Chapter 71: Nice Guys Kill In the Worst Way

Here we go!  (Old school Alt-Rock song by Tonic is good for Adam's feelings in this scene!)

Adam

This enormous, Italian-style castle is beautiful, but I don't stop to admire the masonry or the turrets or the impressive wooden doors.

The ride from the airport took three times as long as it should have. I realized Dawes was trying to delay me, when I checked my Google maps and saw the driver was completely off-route. My suspicions were confirmed by the fact that I haven't been able to get Dawes, Mac, or even Kat on the phone in all that time.

Something is up here. I just don't know if Dawes is fucking with me because he thinks my presence will be a distraction to Mac on the shoot, or if there is a more nefarious reason for delaying me. Either way, I'm done with his run-around bullshit. He is never blocking my access to Mac again. Mac, Dawes and I are having a sit-down and setting the boundaries as soon as this shoot is over.

I stride right in and stop the first person with authority I see—a pony-tailed girl carrying a clipboard and a radio. From the looks of her, a production assistant, but a very young one.

"Where is MacKenna Lawson?"

She recognizes me at once. She's also experienced enough at her job to recognize a rock star in a bad mood.

"Oh, Mr. Heartley!" she bleats, looking around, like saying my name is going to bring someone else to deal with me.

"Where.Is.She?" I growl.

"She's...uhm..." her eyes shoot up the sweeping staircase behind the hall filled with costumed dancers, lights, cameras and sound equipment, but then she summons her best professional manner. "Ms. Lawson is indisposed. If you'll just wait by the hospitality tables—"

"Indisposed?" I cut her off, raising my left hand where my wedding ring is. "She's my wife. She's never indisposed to me."

The girl's eyes widen.

Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be confirming our marriage to low-level industry insiders, but it irritates me that Mac took her ring off when she came to LA, and that no one but her inner team knows we are married.

Another thing we've been arguing about—not publicly confirming our marriage. The label thinks the mystery of are-we-aren't-we will help promote Mac's celebrity status and elevate all the tracks she's working on.

I make for the stairs. The production assistant earns my permanent dislike by getting on her radio and calling security. They move to block me at the stairs. I push one of the security guards and do the thing that's much more Trace's style. "Get the fuck out of my way, man! Do you know who I am?"

Dawes is hurrying down the wide, red-carpeted stair. "It's okay," he tells the guards, waving them away.

"Adam, you're here," he says. He sounds nervous. Dawes never sounds nervous.

"What was the drive-around bullshit about?" I say bluntly.

"I don't know what you are talking about," he says, his flat, dark eyes revealing nothing. He puts an arm around my shoulder and tries to turn me around. "They are nearly ready to start the last shot. Come on, let's get a drink. You said you wanted to talk things out, right?"

I whirl, shirking his shoulder and jogging up the stairs ahead of him. He's on my heels, "Adam, come on man. She'll be down in a few."

Instinct alone makes me turn to the right at the top of the stairs. I'll check every damn door on the hall if I have to, but three doors down I see a placard stuck to the door that says, "Ms. Lawson." Dawes dodges in front of me.

"Adam, let me get her for you."

My instinct is screaming at me that I need to get to Mac right the fuck now, and I can't explain it. A soul-knowing, like when she woke up with the knowledge that we'd made a baby.

I reach behind Dawes, turning the knob and shouldering past.

I hear Mac's voice. "Dev, please," she pants. "Please." I'm standing on a balcony, looking down into the room, and my gaze locks onto her at once.

Mac is leaning against the wall on her forearms—the same way she does when I take her from behind—and Dev is undressing her, his hands groping awkwardly at her gown, bending over her, murmuring in her ear as his hand reaches around to her breasts. She groans and lays a hand on his chest, and he picks her up. She's completely willing in his arms as he carries her toward the bed.

For one brief second, my vision is blurred by red rage and I want to leap over the balcony railing and grab Dev by the neck—twist and twist until it fucking pops, but then Mac's head tips back and our gazes connect. I see my name on her lips, and I remember...I know my wife.

She loves me. My wife is faithful.

This is not what it looks like.

Then I see something else—see it clearly. Maybe it's because I've become super-attuned to watching Arabella's vitals in the last few weeks. Or maybe it's just because I know Mac's eyes—every expression from anger to love to joy to drunk giddiness to exhaustion to inspiration to lust—and every subtle color and every pupil change that comes with all her states of being. But I look into her eyes and know two things:

This whole scene is bullshit because she's looking nothing but absolutely relieved to see me, and yet her eyes are filled with hazy disconnect. Not the hyper alertness of her panic attacks.

