Rev It Up (30 page)

His face was a thundercloud, his chest working like bellows, but he no longer looked ready and willing to kill Jake on the spot.

It was at that point that Shell stepped into the breach. “Frank didn’t know anything about it,” she said, wiping at her tears with a trembling hand. And yeah, now that the killing rage was waning and cognition returning, Jake was beginning to clue in to that salient little fact. “No one knew but Steven. And he took my secret to his grave.”

She hiccupped, glancing around the room at the shocked faces before shakily lowering herself into a chair. She covered her eyes with her hands as her shoulders heaved, but no sound escaped her lips. Which was more awful than if she’d been blubbering.

But no matter how hard he looked inside himself, Jake couldn’t seem to find any sympathy for her. His heart, once so full of love, felt like a giant void.

Several seconds passed where no one moved or dared to breathe. It was a real pin-drop atmosphere. And now that his adrenaline was wearing off, his jaw felt like it was sitting on the side of his head.

Word up, Boss packed one helluva punch. He wouldn’t be chewing right for the next month.

Lifting a hand, he checked to make sure that, yes, his lower mandible was still located on the
front
of his head.

“Why, Shell?” Boss finally asked, taking a step toward her.

Yeah, Jake wanted to know the answer to that question himself. Not that it really mattered, since there was no explanation she could give that could possibly justify her actions…

Shell just shook her head, stopping Boss from taking another step. The big guy frowned, his face so full of pain and shock and betrayal that Jake couldn’t imagine what
he
must look like.

“Okay,” Boss said, nodding jerkily. “Okay. We’ll talk about this later.”

What the fuck ever! Jake wanted an explanation now. Like, right now!

And he opened his mouth to demand just that at the same time Boss glanced over his shoulder at Becky, who was still attached to his back. “You gonna stay back there all night?”

“You gonna do another Mike Tyson impression?” she countered.

“I’ve got it under control,” he told her. But before she could climb down and Jake could demand his explanation, Nurse Susan reappeared in the open doorway.

“Well, it seems we didn’t need your blood after all, Jake,” she said, her face wreathed in smiles before she caught a glimpse of Becky and Boss and raised a brow, frowning. She shook her head and turned to Shell. “You’ll be happy to know that your son’s appendix didn’t rupture. The surgeon was able to cut away the adhesions and remove it cleanly, so we don’t foresee any future problems. Franklin is in recovery. You should be able to go see him in about fifteen minutes. And if all goes well, you can take him home tomorrow evening.”

“T-tomorrow evening?” Shell sputtered, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “So soon?”

“Laparoscopic surgery doesn’t require a long hospital stay. And Franklin will heal faster at home, provided you keep him from getting too boisterous.”

“I’ll tie him to the bed if I have to,” she promised, her voice thick with emotion. “And thank you.” She smiled shakily at the nurse before turning to stare at Jake beseechingly.

What did she want from him?

Forgiveness?

No way. He’d always considered himself an easy-going guy. He wasn’t one to hold a grudge. But if she thought he would just say,
That’s okay, Shell. It’s no problem that you hid my kid from me,
she had another thing coming.

Three years.

He’d had a son for three years. And because of her duplicity, her selfishness
,
he’d missed that first step, that first word, that first…
everything.

And in that moment, he understood why people said love and hate were two sides of the same coin, because the void that’d become his heart filled up once more.

And this new emotion certainly wasn’t love. Although it burned just as brightly…

Johnny stomped down the stairs of the town house, the very
empty
town house, with a frown on his face.

All the lights were on, a fire crackled in the fireplace, the TV was blaring a rerun of
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
, the refrigerator door stood wide open, and the security system hadn’t been armed—which accounted for his easy entrance into the place.

What
the
hell
happened
here?

It was almost like they knew he was coming and bolted. But that didn’t make any sense.

Ducking back into the cozy living room, he surveyed the ordered chaos of toys, books, and family photos and wracked his brain over what to do next. Mary would be sorely disappointed if he made it to tomorrow without delivering at least
some
form of payback—and he
so
didn’t want to have to listen to her bitchy voice howl at him over the phone line.

And then there was the not-so-small fact that he’d already been denied the pleasure of Michelle’s company twice. Being robbed of her again was damned near untenable.

She was one hot piece of ass.

For the last hour, he’d fantasized about shooting the blond guy in the head before grabbing Michelle and fucking her bloody. Then would come the intense satisfaction of slitting her pretty throat. He was not a man who liked to be thwarted. Especially not three times in a row.

Unfortunately, he had no idea where to find her.

Except…wait a second…

Hadn’t he read something about a nanny in Michelle’s bio?

Rubbing his hands together in anticipation, he strolled through the kitchen, stopping to snag a bottle of beer from the open refrigerator and slipped out the back door.

***

“No, no,” Michelle whispered into her phone as she lovingly gazed at her son’s pale face. She sent another little prayer of thanks skyward—her thousandth since Franklin had come out of surgery. “Don’t worry about coming here tonight, Lisa. Just enjoy your time off.”

“He complained of a bellyache three days ago,” her nanny said, anguish in her voice. “I just thought he’d eaten too much.”

