The Law of Motion (Law Series) (15 page)

             
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Doc demanded, slamming her hand on the table. “You’ve gone too far Adrian.” She was right, I wanted to take the words back as soon as I said them.

             
Alyssa was frozen, her back to me, and I was thankful that I couldn’t see her face.

             
Dario and Macon hauled me into Jackson and Macon’s office, it being the closest, “Cool off man.” Macon warned before walking back out front and closing the door. I could hear everything still.

             
“Now isn’t the time to fall apart.” Cam mediated.

             
Tink agreed, “We don’t need this right now guys.”

             
The sound of Chance’s foot steps should have passed where I was but they didn’t. She was heading out the front door.

             
“Chance?” Jackson called after her but got no response.

             
Dario tried too, “
Giselle…
”

             
“Come on Chance.” Kristen called exasperated.

             
But it was Doc’s voice that got the response, “ Alyssa Giselle, where are you going?”

             
“Home.”

Chapter 6- Adjustments

              My world was swimming in red, the same fucking red that I'd seen when I realized someone had bashed me in the head, taken Juan, and I wasn't good enough to stop any fucking bit of it. I hated myself for all of it. I just felt so useless and out of control, and all I could see was just....red. I was angry.

             
I fucking knew this shit wasn't completely Alyssa’s fault, but it was easier to be mad at her than break down and fall at her feet, though neither of those things would get Juan and Cedrick back. Mad, I could do. Mad, I was used to and I fed off of it, to make me focus on what I needed to do.

             
Something in me snapped the very second I knew that a part of her was blaming me. The soldier in me wanted blood, wanted revenge, wanted someone's head on a stick, for Tawny and Ross’s sake, but I had to wait, and it was a conflict that I couldn't reconcile.  I was at odds with myself in so many ways, I was practically spinning. I was just...treading water to stay afloat. I was trying to help, but nothing I said or thought of could work unless we knew all the information, and in order to get the information, I had to rely on...well, everyone.

             
I was angry at Alyssa for not taking the shot, but to be honest I wasn’t sure if any of us would have been able to do it. I was mad at Tink for not getting information fast enough. I was mad at Cam for not taking the men down on the spot. And mad at every single other member of our team in some way that I already knew was stupid.

             
But I was mad at myself the most, for not checking the fucking bathroom. Or keeping an eye on the bus driver that freaked Juan out.  I needed to do something, and I couldn't, and that led to the explosion in front of everyone with the one person I needed the most.

             
The very second we got back from Paul’s office, I wanted to grab her, pull her to me, beg her to just...let me hold her, but her emptiness, her lack of fight pissed me off. I knew she was hurt that someone wanting to hurt her was the reason Juan was gone, not to mention she had to be beating herself up for letting them go. 

             
I know I wasn't helping by letting her shut herself off.  I should've been forcing her to plan and plot and focus her hurt into anger, like she always did. Instead I chose to push her past her limit.

             
I don't know why I'd said the things I had. Why does any couple fight? Why is it when you're angry, you want the rest of the world to suffer, too? And why, when you need that one person the most, do you try your damnedest to sabotage everything that was fucking perfect? The only answer I could come up with was that I
snapped
.

             
The very second the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, because I broke her. And it wasn't fucking fair of me, because I'd sworn ages ago never to hurt her again, and I just ha
d

again. Hell a week before, I swore no matter what, she would have me and I  would be there for her.

             
“What in the hell am I doing? I need to go after her.” I was cruel and wrong, and I needed to make it right. I spun out of the office and started down the hall, but before I could find her and apologize, my ass was snatched up from behind and thrown back inside. When I spun around to see who had grabbed me, a fist connected at full speed and force to my face, and I fell to my knees with a grunt.

             
"Fuck!" I snarled, holding my nose, only to pull my hand back to see blood on my fingers. "What the hell?" I sneered, looking up and flinching back when my father pulled his fist back again.

             
"I told you in Russia," he warned, his voice eerily calm, but laced with a threat, "that if I ever heard you talk to a lady like that again, I'd break your nose, son. What the hell is
wrong
with you? We could hear you all the way out to my car."

             
"Dad," I breathed, though it wasn't easy, because I think the asshole really had broken my nose.  "I don't know!" I admitted. "I just snapped."

             
"I can see," he sighed as I just utterly lost my shit, "but you can't blame her, Adrian. It's not her fault.”  he stated, his voice thicker, raspier than I expected. "Do you honestly think she let those boys go on purpose?"

             
"No," I mumbled but he waited, giving me a dangerously raised eyebrow. "No!"

             
"But look what you've done," he groaned  through gritted teeth, pointing toward where the scene went down even though technically he was pointing at the wall. "Do you have any  idea what she could possibly be thinking, because she's been there?" he growled, gripping my chin and forcing me to look up at his pissed off face. "She's got to be thinking the very worst case scenario, and it's probably scaring her to death. That is not the way to treat the woman that is going to be your wife.”