She's high on something. But she would never take drugs willingly. She loves our baby too much for that.

Rage fill me again. I am paralyzed by it as Dev, still unaware of my presence, lays her gently on the bed and leans over her. If I didn't know better, it would look like he was preparing to mount her, pull up her dress and fuck her. Dawes jostles me, trying to push me back out of the door. "I'm sorry, Adam. So goddamn sorry you had to see this."

I grab him by the collar, slam him into the wall. "Was it you? Or him? What the fuck did you give her?"

He blinks. Dawes is a manipulator, a practiced liar, but he wasn't prepared for me to see through his bullshit so easily. For a second, I see the surprise on his face followed by a fear that he quickly covers.

That's how I know it was him.

"You motherfucker!" I slam him against the door again. I know if I start pounding on him, I won't stop until he's dead, and that will take too long. I throw him out of the room, face first into the rough stone wall. He cries out in pain, but I don't even stop to see what damage I have inflicted. I'm down the steps to the bedchamber in a second, and pushing Dev out of the way, dropping onto the massive bed beside my slightly shaking wife. Her sunset hair spills onto the plum comforter as her hands move restlessly between her throat and heart. The wide stare makes me think she's maybe lost consciousness for a few seconds and is just resurfacing from the murky depths.

"MacKenna, Sweetheart? Can you hear me?" She snaps to alertness at the sound of my voice, already struggling to sit up. Her hair is damp with sweat, her eye makeup is running, her top is off and fallen on the floor, and she's struggling to cover herself. "Lay down, baby," I tell her, but she doesn't. She's too nervous to lay down. Her hands are clenching and unclenching. What the fuck did he give her? Speed? Or did he give her a sedative that made her feel out of control and now she's having a PTSD episode? Mac's PTSD complicates everything, even her reaction to drugs.

"Adam," she pants. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving you," I tell her, glancing up at Dev speculatively. He looks relieved to see me, too, but I'm still warring with the image of his hands all over her and my strong desire to beat the shit out of him.

"Back the fuck up, asshole," I tell him.

"What?" she shakes her head, sitting up. "No...Dev...he's fine...not his fault...the kiss was...just...he didn't mean to...."

I grit my teeth. "Try to breathe, Mac. Slow. Hold and count, Baby." As she takes a deep breath, I growl at the rap bastard. "You kissed her!?!?!"

"Strictly as a rehearsal for the shoot,I assure you," he says in his most proper English. "She was amenable—to rehearse. I had no idea it would...that this would...I put my hands on her throat without thinking...I'm so sorry MacKenna, I...I..."

"My wife already told you that you were a trigger for her PTSD flashbacks, and you thought it was a good idea to get her alone in a room when she's obviously on something and put your fucking hands on her throat?" I growl at him. "I should beat your ass just for being a moron."

"On something?" he says with surprise. "No, she's not using, mate. She wouldn't do that. Fuck..." he trails off...looking at her face, and then her abdomen, then at Dawes, speculatively. Then back at me, shaking his head. "She wouldn't do that," he repeats.

"She's lost weight. She looks...edgy," I tell him, turning my attention back to Mac. "That's good, baby. Keep breathing. Slow. One. Two. Three. Let it out. That's right. Get her some water," I snap at Dev, and while he moves into the bathroom, I pull off my t-shirt and slip it over her head.

Mac's expression has changed, when her head emerges through the neck of my t-shirt. She looks hurt, angry. "You think I'm amping?"

"I know you would never take anything on purpose. But Mac, I can see in your eyes. Something's not right with you. I think somebody gave you something." I cut my eyes up to the balcony. Dawes is standing there, his face bleeding from where I shoved him into the stone. Watching. Calculating. It takes everything in me not to rush up the stairs and throw him off the goddamn balcony.

"MacKenna," Dawes says calmly. "Are you all right, Sweetheart? Do you want me to get the set medic?"

"No, I'm fine," Mac shakes her head. "This is just...my PTSD...my fault. I should have known...I've been overexercising. Not eating enough calories. Maybe I had too much caffeine today," her breath is returning to normal. "This flashback...it was my fault. I should have said no to the choker necklace and the dress I didn't feel comfortable in. I shouldn't have agreed to the kiss. I..." her eyes flit from Dev to mine. "I thought I could get through it, but when he kissed me...all I could see was the piercings and then...I could feel them," she put her hands on lips. She looks at Dev. "I'm sorry."