“Which would’ve been my first thought, as well,” Michelle reassured her, laughing gently. “Don’t go blaming yourself. These things happen.”

And as soon as she uttered that last phrase, she thought of Jake and glanced anxiously at the bathroom door. The minute Franklin was transferred to a private room, Jake and her brother locked themselves inside the attached bathroom and proceeded to lay into one another.

Even now, she had a hard time blocking out their heated exchange in order to concentrate on the conversation with the nanny.

“I’ll come by the hospital tomorrow evening when he’s released,” Lisa said. “We’ll get him home and in bed together.”

“Franklin will like that,” she whispered, wincing when a particularly vile curse issued from inside the bathroom.

She hoped it wouldn’t come to blows again. Seeing her brother waylay Jake was almost too much to bear.

Oh, there’d been times she wouldn’t have batted a lash to watch Frank put Jake in his place. Times she might’ve actually
enjoyed
seeing Jake get his ass kicked. That day outside the gates at the Naval Amphibious Base for one. But today it just felt…
wrong.

Just terribly, terribly wrong
.

Because he was absolutely annihilated by the bomb she’d dropped on him. There was no denying that. Not after seeing the stark, unbridled anguish in his face, the disbelief and pain and heartbreak.

It was almost enough to make her think that maybe she’d made a mistake all those years ago. That maybe, even after the way he’d treated her and the things he’d said, even after he ignored her letter begging him to return—especially now that she understood why he’d done all those things—that she should’ve just told him the truth.

But
no,
she assured herself,
you
did
what
was
right
for
your
child.

She was sure of that…wasn’t she?

She hadn’t wanted her son growing up with a reluctant and neglectful father. She knew what that was like, the excruciating, nearly debilitating pain of it. And Jake
would
have been reluctant and neglectful…wouldn’t he?

Oh Jesus, it was all so complicated and terrible. She wasn’t sure
what
was right anymore…

Fighting back tears of sorrow and regret, she signed off with Lisa, pocketed her cell phone, and rested her head on the rung of the hospital bed. Squeezing her eyes closed, the conversation taking place inside the bathroom filled her ears.

“How can you stand there and tell me you’ve forgiven her after she’s been lying to you all these years?” Jake demanded.

“Because she’s my sister,” Frank snarled. “And I know two things beyond a shadow of doubt. One, she must’ve had a damn good reason for doing what she did. And two, she can’t lie for shit. And since she was able to pull it off, it means she must have wholeheartedly believed she was doing the right thing.”

“I don’t care what she
believed
,” Jake roared, then lowered his voice when Frank shushed him. “There’s absolutely no excuse.”

No excuse? Had he forgotten everything?

She reached through the rungs to squeeze Franklin’s little knee under the light blue hospital blanket, more to reassure herself than to reassure him, because he hadn’t yet woken from the anesthesia. But he would soon, and the thought had dread settling in her stomach like a five-pound pot roast.

What would Jake do when he had the opportunity to speak to his son for the first time? Would he tell Franklin the truth? And how would Franklin react if he did?

Her sweet boy had no experience with a father. The concept, in its solid form, was foreign to him. As far as he was concerned, a
daddy
was nothing but an abstraction. A story like all the stories she read to him before bedtime. How would he handle the appearance of a living, breathing, all-too-real father?

“Snake,” she heard her brother say, “I understand how you feel. Really I do. But you need to give her a chance to—”

“She’s had all the chances she deserves,” Jake snarled. “Three long years of them. When do I get
my
chance? I want my son, Boss.”

The room tilted and began to close in on her, and she realized she wasn’t breathing. The thought of losing Franklin…

“I know you’re hurting right now, man. I know you’re pissed beyond measure. And you’ve got every right to feel that way. But there’s no way in hell I’m letting you take that boy away from his mother.”

A solid
thump
sounded against the wall, and she was pretty sure Jake had attempted to put his fist through it. That supposition was confirmed when a long silence ensued, which was eventually broken by her brother asking, “Feel better now?”

“Not really,” Jake mumbled.

“We’re going to find a way to work this out, man.”

Really? Did her brother have a time machine? Because, as far as she could tell, the ability to change history was the only way she could fathom them being able to work out anything.

“I want my son, Boss.” Jake repeated. “I deserve the opportunity to be a father to him.”

***

“Hey, honey, you lookin’ for date?” The red-haired whore with the gargantuan fake tits grabbed one of her nipples through her bustier and gave it a squeeze as Johnny breezed by her on his way to the elevator at The Stardust Hotel.

“Maybe later,” he muttered, too preoccupied with the task at hand to give her much more than a passing thought.

Of course, if he couldn’t find Michelle Carter tonight, he might be in need of some relief from the fire in his veins, and the whore, though certainly not his first choice, would do in a pinch.

“Well, I’m here when you need me,” she purred.

He winked at her and waggled his tongue as the silver doors closed behind him. Snapping his fingers impatiently, he groaned as the elevator made its noisy, slow journey to the sixth floor. He should’ve snuck in the rear entrance and climbed the back steps, just like he’d been doing since he’d checked in to The Stardust Hotel. But he’d been too anxious to get his hands on the information and had falsely thought the front door and elevator would be faster.