Revelation: A Contemporary Erotic Romance (Iris Series) (51 page)

Tiffany walked over having just gotten off the phone.  “That was Drew.  They made it to the hospital. Kevin’s in surgery now.” 

“Drew’s not doing it?”

“No.  Another surgeon took over, but Drew said he was going to stay for a bit,” Tiffany said.  “He’s a godsend, isn’t he?” she asked rhetorically, her eyes taking on a faraway look. Everyone knew she was referring to Drew.

“That he is,” Emily said. 

“You’re the godsend,” Mo said to Em.  “I can’t believe you got the gun out of his hand.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Emmie.  I’m so proud of you.  Your
parents
are gonna be so proud of you, but they are so gonna wanna kill you at the same time.  Not to mention my own mother,” Jon said, shaking his head.  “God, Em.  Just thinking about what could’ve happened in there,” he began then hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her in close.

She hugged him back.  She hadn’t talked to Mike yet since the incident and she appreciated being held.  She only wished it was him doing the holding.

“Forget them,” Janie guffawed.  “She’s gotta survive Mike first. 
Mike
is the one who’s gonna kill her.”  She turned to Emily.  “Have you two talked yet?” Janie asked.

“No,” Emily said, looking away.  “I’m not looking forward to that conversation.”

“I wouldn’t either,” she said dryly.  “He’s gonna be pissed.”

“Em, you missed your calling.  You would’ve made a great cop,” Mo said.  “Seriously.  Cool under pressure.  You saved people’s lives tonight.”

She shrugged, a little embarrassed.  “After so many years of training with Krav Maga, it kind of just becomes natural.  Like instinct.”  She broke away from Jon.

“Well, I don’t know what the hell happened in the last three or four months where you women started attracting all the crazies,” Jeremy said, his arms loosely around Ryann as if he was afraid she’d disappear if he let go.  “All of the sudden, you’re all magnets to every psycho in the City.”  The girls all looked at each other and smiled crookedly at his comment.  He was obviously referring to Ryann being shot and then Ayanna being caught in the restaurant fire several weeks back which had been set by a woman who’d had some major issues with her.

Now counting Emily’s incident that left Janie and Tiffany as the final female friends in the crew who had yet to experience violence from someone in recent months.  Although, maybe that wasn’t entirely true.  Janie had been with Ayanna during the restaurant fire and Tiffany’s ex-husband had been an asshole.

“You girls need to be careful,” Luke said intensely to Tiffany and Janie.  He plowed his fingers through his hair.  “Every time we turn around, one of you is in the hospital.  And Janie,” he said under his breath as an afterthought, “you need
to watch out for these men you’re dating –”

“Whoa, there.  What men?  I’ve dated one guy like in the last
year
and he was a cop, so calm it down there, Lukey,” Janie said in a snarky tone.

Emily noted Janie’s childhood name for him.  When she wanted to get under his skin, she called him Lukey and he called her ‘baby girl’
.  They’d adopted these nicknames early in their lives together.

“I’m just saying that if you’re gonna be flirting and trying to hook up with men, you need to be careful,” he said quietly giving her a look.  “You don’t know what these men are like.”

“What men are we talking about?” she asked throwing out her hands in exasperation.

Mo watched the argument with interest and a little smirk on his face, as did everyone else.

“Besides,” Janie continued, “the only psycho I’m with on a regular basis is Ayanna.  And when she’s wielding a knife, it’s usually aimed at the vegetables.”

Ayanna snorted.

“This isn’t something to joke about, Janie.  You need to be careful.”  Luke was on a roll.  He was visibly upset.

“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear, darling,” Janie said, apparently not affected at all that he was upset.  “Don’t you worry about little ole me.  I can handle men, Lukey.”  She raised an eyebrow and with challenge in her voice, finished with, “Very well, actually.” 

He muttered something in Spanish and turned away from the group, walking down the sidewalk to get some air.

“I’ve already had my psycho and I divorced him,” Tiffany said dryly, “so let’s hope the odds aren’t likely I’ll encounter another one.”

“Not likely,” Mo smiled.  “And I’m glad you got rid of him.”

Tiffany began to speak but was interrupted as Mike finally came outside and joined the group. 

“The investigators are gonna stay and finish up, so let’s break up this little party.  I think we’ve all had enough excitement for the evening.”  He looked over at Emily but didn’t move toward her.  Their eyes burned into each other.  Mike broke the eye contact first and turned to Jeremy.  “Let’s head back to your place.  I’d like to stop by the hospital to see how Kevin and his mom are doing.  One of the guys from the 4
th
Precinct has already gone over to ask some questions.  I’d like to be there.”

“Kevin’s still in surgery, FYI,” Tiffany said.

“And Joe sent over an attorney for them, so they’re covered,” Emily added.

Mike looked up in surprise at that.  “Did you call him and arrange that?”

She nodded.

He nodded back.  “Okay.  I’d still like to check in on them.” 

“Let’s go then,” Emily said.

He hesitated then nodded and they all started to head back to Jeremy and Ryann’s.

Janie looped her arm through Emily’s and pulled her back noticing Mike had already walked ahead with Jeremy and Luke.

Trying to ignore the hurt she felt, Emily distracted herself.  “Things with Luke seem a little,” she paused searching for the right word, “charged.”

“He needs to mind his own business,” she grumbled.  “Unless of course he wants to
make
me his business.”  Janie looked ahead and focused on Luke’s back as he walked.  “Ayanna thinks he has feelings for me,” she said quietly, a hint of hope in her tone.

“I think she may be right.”

“Well, then he can just do something about it,” she groused.

“I don’t think he knows what the ‘something’ is he should do.”  She turned and smiled softly at her.  “You might need to help him along with that.”

