Rev It Up

by Julie Ann Walker

  My knife!

  He’d stored an extra KA-BAR beneath the mattress. A second later, he had the thing in hand, its deadly, seven-inch blade glinting in the overhead light as he silently stepped into the hall, cocking his head, listening…

  The house was quiet. Too quiet.

  How long had he been out? Was he too late to…?

  He didn’t get any further in that line of thinking before he bent at the waist and vomited quietly onto the hallway rug. He’d like to say it was the head injury and the accompanying nausea that had him tossing his cookies—and that was certainly part of it—but the real truth of the matter was that the thought of losing his son and the only woman he’d ever loved had his stomach trying to exit his body through his throat.

  Please, God, please, if you let them be alive, he bargained with the Big Kahuna as he heaved again, I promise I’ll love them and protect them until the day I die. No more secrets. No more running. No more blame. I’ll make this family work and—

  The sound of the cartoon playing in Franklin’s room drifted to his ears and had him stumbling forward. In a split second he was across the hall, pushing into the bedroom, nearly fainting with relief when he saw his son’s wide, alive eyes staring at him from the middle of the bed.

  The boy’s bottom lip began to quiver, his face scrunching up—uh-huh, Jake knew he was quite the sight, especially to a three-year-old, but there was nothing to be done for it now. So he simply held his finger to his mouth.

  “Shh,” he whispered as he rushed across the room to kneel beside Franklin’s bed. “I need you to be really quiet for me, buddy. Can you do that?”

  “J-Jake?”

  “Yeah, little bro, it’s me.” He patted Franklin’s leg beneath the covers then winced when he saw the big, bloody handprint he’d left behind.

  “You’ve g-got bwud,” Franklin announced, staring at him in wide-eyed horror.

  Nope. The problem wasn’t that he had blood, but that he’d lost too much of the stuff. It was hard to concentrate beyond the dizziness that had his head spinning on his shoulders.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he assured his son as he grasped the edge of the mattress to steady himself. “Now, I need you to listen to me. There’s a bad man in the house, and I need to hide you. Do you know of a good hiding place?”

  Franklin shook his head.

  Shit.

  “Okay,” he said, pushing up from his kneeling position to sprint to the window, quietly throwing open the sash.

  A two-story drop.

  There was no balcony, no patio roof, no lattice work attached to the side of the house. Nothing to help his son reach the ground save for a two-story drop.

  He could fashion a sling out of the bedclothes maybe, and lower Franklin that way, but it would take up precious time and he needed to go find Shell.

  “Where’s Mama?” Franklin whimpered, and Jake spun back into the room.

  “She’s safe.” Please let that be true. “And now I need to get you safe, too.”

  “Mama said she’ll spank me if I get outta bed,” his bottom lip protruded even farther.

  “She did? When did she say that?” Then Jake shook his head when he realized time meant nothing to a three-year-old. “Never mind, buddy. Listen, I promise you your mama won’t be mad or spank you. She wants me to help you get out of the house.”

  “Sh-she does?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, wracking his brain for another solution. Then, magically, Franklin offered one up.

  “You could use the wadder.”

  “What, buddy?” His control was fraying with every ticking second. Every second he couldn’t afford to lose. “What’s a wadder?”

  “The fire wadder,” Franklin pointed toward his closet door with a shaky finger. “Mama keeps it beside the toy box.”

  A half-breath later, Jake was across the room, soundlessly throwing open the closet door and nearly weeping with gratitude at the sight that met his eyes.

  In a matter of seconds, he’d attached the emergency rope ladder to the windowsill and was lowering his brave son onto the first wrung.

  “Now when you get to the bottom,” he instructed quietly as he watched the boy scramble down the device—it was obvious by his sure footedness, despite his young age, that Shell had practiced with him many times, the brilliant woman, “you run next door and ring the doorbell. Tell whoever answers that there’s a bad man in your house and they need to call the police.”

  “Okay,” Franklin whispered, and Jake took a moment to sigh with relief when his son’s foot touched the ground, then he was back through the window and racing downstairs, the monster he’d learned to control over the years was screaming for release.

