you do anything to harm Tami, more than you already have…” I glance over to her, my heart bleeding as I see how harmed she is. It destroys me. “Then you will be in jail for the rest of your life. What do you think is going to happen then? That I will visit you in jail and be with you after you harmed the one person that I really want to be with? The person that I love?”

  It feels weird to fully admit that aloud. I’ve told her that I’m falling for her already, but to say love is something different. But you know what, I do love her. There isn’t any point in pretending otherwise. I don’t even think that it’s my hazy state causing that thought. I’m sure that it’s the truth. I don’t have anything to compare it to because I haven’t ever been in love before, but if this isn’t love then I don’t know what is.

  “Fuck you, Brad. Don’t feed me that bullshit.” Maria shakes her head. “What a crock. You wouldn’t ever do anything to harm me because you know that you have feelings for me as well. As soon as all of this is over, you will understand. You will admit it and we can just move on from all of this. We will get a happy ending.”

  “You can’t believe this. Seriously, Maria, you can’t. I would be mental to remain with you after this. Who knows what you’re going to do next, huh? I would never be comfortable with you. I could never relax..”

  “You would also never be bored. Not like you are with little miss basic bitch.” She looks at Tami who is still completely out of it. “Look at her. She doesn’t even have any fight left for you. She’s gone.”

  “You knocked her out! Of course she isn’t fighting any longer. Have you lost your mind?” I roll my eyes. “Stupid question. No one in their right mind would do anything like this.”

  “Brad, don’t you remember what it was like being with me?” she asks wistfully. It’s almost like she is reminiscing over something amazing that happened long ago. “We had such a nice time together, didn’t we? Me and you. We shared a sense of humor, we had a lovely time watching movies and stuff, and I treated you well, didn’t I? I was basically like a wife to you. Cooking you meals and everything.”

  “I don’t remember, Maria. It didn’t mean anything to me. I don’t want to be an asshole, but I don’t know how else to make this clear to you. The only person who I have ever felt a connection with is on the floor.”

  “But that action movie… I only watched that for you. Because I wanted you to like me.”

  I gulp feeling like shit as I realize that my bad boy behavior of the past has created this. It doesn’t matter that I was always honest, it makes no difference to anyone. This has happened anyway.

  “I’m sorry, Maria. That’s all I can say to you. That I’m sorry. I wish that I could go back in time and change what happened, but I can’t. So, what we need to do is focus on the future and where we go from here.”

  It isn’t easy to keep my focus when in so much agony, but there’s a laser sharp need to keep my attention.

  “What would you have changed?” she demands. “If you could go back, what would you change.”

  “Well… sleeping with you. Wasn’t that much obvious?” I furrow my brows confused.

  Maria gasps in sheer shock as if she wasn’t expecting this at all. She still isn’t getting it, this is impossible. “I thought that you would say that you would change breaking things off with me and losing me. You wouldn’t even want to be with me? You would lose those three days? Those three magical amazing days.”

  For a moment, it looks like tears might explode out of her eyes, she might actually break down which could be the start of the end, but instead it’s an intense yell that breaks free from her instead. A shrill sound so loud it practically shakes all the walls in the house. I half hope that it might disturb some neighbors enough to call the cops or something. I’m actually surprised that someone hasn’t already heard the whole incident.

  “Fuck you, Brad. You fucking asshole. How could you do this? How could you?”

  She grabs a vase from the side and tosses it towards my head. Thankfully, her aim is terrible because I don’t know if my reflexes would be good enough to move away. It smashes loudly on the wall behind me, creating a damn mess everywhere. This unleashes something in Maria. She grabs everything that she can get hold of to break it. Now, she’s on a mission to create as much damn mess as possible.

  “Maria, stop!” I scream out. “Stop this already. Just let it go.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I don’t think Maria notices the knife slipping from her fingers, but I see it. It clatters to the floor and slides underneath the table out of her sight. This is good. If she doesn’t have anything to attack me with then I have a chance of taking her down. Even in this state. “Fucking hell, why can’t you just… just…”

  My eyes dart everywhere, I’m searching for something to work with. I don’t think right now I can do it alone. My next mov
e needs to be a careful one though, because Maria is getting worse and I don’t want to set her off.