Janie blinked, processing her words.  Then, “Enough about me.  You and my brother need to talk.”

Emily sighed.  “I’m sensing he doesn’t want to.”  She looked ahead to him.

“You scared him, Em.  That’s all it is.  He just needs some time to process.”

She nodded, biting her lip.  “I couldn’t help it.  He went into that bedroom all by himself.  I couldn’t watch him go in without any back up.  I was terrified.  He told me to wait outside and I
couldn’t.”

“I, for one, am eternally grateful that you followed him in.  And once my entire family finds out, they’ll want to adopt you and kiss the ground you walk on.”

“Do you think he’s mad because I overcame Strover?  My last boyfriend thought I was too tough,” Emily said, still worrying her lip.  “I wasn’t feminine enough.”

“Not feminine enough?” Emily said, looking at her in shock.  “He obviously was blind.  No, Em,” Janie said as if talking to a five year old.  “He’s not mad that you were too tough.  He was scared.  You scared him.  That’s what this is about.  Mike’s not proud.  He doesn’t care that you can fight better than most men.  He loves that part of you. 
This
is about fear.  I’m sure for a few moments in there he thought he was going to lose you and now he’s trying to process that.”

She nodded.  Well, if that was the case, she knew exactly how he felt because she’d felt the same way when she watched him walk into that bedroom without back up.  She’d never been so scared in her life and she couldn’t
not
go in after him.  She’d do it again in a heartbeat and he’d just have to get used to it.

She let go of a long sigh.  It had already been a long night and she had a feeling it was only going to get longer.

……

Mike and Emily finally pulled into his parking garage at quarter after eleven in the evening having just left the hospital.  Kevin made it through the surgery and his mom had gone through the questioning process.  It seemed everyone’s assumptions had been spot on.

According to Susan Strover, she and Kevin had moved into Strover’s brownstone at the beginning of her marriage only to have her fall victim almost immediately to his possessive and controlling nature after they were married.  He began accusing her of cheating and seeing other men. 

After a series of injuries due to his physical abuse, Susan quit her job as a library assistant at the New York Public Library.  On her last day at work, when her fellow colleagues asked why she was leaving, she claimed that she had an illness that she had been diagnosed with and needed time to recover.  She cut off all ties from them and because she was an only child and both of her parents were deceased, there weren’t many people who followed up on her.

Strover’s behavior became more erratic and abusive physically, with threats toward Kevin.  After several months, he’d changed the wiring in the house with hidden cameras and its phone system. 

The story became more horrific when they discovered that Strover had begun locking Susan into the bedroom upstairs six months earlier.  For the past half a year that particular abuse had been going on and she and Kevin didn’t know how to escape. 

Both mother and son knew that cameras were recording their movements as well as the conversations they would have through the door of the locked room, so they were extremely secretive and quiet.  Kevin was never able to unlock it and they were both reaching their wits’ end when Mike gave him his card and then got Kevin the throwaway phone.  Susan shared that Kevin had whispered through the door just that afternoon that he had a plan.  That plan was to lie in wait for Strover to get home and it was his surprise attack with the frying pan that precipitated the events of the evening.

And true to what Mike had already suspected about Strover’s former fiancé, Susan, unprompted by Mike, mentioned that the police should look into a missing woman in Chicago.  She claimed that Strover had bragged about getting rid of his former fiancé and he would do the same to Susan if she didn’t comply with his demands.  Those demands came during 18 months of physical, mental and sexual abuse.  Many years of therapy and healing were ahead of her and Kevin, but they were now safe and Strover was in police custody looking at a very long time in prison.

Emily and Mike still hadn’t spoken since the incident in the brownstone.  Although they’d been in the hospital together and had ridden Mike’s motorcycle to and from, they’d yet to really look at each other and talk.

She was desperate for them to reconnect, feeling like she did during the two weeks when they’d been apart, nauseous and empty.  The butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she and Mike walked quietly up the stairs to his floor where he unlocked the door and let them in, closing it behind them.

Because she’d given her sweater over to Kevin to stop his bleeding, Ryann had lent her a warm jacket to wear for the evening and while on the bike.  Emily took it off and ran her hands up and down her arms to warm herself.

Mike watched her while taking off his own jacket.  “You’re cold,” he murmured.  He sat on the sofa.  “Come here.”  He put his hand out.

Her lungs began to open more as she breathed again.  They were the first words spoken between them since she’d lunged at Strover in that closet.  She sighed in relief.  They were talking.  They just needed to talk.

She walked over and he pulled her down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her, engulfing her in his warmth.  Within seconds she was shaking with the residual energy from the evening finally leaving her body.  She sighed and put her face in the crook of his neck.  She felt him swallow and his body shudder.

“Mike,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” he said, his voice filled with anguish.  He swallowed again.  “I can’t talk yet.”

She reached a hand up and stroked his face.  That movement broke his silence.

“I told you to wait outside, Em.”

She was quiet until she could get a hold of her the emotion.  “I know.  I couldn’t,” she whispered when she was able to speak, the tears gathering in her eyes.

“Yes, you could.  You just chose not to.”

“No.  To me there was no choice.  I wouldn’t let you go in there without back up.”

“Then you should’ve gone to get Mo or Victor.  A police officer who had a
weapon
.”

He was getting agitated and moved her head away from his neck so he had his hands on her face, forcing her to look at him.

“They were around the back and you were going in and you needed back up, so I went in after you.  Done.  I’m sorry you didn’t agree with my decision, but I would do it again and again.”

“That’s not the answer I wanna hear, Em,” he said in frustration, moving her off his lap to get up, where he paced the living room.

“That’s the only answer there will ever be, Mike.  If the roles were reversed, you would’ve done the same thing.”