Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(65)
And this new emotion certainly wasn’t love. Although it burned just as brightly…
Chapter Thirteen
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 f*cking 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.