             
I didn’t even think about that part, and it made me sick that I had done what I had. I had just destroyed that trust, that perfect thing we had, because if anyone knew what those boys could possibly be going through, it was Alyssa, and I'd been so wrapped up in my own anger that I hadn't even given it a thought. Her time in captivity had been the worst weeks of torture,  blood, abuse, and just plain hell, so her mind would automatically associate her experience with this. I knew that she'd rather die than let Juan even know about those things, much less experience them. “She said no.” I explained when he looked at me “To the proposal, she said ‘no’.”

             
"For good reason it seems.” My dad muttered, “You're supposed to work together, son," he started, his voice a little softer as he pulled me up onto my feet, "not tearing each other apart. If you want to find those kids, then you have to work with everyone, not against them."

             
"We can't do anything until we hear from them, or until Cam brings us something," I told him, and even to my own ears, my voice sounded dead, but a touch whiny.

             
"I know," he said with a nod, looking back at me with a hard look, "and I'll talk to Cameron in a moment, but first...I'd like to see the woman that is going to be my daughter, if you haven’t scared her too far away."

             
I grimaced at the tone he was using with me, like if I lost my temper again, I’d just to give him a reason to punch me one more time. No thank you. He might be retired and have a touch of gray, but the man had a helluva right fucking hook.

             
"I should..." I started to say that I needed to apologize, but he held his hand up.

             
"Don't. First thing you're going to do is have Tawny put your nose back, because despite how upset Alyssa probably is with you, she'll be put out with me for messing up your face," he ordered, gesturing towards the door and rolling his eyes. "Go, and then we’re all going to sit down. Victor and I want to know every-fucking-thing."

             
I stepped into the lobby, avoiding the glances Jackson, Macon, Ross, and Kristen were casting in my direction, and I didn't fucking dare look at Victor, who was looming just behind the doorway, because I knew he'd kill me for hurting his "little one." Only one person dared to walk up to my face.

             
"I love you like a brother, kid," Dario swore, shaking his head, "but get your shit together.
Capisce
?"

             
I nodded, looking away from his livid face into the bathroom, where Doc was leaning against the counter.

             
"Come here, " she instructed softly, pointing to the chair she put in there. Normally she would fix me up in her office, but I suppose since she shared it with Ross it wasn’t really a safe place. "Sit," she ordered, taking a deep breath. Her face held disappointment, weariness from everything that was happening, and a sadness that seemed to be contagious around this place.

             
I did as she asked, only after watching my dad disappear down the hall. "This will really hurt," she warned me.

             
"I deserved it," I sniffled, closing my eyes when her hands gently cupped my face. Her thumbs braced on either side of my nose, wrenching quickly to the right. The resounding crack of my cartilage snapping back to where God had originally intended it to be echoed through the place. Groans from the other room, along with my own long growl of pain, followed right behind it. "Damn it!" I hissed, squeezing my watering eyes shut.

             
"Don't move," she commanded, taking two pieces of rolled up gauze and shoving them up each nostril. She wasn’t as gentle as she would have been if I had received it any other way. “Chance isn’t answering the phone. Macon is going to the house to bring her back.”

             
"I’m sorry that I made this about me and her. I love Juan too, and I want to get him back just as much as everyone else. I was just so mad.” She didn’t say anything as she worked. “I need to get the team back together…I need to see her," I resolved, now sounding all stuffy and nasally.

             
"I forgive you, and you will," she assured me, wiping my tears and blood away, only to continue to hold my face. "I know you didn't mean it, and I know you’re angry, but
everyone’s
angry.”

             
"I fucked up," I murmured, finishing her thoughts for her and looking away from her heart shaped face that was filled with forced patience. How she could have empathy for me when her child was missing, I couldn’t understand.

             
"Yes, you did." She sighed cleaning the counter. "I love you, Adrian. You were the first member of Bravo that I connected to; but I've told you before, and I'll say it again. Anger isn't always going to help you. Patience is what you would need with her. Tilt your head back for a minute, 'til the bleeding slows," she instructed, and I found myself gazing up at the bathroom ceiling. "I’ve watched you both find your own way together.  You've done it from the very beginning. When things were crazy with Lorentz, even when you two disagreed you pulled the shit together for the sake of our teams.”

             
I started to look back at her, but she held me firm.

             
"This is the hardest thing we’ve ever gone through together. And if you’re doubting her dedication to this, trust me, she would rather face Garcia again than to lose Juan," Tawny’s voice carried with it a deep seated sadness.

             
"I know," I sighed, swallowing nervously. "I just... I felt so helpless, I couldn't stop any of it."

             
"I’m surrounded by the best, smartest, and bravest people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing," she declared softly, checking the bridge of my nose with a careful but knowledgeable hand. "But I need all of you...and that includes Alyssa." She pulled my face back up, locking eyes with me. "We'll get Juan back, but only if we're all on the same page."

             
She paused for a second to swipe at her eye before continuing, "As Gravity’s ‘appointed therapist’, I understand your anger and your need to lash out. As a wife and a mother who has a missing child, if you ever do it again, with
anyone
,  this,"—she tweaked my nose gently—"will seem like nothing compared to what will happen when I get a hold of you.”

             
Her threat did more damage than the punch my father put to my face, though I'm sure it was the latter that helped pull my head out of my ass. I nodded at her as my father strolled back into the lobby.

             
"Everyone, out-front," he ordered, as he walked through the hall.