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Brody took him to his vehicle and shrugged off everything my father had just said. “Don’t listen to him, he’s delirious from the blood loss. I’ll explain once we get him stable.”
I got in the vehicle with Brody, and Braden took us to a small building. He seemed pretty relaxed for having witnessed a gang war and explosion.I guess they’re all like that.
My father had always taken care to never let me see any of the violence that he took a part of, though he wasn’t very good at doing that.Oh Daddy, what did you get yourself into and why couldn’t you just lay low?
It was probably the death of that one guy, Jared, that triggered this. My father was a little too trigger happy, and it never surprised me that his violent outbursts would lead to vengeance.Only this time, it had caught up to him. How?
A million things were on my mind, but the one looming cloud of my pregnancy had almost escaped my mind. It’s funny how, when confronted with life and death, one forgets oneself. Only now, the two most important men in my life were tangled up in some sort of gang war, and I didn’t want things for my father to get worse.
Braden and Brody had carried my himinto the building while I numbly followed, not even paying attention to what was really going on. The cries of anguished pain- something rare that I hardly ever saw - and Brody walking my father through the pain.
Brody must have said something to me, because suddenly, he was looking at me expectantly. I absently tried to figure it out, but he kept motioning for me to get closer.
“Your father needs to talk to you, but his voice isn’t very strong,” Brody said. “You’ll need to get closer.”
All I could think about was the fact that I had been impregnated by Brody, and how this betrayal of my father was the last thing he needed to hear.Then why is it the first thing on my mind?
I leaned in closely to him, and he tried to utter some words. But he couldn’t say them, and I had my own issues at hand. Perhaps it was the sheer overload of everything that had just happened, but I had completely shut out.
Suddenly, a warm, comforting voice spoke to me. “It’s ok, Adriana. Your father is going to be ok, he just needs rest.” Brody was speaking to me, only it didn’t sound like Brody. It almost felt like he was another man, much kinder, and perfect for the swirl of emotions that surrounded me.
My father then uttered the words, “Adriana, I love you,” through clenched teeth as Brody injected something into him. Someone had cleaned the wound, possibly Braden, and I saw where the bullet had hit my father in the chest near his right arm.
“The bullet barely missed a pretty important artery,” Brody said.
“What did you put in my father?” I asked. I could feel a rage within me, though I didn’t know why.Don’t I trust Brody? Didn’t he just rescue my father?
Brody stood calmly, and looked at me with surprise. “I just told you, Adriana. I injected him with a relaxing agent to get him to rest. I wanted him to tell you what he told me, but I guess the injection affected him faster than I thought it would. Either way, he needs to rest if he’s going to heal.”
I dumbly nodded. I was so used to being in control of the situation, especially any situation that involved my father, or any man really, that I was dumbfounded by my lack of authority. Perhaps it was the shock of everything, but nothing felt right.
Who had shot my father?
I guess it was easy to put off the fact that I was pregnant. I wasn’t even going to show for a while, and I hadn’t been regularly going to the doctor. As my pregnancy would become more advanced, things would change, and the reality would come to be.
But that wasn’t what was on my mind after seeing my father’s compound blown up, and seeing him shot. He wasn’t the kind of man that would limp, but when he came back with Brody, everything just seemed surreal.
It was like I was living in another world.
After a while, I realized that Brody was trying to get my attention.Had I just zoned out?
“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Brody said. My father was passed out. The fact that the two men were in the same room, and that Brody was trying to take care of him was just about the greatest thing he had probably ever done to have my heart. Even if he did leave me.
“Yes?” I asked, pensive and anxious about everything happening around me.
“I…” Brody choked on his words, and, for a second, I thought he was tearing up.
“Adriana, I can’t not be with you,” he finally said.
I couldn’t believe him! The nerve! He wanted to get back with me after my father was nearly killed? Yet, there was also a part of me that reminded me that he was in charge of saving my father.
For a minute, I didn’t say a word. Brody must have thought I was zoning out, because he snapped his fingers at me as if he was checking to see if I was conscious.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. The cacophony of thoughts going on in my mind were many; the world was too noisy for me to make a decision.
Of course, Brody wasn’t one to be patient, and he said what he had to say. “Adriana, I love you. I broke up with you because I thought it would be better if we did. I got worried that my lifestyle would put you in danger, but that was stupid since you’re already part of that world.”
I stopped him right there. “Look, that’s part of the problem. You think you know everything.”