"Don't fucking apologize to him. It is not your fault you were assaulted by some fucker with the same bad taste in piercings as him," I say testily.

"He's right," Dev tells her softly. "I'm the one that's sorry. I should have realized why you were anxious. I should have read your reluctance for what is was."

"Yeah, you should have," I tell him. Then I turn back to Mac. "Can I touch you?" I ask her and she nods. I tilt her head to see her eyes in the light. They look slightly less confused now, but the breathing exercises have calmed her. When I take her hand in mine, I can feel the tremor. She's shaking. It just doesn't fit with her normal patterns.

"Mac, I need you to listen to me. I need you to hear me. Baby, something's off with you. Dawes is dosing you with something." I look at her thinner frame. "Maybe he's been increasing it slowly so you wouldn't notice. Diet pills, maybe."

"Jesus Christ, Heartley, you honestly think I'm the fucking devil, don't you?" Dawes says, as he walks carefully down the stairs, wiping the blood off his face, standing at the bottom, his bloody hand held out toward Mac, like a plea for reason. "Mac, you know me. I saved your life. I gave you CPR. You really believe I would give you drugs? Hurt you or your baby?" The fucker has recovered himself. He's putting on a great show of being offended, I'll give him that.

She looks between the two of us. "Adam...Dawes will do a lot of things, but not that," she shakes her head.

All my rage has bottomed out now, and another kind of twisting is happening inside me. Disbelief. I can't believe she's still taking his side.

I ignore him. I'll deal with him later. I turn to my wife. "Mac, listen to me. I don't know how he managed it, but this whole thing...you and Dev together alone, the rehearsal kiss, me walking in on it...the whole thing was a set-up. He knew I was coming. He wanted me to find you like this and get pissed off. He's trying to cause problems between us. He's manipulating you, and worse, he's giving you drugs."

Mac doesn't say anything. She just searches my face and then looks to Dawes. Looks to that motherfucker for him to deny my accusation.

"Wow," he laughs, touching his scraped face with a knuckle. "I suppose I should be flattered that you think I have that much control over..." he waves his arms. "Everything. Heartley, are you sure you aren't the one out of balance? Because frankly, Adam, you are sounding a bit paranoid."

A voice that isn't mine erupts from my throat. "I will fuck you up, Dawes. Stay the fuck away from us," I tell him. I turn to Mac. "You think you are solid enough to get out of here?"

Her face pales. Her eyes flit to Dev. "Adam...we're...I...I'm okay, really. I just need a few minutes to do some breathing exercises. We are in the middle of a shoot...we're not done."

Dev crosses his arms and tilts his head like he disagrees with her. He shoots me a look, but he says nothing, letting me be the one to say what we both know. I put a hand around the back of her shoulder, and say softly, "You're done, Shortcake. There is no way in hell you need to be doing the kiss scene with him. They'll have to work around it in editing."

"Adam, I have a commitment to this shoot. I can't just walk off because of an anxiety attack. It's totally unprofessional."

"MacKenna, maybe Adam is right," Dawes says easily. "They can cut back to the club narrative just before the kiss, like the fantasy was interrupted by reality. Might even work better...leave an open ending."

I jump up off the bed and shove Dawes against the wall again. "Shut. Your. Goddamn. Mouth!" I'm spitting with every word, rage spittle flying into his face. " I know what you are doing! I'm onto you, do you understand!?!? You're running scared now, and trying to cover your tracks. But it's too late. You're fucking done. It's over!" I pull him off the wall and push him hard against it, slamming his head twice. He grunts the first time, groans the second.

"Adam!!! You promised me!" Mac is pulling at my arm and I shirk her, but she grabs at me again. "You promised! No more fists first." With extreme regret, I let her push me back and away from him, even though I want to bash him until his face looks like hamburger meat.

I did promise her that, after I hit Dev in the club—I promised I would find another way than fists to protect her. I promised I would never trigger her with violence.

"I won't hit him," I growl, backing up. "I know what I promised. No fists. I won't hit him. But this bullshit ends now."

"Adam," she says again, "Don't. Just don't do this. I can't fight with you right now about Dawes. Just...please...let it go. It was a misunderstanding." She's wild-eyed. She hates this tug of war, hates this conflict. She want to run.

She can't run from this. She has to make a choice. I have to show her that.

