Page 61 of Broken Rules
I grab her by the chin, turning her head my way, so she’ll look me in the eye. “Spades will take you home. I don’t want to see Adam outside the club, so either call him off or get the fuck out of the car. He can pick you up from here.”
“Dante! Let her go, or I’ll make you!” Spades snaps. His voice is muffled, like he’s on the other side of a glass partition.
My gaze drops to my hand that’s gripping Layla’s face. I snap out of the haze, throwing myself back against the door. The look in her eyes makes my bones shiver... she’s no longer angry, no longer determined to showcase her independence. She’s upset. She’s fuckingalarmed.
I open my mouth, but she raises her hand to shut me up. She’s not saying a word, staring at me with unseeing eyes.
We stop at the traffic lights by Lincoln Park, and Spades turns around, glaring at me. “Front seat. Right now, Dante!”
No fucking way. I stay where I am, with my back flush against the door as I try to make sense of what just happened. In some twisted, deranged way, my protectiveness of Layla turned against her. I wait for her to speak because I can’t utter a single word, mayhem ruling my mind. Ten hours. Just ten fucking hours passed since she told me she loves me, but now she’s looking at me with nothing but hatred.
It takes twenty seconds before she reacts. When she does, her small hand lands on my face. “That’s strike one.” Her voice is quiet but so powerful I feel her wrath as if it’s my own. “And one is all you get.”
“Fuck, Layla, I’m sorry, I—”
She shoots out of the car, cutting me off midsentence.
Spades locks the doors the second I twitch to follow her. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Open the door.” I yank the handle. “Open the door, or I’ll break the window.”
He glances to the right to check on Layla. She’s walking in the opposite direction, a phone to her ear, her long navy dress brushing the sidewalk.
“I’ll break your hands if you touch her like that again.”
He should’ve done it just now. This is the first and last time I will ever vent my rage on Layla. The simple fact that she’s not scared tells me it’s not the first or even the tenth time she’s been treated that way. She’s immune to this shit. I don’t want to be another violent guy in her life. There are enough of those already. I’m supposed to be the one she’ll feel safe with, the one she’ll trust.
Well, I fucked that up beautifully.
Layla rests by a streetlamp, pulling the coat tighter around her delicate frame as I approach.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Nothing justifies what I just did.”
“You’re right. Nothing does. I’m manhandled by Frank and his men all the time. There’s nothing I can do to stop that; to rid them of my life. But this,” she points between us. “This is different. Icanrid you. Idon’thave to agree to this, and Iwon’t.”
The meaning of her words hits me like a tsunami. The wave consumes everything in its path, killing thousands of people. It leaves nothing but destruction behind. Layla’s words, the mere thought of losing her, have the same effect on me. It strips me of everything I care about, leaving nothing but emptiness behind.
She pushes away from the post when a car stops by the curb. She walks past me, and I turn around to see Adam. Layla motions for him to get back inside, taking the passenger seat, eyes on me as she holds the door open. “If you ever do that again, you can forget about me.” With that, she slams the door, and Adam drives away, the tires squealing on the road.
A rush of adrenaline ignites my nerve endings, and my heart picks up its rhythm. She’s livid, but she’s still mine. That’s all I need to know, not to lose my goddamn mind, but my fist lands on the metal of the streetlamp regardless.
I don’t fucking deserve that girl. Not by a long shot.
Spades gets out of the car. “She dumped your sorry ass yet?” I shake my head. “She should’ve.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I say, getting back in the car. “Come on. We’ve got shit to do.”
Ten minutes later, a sea of red and blue lights greets us in front of the club. Six police cars are parked on the road, and two ambulances by the entrance. The only thing missing is the fucking SWAT team. I light a cigarette, walking up to the chief of police, Jeremy, who stands over a black bag. We’re friends, for the lack of a better word. He charges a lot to make ninety-nine percent of my problems disappear, but one glance at his face is enough to know that the mess Luca created is not an easy fix.
“If it isn’t the boss.” He holds his hand out for me to shake, an ear-to-ear grin taking the width of his face as he bends down to unzip the body bag. “Awesome party!”
The guy’s face is split wide open; his jaw is unnaturally twisted. He’s missing eight, maybe ten teeth and a big chunk of his tongue. The skin from the broken nose lies on his cheek. The dirt mixes with dried blood that must’ve oozed from every hole, including his bloodshot eyes.
I let out all the air from my lungs, looking away, back at Jeremy. “Let’s talk in my office.”
He instructs his men to get rid of the onlookers before he follows me inside the empty club. The sound of our shoes tapping on the floor echoes throughout the place. Spades stops by the bar to grab a bottle of the most expensive bourbon.
Jeremy sits on the sofa with a loud sigh, wiping the non-existent sweat off his forehead with a silk handkerchief. “What a night,” he chirps. “So? What’s the story, Carrow? What happened?”
