A Little Harmless Submission(67)
“If you didn’t, I know what they would say. Aggression issues toward women. Uncontrollable temper, psychotic. All because his mommy liked to touch him.”
“I said to shut the fuck up.”
Rome noticed that Maria moved her foot.
“Why don’t you tell me whose fault this is?”
“What?” Jack asked, his attention temporarily snagged on the question.
“If you aren’t at fault, which I’m sure you’re not, who did it? Who causes you to do the things you do?”
“You have no idea what it’s like dealing with this. My father—,” he drew in a deep, shuttering breath. “My father was a bastard.”
Sweat was gathering on Jack’s lip, and his eyes were starting to glaze a bit. Rome knew the signs of someone going into a complete psychotic episode, and he couldn’t take the chance. When Jack looked away for a moment, Rome looked at Maria. She was awake, and so he nudged his head in Jack’s direction. She gave him a slight nod but allowed her head to drop forward again.
“So, why don’t you tell me all about that bastard?”
“Man didn’t know how to treat his family.”
“But, I thought it was just you and your mother.”
Jack shuddered. “No. He didn’t live with us. We were Daddy’s other family.”
“Ah, so you’re a bastard, too.”
He walked back toward Rome, his gun leveled at Rome’s chest. He stood close to Maria.
“Shut up. Just shut up.”
“Your father didn’t want you, and when he was sick of you and your mother, he left. He left you alone with a sick woman. A woman who didn’t know any boundaries. And she turned you into some kind of freak. A freak who doesn’t know how to be a real man.”
“I said, shut up—”
His voice ended on a scream, and Maria toppled herself and the chair against Jack. Rome rushed forward, but Jack’s gun discharged. He felt the sting of the bullet in his shoulder, the burning, but he ignored it. He was on Jack, taking his gun away as they fought back and forth. He gained the upper hand and straddled the bastard’s chest. He hit him several times and then wrapped his fingers around his neck.
“Rome, stop. Rome.”
Maria was standing next to him, grabbing on his arm. They were surrounded by FBI agents, and it took him a moment to realize they had come in the moment the gun went off. He released Jack’s neck and rose. He needed to touch her, to make sure she was okay. He pulled her into his arms.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”
She shuddered against him. “It’s not your fault.”
He blinked as his vision started to blur. “I should have known. Should have figured it out.”
“Rome?”
The room was spinning, and Maria sounded like she was far away. Very far away. But she was there in his arms.
“Rome, honey, you need to sit down.”
“No. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Rome!”
The spinning increased, and his vision dimmed to black.
Chapter Seventeen
Maria watched him sleep. It had been a long night. The shot hadn’t been life-threatening, but Rome had lost a lot of blood. She closed her eyes and said a little prayer. She didn’t know how many times she had done that in the last few hours.
The door opened quietly, and Micah stuck his head in. “Hey.”
She smiled then winced at the pain radiating from her lip. “Damn, that hurt.”
Micah stepped inside, and he was followed by Evan. “How’s he doing?”
“Okay. Nothing big, although because of the fight, he lost a little bit of blood. That’s why he fainted.”
“I did not faint.”
She looked at Rome, surprised he was awake. The nurse had said he would be out a few more hours.
“What do you call it?”
“Women faint. Men pass out.”
She rolled her eyes then looked at his friends. They were both grinning at her. “As you can see, he’s fine.”
Her voice caught at the end. Evan tossed her a sympathetic look. “You have to be exhausted. First you had to save his ass and then you had to sit here all night.”
“Hey.”
Both his friends ignored him. “Why don’t you call your boss? There are also a couple of FBI agents hanging out in the hallway wanting to talk to you again.”
She rolled her eyes as she rose. “I already talked to them.”
“You don’t have to talk to them now. You can just say the hell with them and stay here,” Rome said, frowning. The tone in his voice made him sound like a petulant child, but she knew part of it was being in the hospital. Neither of them were very good at being patients, she was sure.