  “Brad, why are you…” More stuff smashes. Poor Tami won’t have much of a home left after this. “Why do you still want to hurt me, huh? Why can’t you just be with me? What is your problem?”

  She pulls out her cell phone and stares directly at me, her eyes flickering with madness. She dials a number, one that I half hope is the cops because she’s lost her damn mind and she might think that she needs them now, but then it quickly becomes clear that she’s called either Hayley or Tawny. One of the other girls who has been directly involved in this. One of them who gave Maria Tami’s number and sparked all of this.

  God damn it, I hope that I get out of here for long enough to see what happens to them after all of this. I want a detailed account of who did what and why. Then they will be long gone. Locked up too, maybe. In my fantasy, I would love them all locked away, facing a few years in jail to punish them. To make them think about their actions in the future. I don’t want anyone to ever have to go through anything like this.

  “Get here now!” Maria yells into the hand set. “I don’t know what to do now. I need you.”

  It becomes very clear that the person on the other end of the line isn’t comfortable with this, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Maybe the others didn’t know how far Maria would go, but that doesn’t make it any better. They shouldn’t have played with fire, it’s as simple as that.

  “I can’t do this by myself anymore. You can’t all abandon me like this. It isn’t right. You all wanted this…”

  She’s interrupted by a loud knocking sound at the door. Maria spins, half panicked, half elated that everything is going her way after all. If this is one of her friends, this could get worse. But then a movement behind me catches my focus and makes me turn my eyes. Tami is sitting up, recovering from her injures.

  “Ruby,” she mouths to me, nodding like this knocking is good news.

  Ruby. That’s her friend. Maybe somehow in all of the chaos, Tami found a way to contact her friend and now we might be saved… maybe. Or it might be another person in danger. I really don’t want someone else dragged in to this damn mess. It’s messy enough as it is. I don’t know what to do, whether to go and answer the door or to just ignore it, to attempt to save another person’s life. I feel all frozen and stuck.

  “Police!” That word being yelled through the apartment stops everything. “We know of an incident…”

  I flicker my eyes between Tami and Maria. Maria is in full panic mode now, obviously having not considered that as a possibility, and Tami looks relieved. But no one moves. So, I take control. I push past Maria and I swing the door open. The police man outside catches sight of my wound and immediately knows that this is serious. His whole demeanor changes as I step aside to let them in.

  Him and his colleague move past me and I step aside to let them go. As I do, a strange sense of numbness over comes me. I don’t really feel anything. I’m just frozen in this moment in time.

  It’s over. I try to process this. To come to terms with the fact that this is finally done after what feels like forever. It’s over. Maria is done for. Me and Tami are going to be okay…

  “The window,” I hear Tami gasp out desperately, pain evident in her tone. “The window.”

  I don’t know what this means, so I unfreeze, and I head towards the front room to see what’s going on. There, I find Tami pointing towards the open window. There isn’t anyone else in the room with her aside from the cops.

  “Where is Maria?” I demand, irritated. “What the hell is going on?”

  “She got out,” Tami tells me with sadness to her voice. “I tried to stop her, but she was too fast for me.”

  My heart sinks. If this is true and Maria is still out there, then it isn’t over yet. It can’t be until she is locked away and unable to hurt anyone again. My eyes flutter, a blackness threatens to come for me, I can feel my knees giving way. I held everything together when I needed to, but now I can’t any longer. All the glue that was sealing me upright is peeling apart and I can’t keep fighting.

  This isn’t over… my brain keeps telling me over and over again. Anything could happen next.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Tami

  “The ambulance will be here soon,” I whisper to Brad, holding desperately on to his hand. “I want to move you, to put you somewhere more comfortable, but they said that I can’t yet. They need paramedics to check you over before they move you in case you’re really injured. But you aren’t, are you?”

  I don’t know why I said that as if he’s going to answer me when I already know that he can’t. He passed out a little while ago, tumbling to the ground as soon as he heard that Maria got away. I hated that as well. Watching her go after everything she had put us through, just before any justice could get her, was heart breaking. But I was also a little glad to see the back of her. I’m just done with that bitch. I never want to see her again.