I cover my face with my hands and pace, praying for peace, for strength, for the right way forward. It doesn't take long for calm to descend over me. I turn to Mac. I put my fingers to my lips like a prayer, asking for the right words to make her see.

"MacKenna, I walked in this room and heard you panting and pleading—the way I've heard you sound in bed hundreds of times. Saw Dev undressing you, putting his hands all over you, murmuring tender things to you. Saw you touch him, lean into him. Saw him pick you up, put you on the bed, looking like he was seconds from putting himself all over you. I saw all that, and do you know what I thought?"

She curls her hands over her head and closes her eyes, like she can't bear the mental picture I am painting. "No, I don't know what you thought," she whispers.

"I thought...my wife loves me. My wife is faithful."

Her dam breaks, tears spilling over like a flood from her soul. "I do. I am."

I smile at her. "I know. I trust your heart more than I trust my own damn eyes. I knew what I was seeing, was not the truth. You feel me?"

She nods, shaking silently, nodding with a hand over her mouth and her eyes a blur of emotion.

I take one desperate step toward her. "Then feel me, Shortcake. Feel me when I tell you, you can not trust Dawes. Feel me when I tell you, I know in my heart, he is hurting you, hurting us, maybe even hurting our baby." I hold out my hand to her, "Feel me, asking you with everything I am, to take my hand and just walk. Cut him loose, Sweetheart. Please. If you've ever trusted me, trust me now, on this."

All of the color drains from Mac's face.

She looks like snow beneath flames.

My heart thuds hard and pauses, because this is it. We've created life, we've said vows, but if Mac can't trust me, can't put her faith in me in a clutch moment, then this is never going to be real. It's only going to be a sad shadow of love.

She wets her lips uncertainly. They part—one catching moment. As long as I live, I will never forget the way she looked as she inhaled, blinked slowly, and then smiled the sweetest smile I have ever seen.

"Okay." She puts her hand in mine. "Okay. I believe you. I trust you. I won't ever put anyone between us. If you feel it that strongly, then I know it's true. He's hurting us, and he's out."

I bring her hand to my lips, in an urgent, fervent prayer of gratitude as I kiss it. "Thank God. Let's get out of here."

She nods, touching my cheek. "Yeah. Let's go. Right now, I just want to be with my husband."

I'm still pressing my lips to her bare left hand. "Where's your ring, Shortcake?"

"Dawes has it for safekeeping," she murmurs and we both turn to him.

His scowl is murderous. Ugly. Hateful. Mouth twisted and brows scornful. Honestly, in this moment, I hardly recognize him, but I have a feeling I'm seeing the true Dawes for the first time. "Well goddamn, I must have misplaced it," he sneers. "I hope it was insured."

"Fuck me, you are such a shit-bag arsehole!!!" Dev surges forward with a face full of hate and  fists full of fury.

He punches Dawes hard—hard as fuck—three times in the face. The final blow is the kind that breaks bone...but apparently, Dev's fist is much harder than Dawes' skull. After a sickening crack, Dawes slides to the floor, unconscious.

Mac screeches and covers her mouth. "Jesus," I mutter somewhere between impressed and concerned at the surge of violence that just erupted from Dev. So far I had only seen the upstairs.

He shoots Mac a side-eye. "Sorry, love. I'm not a nice guy, like your husband. I never promise no fists."

Downstairs Dev continues to run the house. "Motherfucking cunt-face wanker." He spits—literally spits—on Dawes' unconscious form, then proceeds to turn out Dawes' pockets.

He hands me Mac's ring. I slide it on her finger with a sly smile. It means almost as much this time, as the first. She sighs in bliss and steps into my arms. She's still shaking slightly and it makes me angry all over, but I try not to show it.

The Dev Show helps bleed my anger, because he's still going strong. Full thug. It's...a thing to see.

He rolls Dawes like a damn street criminal. Lifts Dawes' wallet, rifling through it, tossing out ID and cards, drawing out a thick wad of Benji's. "Dinner on Dawes?" he offers me five hundred dollars, and I laugh at him and shake my head. "Suit yourself. I'll buy me a new pair of trainers."

He's not kidding. He shoves the money into his pocket.

He jerks Dawes roughly and starts on his other pockets. I can't see what he draws out, but whatever it is, causes Dev to let loose tirade of cockney ganster cursing I can't even understand as he delivers two swift kicks to Dawes ribs, making Mac jump and clutch me tighter, and making Dawes groan.

