Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(67)
He felt like he was fighting a war on two fronts.
“What’s up?” he asked when Boss eyed him concernedly.
Screw that. He didn’t want concern. He didn’t know what he wanted exactly; he was still too shaken up and confused, but he did know it wasn’t concern.
“Becky and I have to get back to the shop,” Boss said, the scars on his tight face standing out in rigid, white relief. “Rock has finished questioning this latest hit man, and he’s on his way back to resume his surveillance and reconnaissance duty at the hotel. Steady’s having to wait back at BKI in order to give me the sit-rep on what Rock discovered before he can resume his duties, but before I can take care of that I need to swing by Shell’s place and close up. I left in such a hurry, I didn’t lock the door or set her security system, and it’ll be a miracle if she hasn’t already been robbed blind. I’m leaving Ozzie here to look after Shell and Franklin. But what I need from you is some assurances you won’t—”
“You don’t need to have the kid stay,” he interrupted. “I can look after Shell and Franklin until it’s time to take them home.”
Boss’s expression belied his hesitation, and that pissed Jake off all the more. “Look, dude,” he ground out, “just because she broke my heart and hid my kid away from me doesn’t mean I’ll let anything happen to her. She is the mother of my child, after all.”
The mother of his child. And that was another concept it was going to take some getting used to…
He suddenly had the urge to hit something. Hard. And, unfortunately, the wall didn’t look sturdy enough to be satisfying.
Boss’s eyes narrowed, searching Jake’s livid expression, and then the big guy did something totally unexpected.
He grabbed Jake by the shoulder and dragged him into a bear hug.
“W-what the f*ck?” he sputtered, trying to push away. But it was like trying to move a mountain.
“I’m sorry,” Boss whispered close to his ear. “I’m so sorry this happened. If I’d known…” He let the sentence dangle, and all the rage and frustration that’d kept Jake from breaking down into a pitiful heap of tears and snot vanished like smoke on an ocean breeze.
Oh, f*ck a duck!
The first hard sob wracked his lungs and had him threatening to squeeze the life from Boss as he wrapped his arms around the man’s back.
“How could she do it?” he choked, burning tears clogging his throat and blinding his eyes. “How could she do this to me?”
“I don’t know, man,” Boss patted his back with a big, square hand. “That’s why you need to ask her. That’s what you need to ask her.”
“I can’t even look at her,” he admitted, pushing back to wipe his nose. “How can I after what she’s done?”
“You can because you remember she’s Shell. She may’ve fallen off that super high pedestal you had her on,” Boss said, undaunted by the fact there were big, fat tears streaming down Jake’s face, “but she’s not the heartless witch you’re trying to convince yourself she is either.”
And that was the whole damn problem now, wasn’t it?
Because he knew she wasn’t.
He knew Shell. And there wasn’t a malicious or vindictive bone in her body.
Which meant she’d made her decision four years ago, because she’d actually thought what she was doing was right, just like Boss had said. And that meant she’d believed him either unable or unwilling to uphold his responsibilities toward her and their unborn child. Which, in turn, forced him to admit that maybe she was right. Maybe he would’ve been unable or unwilling to uphold his responsibilities.
He’d been so screwed up…
“You go back to the shop with your people,” he finally managed, taking a step back and scrubbing a hand over his face, hating the fact that it came away wet, because that meant he’d been blubbering like a goddamned baby. Again.
One more breakdown like that and he’d have his “man card” permanently revoked.
“I’ll watch after Shell and Franklin.” When Boss turned his head to the side, his expression wary, Jake blew out a breath and nodded. “I won’t say one cross word to her.”
“I have your word on that?”
He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a Boy Scout,” Boss scoffed.
“Goddamnit! Why does everybody keep saying that?”
***
Johnny waited on the stoop outside the four-flat building in Lincoln Park with a dozen blue roses in hand until a twenty-something kid wearing a Chicago Bulls cap climbed the stairs and opened the door to the apartment building. The dude was talking into his cell phone—in a fight with his girlfriend by the sound of things—so he didn’t see Johnny slip in behind him.
He quietly followed the Bulls fan up the stairs, shaking his head when the kid swore to the woman on the other end of the line that he wasn’t interested in Gabrielle Eyler, and to prove it, he’d never look at another girl again.
You better man-up, my friend, or else that bitch will be wearing your balls as earrings in no time.
He turned his head away when Mr. *-Whipped stopped on the second floor landing to let himself into his apartment, adjusting the Silly Lilly baseball cap he’d stolen from the shop when he went to get his first bouquet, and quietly slid past as if he was in a hurry to get to one of the top floors. The kid barely glanced at him before closing the door of his apartment behind him.