  And he did what he hadn’t done in a long time. He turned it loose…

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Mmm,” Johnny sucked his teeth and dropped his hand to rub at the bulge in his crotch as he cut through Michelle’s last bra-strap and her breasts spilled free.

  She bit into the gag and turned away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching as he ogled her. Nor would she give him the satisfaction of hearing her whimper, though there was definitely one building at the back of her throat.

  “Look what we have here,” he taunted, and she squeezed her eyes shut, curling her tied hands into fists when she felt his gloved fingers move over her left breast. He twisted the nipple. Hard. But she still refused to cry out. “I’ve been waiting to get my hands on these puppies for a couple of days now,” he drawled. She could feel his fetid breath on her cheek. “And thanks to the info I got outta Lisa, now I’ve got my chance.”

  She jerked her head around, unable now to stop the tears spilling from her eyes or the hard sob that sounded around the gag.

  Lisa? No!

  Johnny smiled with nauseating delight. “Yeah, I paid a visit to your nanny last night. She was very accommodating.”

  If she hadn’t been wearing the gag, she would’ve spit right in the middle of his evil, smirking face.

  Of course, that would’ve been a mistake.

  Because even though she’d most certainly derive at least a small measure of satisfaction from hocking a giant loogie in his eye, it didn’t change the fact that Lisa was dead—oh, sweet Lord, the thought made her ill with grief and bile instantly coated the gag in her mouth. But she couldn’t break down. No amount of histrionics would bring poor Lisa back. Plus, spitting in Johnny’s eye might piss him off just enough to forgo his so-called “fun” and kill her immediately.

  She couldn’t have that.

  Not if she hoped to give Rock and the rest of the Black Knights time to save Franklin.

  “Tell me,” Johnny placed his hands on the table behind her back and leaned in close, his lips moving against her ear. He smelled like beer and expensive cologne, and the need to barf down the back of his leather jacket nearly overwhelmed her. “Have you been enjoying the flowers? I was so upset when you didn’t want to play that first night.”

  Oh God. Her instincts had been right. And instead of trusting herself and telling Frank about it, she’d simply dismissed the entire thing.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  And now she was really battling the urge to throw up, especially when he continued. “Do you like getting titty-fucked? With jugs like these,” he reached down and squeezed her breasts; the pain had her wincing and biting into the gag until she tasted blood along with the bile, “I bet you do.”

  He shoved his tongue in her ear, a brief glimpse of the violation to come, and she started to close her eyes, to ready herself to withstand the rest of it, when a movement at the doorway caught her attention.

  For a moment, she couldn’t understand what she was seeing.

  It was a man. Shirtless. With some sort of turban on his head. Completely covered in blood from head to toe until the whites of his eyes were the only discernible feature on his whole person. They shined like beacons. Fierce and bright.

  And then she got it.

/>   Jake!

  He was alive!

  She nearly choked on the sharp relief that burst through her chest before she caught herself. He lifted a blood-coated finger to his blood-coated lips—wow, there was a lot of blood; she didn’t know how he was still standing—and she blinked twice, hoping he understood the move for the affirmative it was.

  Johnny pushed to a stand and started working at the buttons of his fly, and it took everything she had to keep her eyes on his sadistic face instead of watching as Jake silently slid up behind him.

  She stopped breathing when Jake raised his blood-soaked hands.

  A split second later, one of those hands was on Johnny’s forehead while the other dragged a knife across Johnny’s throat.

  It didn’t make any noise. Not one sound. And Johnny didn’t have time to squeak a protest before dark blood flowed from the wound on his neck in a thick, terrible rush.

  It was weird, that macabre silence. That brief moment when time stood still and nothing moved save for the blood pumping freely from what used to be Johnny’s throat. Then he dropped to his knees, his hands scrabbling at his neck, a terrible gurgling sound coming from his gaping mouth until she yearned for the strange quiet of the split-second before.

  Watching him struggle, she attempted to summon up some sympathy, especially when she saw the astonishment in his eyes. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to find any. Not after what he’d done to Lisa. Not after what he’d nearly done to her. And certainly not after what he’d no-doubt planned to do to her son.