Dev paces around Dawes for a minute, gives him one more full force kick in the kidneys. This time Dawes is fully out, he doesn't even twitch. Then he calmly runs a hand through his blue-tipped hair, clearing his throat loudly, like he's clearing the thug from his personality as he reorders his face. He holds out a tiny clear bag, with a few blue, round tablets and and a number of much larger brown capsules.

"I think you are right, Adam, that Dawes has been dosing Mac. These blue ones are diazepam. I don't know what the horse-pills are...some kind of speed probably. I saw him breaking apart one earlier when I arrived this morning. Didn't think anything of it. Thought he was taking it himself. But now, hearing your suspicions, I realize, he's been handling Mac's nutritional smoothies. Think about that, why would he be attending her like that, when she has a PA about?"

I knew it. I knew from the look in Mac's eyes, but having the confirmation...rage takes me all at once. I push Mac firmly away from me, and start toward Dawes. Dev steps in and we are quickly in a shoving match—me trying to get to Dawes, him holding me back.

"No, mate—fucking chill!" Dev says. "He's had all he can take. I've fucked him up. You might rupture a fucking organ. He might die. Neither one of us are going to prison over this piece of shite!" He muscles me back, getting in my face, grabbing my jaw, forcing me to look him in the eye. "Especially not you. You've got a wife and kid on the way."

A kid on the way. Oh Jesus. The baby. What if Dawes' dosing has hurt our baby in some crucial, developmental way? The idea drains me of rage and fills me with fear. It pins me to the spot, and I stop fighting with Dev. He eyes me and I know he's thinking the same thing, know Mac is thinking the same thing behind me. Dev gives me the slightest head shake, as if to say, lock down what's showing in your eyes. I nod, stuffing down my fear, holding out my hand to him.

"I'm gonna need those." Dev deposits the bag of pills into my hand, and I stuff them in my pocket and turn to Mac. She looks completely limp, staring at Dawes with an unreadable expression.

I take her head gently in my hands. "Hey, look at me, not him. We are too strong. The love we make, the life we created. Too strong for Dawes to fuck with. Our baby is fine. We'll get you checked out to prove it, but I promise you, everything is fine."

She nods, her killer face hardening into place. "Yeah, I know," she says to me, "but I still want to kill him."

I look at Dawes' unconscious form, as I wrap my arm tightly around her shaking form. "Shortcake, if you mean that...let's kill him in the worst way."

She looks up at me, blinking in the midst of her tear-ruined raccoon makeup. "Yes. Let's do it."

I rub her back as I maneuver her around Dawes and up the stairs. "First step—we need to find the set medic, because they always have the supplies to drug test on site. We need to prove Dawes dosed you, and then we'll fucking ruin him."

Thirty minutes later, Mac is trying not to cry at the results of her drug test—she has both Valium and some "natural" speed called ephedrine in her system, and I'm on the phone with Riley, strategizing, setting up a conference call with Moran.

Dev puts all that time he's spent in interrogation rooms for petty crimes to good use. He goes straight-up detective on the production crew and finds at least seven crew members who remember seeing Dawes with both drugs and MacKenna's smoothies. One even saw him mixing a powder into nut butter this afternoon. They all agree to give police reports.

While interrogating the crew, Dev also discovers that Street, Kat, and Bridge are missing. Mac, with a cup of tea, on the phone with Leed, insists that I help find them. Dev, Tam and I conduct a brief manhunt and discover they have been locked in a fucking closet all day. Street and Kat practically crawl out amidst six empty wine bottles, sauced to the gills. Trace's more innocent sister couldn't hang; she's passed out on the massage table.

I make a move to pick her up and carry her out, but Dev stiff arms me. "Wait...just look at her," he says, with the Upstairs Face of thoughtful detachment. "Who is this Sleeping Beauty?"

Bridge actually looks much more like Snow White—long black curls framing her shoulders, the barest hint of a few freckles on her fine china complexion, and dark thick eyelashes, framing eyes that I know to be wide and innocent but full of mirth.

I slap him on the back. "She's a del Marco. Rock Royalty. Way out of your league, rapper. And she's the virtuous del Marco daughter. Fuck with her, and Matt del Marco will probably unleash hell on you."

Dev leans over her, watching her placid sleep with fascination. "Bloody hell, I wish you hadn't told me that. I'm a goddamn fool for a girl above my station."