  “They will get her,” I try to reassure Brad, just in case there is any way in which he can hear me. “Don’t worry. They already have people out there searching for her. There’s no way she will get away.”

  My heart hammers hard, my brain spins, I feel a little sick. It’s scary to know that someone so dangerous is still out there, wanting to attack us, but I suppose at least in the hospital there is protection. We will be fine. We have to be. There’s no way that we can go through all of that and get in danger again.

  “It was Ruby,” I tell Brad with tears in my eyes. “She got my message at last and called the police. I will have to contact her soon and let her know that she saved our lives. Without her… well, I don’t know what was going to happen. She was calling someone, wasn’t she? One of the others to come and help her.”

  It makes me all cold and sad to think of the people I work with coming here to assist with the torment. I know that they don’t like me, but to go this far, well, it’s insane, isn’t it? I can’t believe that any of the mean girls would go this far. But I suppose I will never find out now. We didn’t get to stick around for long enough to find out. Perhaps that is a good thing, maybe not. I haven’t quite decided yet.

  “I wasn’t actually knocked out,” I tell him. “I was just pretending, so she didn’t come after me again. She kept hitting me. I’m sorry I didn’t help you. I was ready if she did anything though.”

  I sigh loudly, unable to stop thinking what way this could have gone. There are so many worse ways this could have ended up. It’s annoying to know which way it did go, but it could have been so much worse. Neither of us could have made it out of this. And from what I can make out, all over a one night stand or a short fling. I haven’t quite worked out the details of this yet, I don’t know what exactly happened with Brad and Maria other than the snippets I have heard tonight, and I don’t know if I want to. It’s just insane.

  “Tami.” All of a sudden, Brad’s soft voice grabs my focus. I lean in knowing that he needs me to get closer to him, so he doesn’t need to speak so loudly. “Tami, are you okay?”

  Tears spill down my cheeks as an intense wave of emotion hits me. “I’m fine. I’m okay. My head hurts a bit, but generally I’m fine. Are you okay? You’re the one who is hurt. I’m worried.”

  “I meant what I said,” he replies, worryingly ignoring my questions about his wellbeing. “I do love you.”

  I did hear him say that, but I forced myself to dismiss it. I knew that it was just a heat of the moment comment to shut Maria up. A bit like the way that I told him the same thing. It was just the fear of dying… wasn’t it? I mean, we can’t really love each other already, can we? Admittedly, I don’t think I have any experience, I’m not sure that what me and Daniel shared was ever love, but just because this is better, doesn’t mean it is…

  “Brad, it hasn’t been long.” I squeeze his hand hard, probably a bit too hard because I’m all freaked out. “We probably haven’t been in one ano
ther’s lives long enough for love. Plus, it’s all been really stressful, hasn’t it? We haven’t exactly had it easy. Maybe we should just be for a while first.”

  But he doesn’t say anything. I don’t know if I have upset him or if he merely doesn’t have the strength anymore, but his silence causes a thick ball of emotion to lodge in my throat making it damn near impossible to even breathe. I glance my eyes around my apartment just to find something else to focus on to calm me down. But it’s all destroyed. Maria went on a fucking rampage and destroyed it all like a toddler not getting her own way. It might just be stuff, but it pisses me off. I’m here alone, my family aren’t around me anymore with my father gone and my mother moved away. She had no right to break the few things I have.

  Sirens blast out in the distance which means Brad will be taken away soon. I know that they want me to go to the hospital too, to get checked out, but I don’t think that I will be there long. I really feel okay. My head aches a bit but that’s it. However, once we leave here now, this situation will be over and there is no telling what will happen. This could be the last conversation that I ever have with Brad about all of this.

  “Oh, screw it.” I squeeze his hand once more. “I love you too, Brad. Even if it is nuts and far too soon. I do. I haven’t ever felt this way about anyone, and I know that I never will again. You are everything to me. My world. This time with you has been the best of my life. Even with all the drama. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

  Then it’s time to step aside because the paramedics are here, and they need to get him in the ambulance. I hate wrenching myself away from Brad, but he has needed to see a medical professional for far too long. He needs this. I just hope that when he gets to the hospital, they can help him. It hasn’t been too long.