Two hours later, Bridge has been revived and Dawes has also been treated by the set medic. Dev reminds Dawes that he had a "freak fall" and threatens him with another one courtesy of Dev's crew should Dawes feel the need to express a different opinion about how he obtained his injuries.

Dev is intimidating when he wants to be, because Dawes doesn't make a counter-complaint when he's arrested on assault charges for drugging Mac. I guess when he makes bail, he'll find out that the conference call that Mac, Dev, Riley and I made to Moran has gotten him released from his job at the label, too.

Moran is beyond outraged at what went down. Turns out, he's a pretty good guy. That or he's afraid that Mac will go public with the story that one of his top A&R guys dosed her without her consent—while she's pregnant. Either way, he makes it as right as he can.

He tells the video director to wrap with what he's got and make it work, effectively ending the shoot. He also insists Mac take some time off to "recover" from Dawes' mistreatment. With the features and videos finished, he says there is no hurry to complete her solo EP—that she can pick up whenever she's ready to come back to work.

The production crew is packing up. Mac and Tam make a tearful goodbye because Tam will not be coming back east with us. Surprise, surprise, Dev decides to accompany Tam, Kat, Street and Bridge back to LA, but he has a private and apparently comforting conversation with Mac while we are still at the castle.

I see him give her a gentle arm squeeze instead of a goodbye hug, so I feel assured that Dev understands that he needs to treat his trigger status very carefully. I have a feeling Dev and Mac will have a long-standing friendship and hip-hop partnership, and I have a feeling Trace is maybe going to be a little more jealous of Dev than I will ever be. Maybe for more than one reason.

Mac and I have a serious conversation about where to go from here—to the Vineyard or to a hospital to get her checked out. I want so badly to take her down to LA, to the best neo-natal specialists in the country, give them the pills Dawes dosed her with, insist they give her and Babycakes every appropriate screening in existence.

But Mac is tearful from the start of the conversation. We are standing on the castle roof walk, looking out over the vineyards. I'm not pressuring, but I'm definitely offering a hospital check-up for serious consideration.

Mac, now dressed in a shorts track suit, leans against me, her arms tight around me as she stares into the distance. "Adam, what difference does it make? If there's been any damage, it's already done. Our baby is still our baby, even if it's born with drug complications. Probably, the doctors can't tell us a thing right now, except fill us with worry. We said one day at a time, remember? This is all I can cope with on this day. Can we please go 'home' to our family? I'll call my mom and Sidney on the plane, they'll tell what, if anything, we can do."

I say a prayer, and make a decision to go with her gut. We say nothing more about it, as we make our way to the airport.

The entire SCIC—which includes Dev and his crew, even though he thinks we are part of his crew now—travel in caravan to the airport. When we get there, Street tells me, "I had our pilot change flight plans. You and Mac take dad's jet, and turn it around for us. We'll see you guys day after tomorrow."

"Thanks, man. Appreciate." I dab him up. Apparently he did inherit the rock star chin tip, because he gives it effortlessly, as he ushers his "girls" toward the commercial ticket counter and we prepare to part ways toward the gate he indicated.

I watch Kat, who looks happy and guileless as ever, but I wonder about those henna tats she emerged from the closet with. I can see them curling over her shoulder. How far do they go? She said they were in that damn closet for six fucking hours and they were "bored." Jesus, that is some shit I am not touching with a ten-foot pole. That's between Kat, Trace and Street.

We board, grateful for the private jet. Mac falls asleep on the plane before take-off, curled in the captain's chair beside me with a blanket. I join her in slumber shortly after take-off. It's sometime later that she wakes me, kneeling beside me, sobbing, nearly incoherent.

Her sobs. Her terror.

I know, I failed her.

I made the wrong damn decision. I should have insisted we go to the hospital.

She doesn't even have to say the words. I know what's happening.

I slide out of my chair onto my knees beside her, taking her by the arms. "How bad? Cramping?" I ask her.

"Bleeding." she tells me with a sob. "Oh god, Adam..."

I wrap her in my arms. "It's okay, it's okay, you're okay," I rock her gently as she sobs.

I'm praying to God to please let it be okay, but it's so not okay right now. I promised her she and the baby were fine. If they are not, it may never be okay again.

Well! We've finally killed the bad guy, but his villiany is now testing Madam in the worst way. Everyone, send love and light to Madam and Babycakes!!! Cause they seemed pretty upset when Kat arrived in Martha's Vineyard way back in EPIC, so we know they are in for a rough couple of days!