  And then something really strange happened. Johnny’s hands dropped to his side, and his expression became one of…realization was the only word she had to describe it, right before he fell face forward. His head smacked against the leg of the chair she was tied to with a sickening thud, keeping his chin raised and his throat wound gaping open so that an astonishing amount of blood poured onto her kitchen floor in a matter of seconds.

  Jesus! She never knew a human body held that much blood…

  Jake wasted no time cutting her hands free, and she wrenched the gag from her mouth, bending to scrabble with the ropes around her ankles. She needed to get upstairs. Get to Franklin. The thought of him coming down to see this…

  “Franklin—” she began, but Jake was quick to reassure her as he bent to help her with the rest of her restraints.

  “I used the fire ladder to lower him out the window,” he said, his voice hoarse. “He’s with the neighbors.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, lifting her toes from the floor to avoid the expanding pool of Johnny’s blood as Jake used his knife to saw at the bindings.

  The second she was free, she jumped away from the horror and carnage just as her back door burst open and Rock came barreling into the kitchen, a gun in each hand. He skidded to a halt, taking in the scene, and she raised her hands to cover her naked breasts.

  “Dieu, Shell, did he…?” Rock couldn’t finish the sentence, and she was momentarily confused until the realized what he was thinking.

  “No,” she assured him. “Johnny didn’t get that far. Jake came before…before…”

  “Good.” Rock swallowed and blew out a hard breath, shoving his weapons into his waistband.

  “Yeah, dude.” Jake pushed to a wobbly stand and grabbed the table, panting slightly. “We got it all under control here. No problemo.”

  Then he stumbled once and, much to her horror, fell to the floor in strangely graceful heap.

  ***

  “How’s little Franklin?” Nurse Susan asked from the doorway of Jake’s hospital room, dragging Michelle’s attention away from the news playing softly on the television.

  The top story was what had happened at her house and Becky, looking very official on behalf of Black Knights Inc., was in the middle of spinning a tale for the eager reporters about Johnny Vitiglioni and his warped sense of revenge. According to her, Johnny had somehow come to blame the employees of BKI for the killing of his brother-in-law outside the gates of her custom motorcycle shop—even though everyone knew that Mr. Costa had been gunned down in a terrible drive-by shooting and the hardworking, honest mechanics at BKI had nothing to do with it. But Johnny was a sick individual, obviously mentally unstable, and decided to get even with the employees of BKI by murdering one of their very own, very innocent family members.

  A whole strange, biblical, eye-for-an-eye thing.

  Luckily, the innocent family member in question had had a houseguest who, in a heroic struggle, was able to kill Johnny before any real harm could be done. And no, neither the family member, nor the courageous houseguest would be available for interviews.

  It was quite an amazing story, really. Close enough to the truth to be believable, but in reality a complete and utter load of hogwash. Of course, what it managed to do was keep the true nature of Black Knights Inc. a secret while disseminating the fact that Johnny Vitiglioni was dead, whereby eliminating the price on the Knights’ heads.

  Genius. Pure and simple genius. But that was the Black Knights for you.

  Michelle could only shake her head as she lifted the remote to mute the television, glancing briefly at Jake’s sleeping profile before turning to Nurse Susan, who was decked out in purple scrubs tonight. And, joy of joys, she was still wearing those bright pink Crocs.

  Michelle was beginning to love those bright pink Crocs…

  “Franklin is doing great, all things considered. My brother is keeping an eye on him, and at the last check-in, he’d fallen into a coma brought on by pain medication and chocolate ice cream.”

  “That’s good,” Susan smiled, leaning against the jamb. “When it comes to little boys, there’s no better cure for physical and emotional trauma than ice cream and sleep. Poor guy’s been through the wringer the last few days, huh? First with the appendicitis and now with this,” she tilted her head toward the silent television.

  Becky was still answering the reporters’ questions, and Michelle could only marvel at her future sister-in-law’s composure. Becky even managed to get in a plug for the custom motorcycle business. At least, that’s what Michelle figured she was doing by holding up a Black Knights Inc. T-shirt while flashing a winning smile into the cameras.

  Wow.

  Her brother had certainly made the right decision three and a half years ago when he hired her to be the cover for his clandestine defense firm. The woman was a gem, no two ways about it.

  “He has been through the wringer,” she sighed, wishing she could throw her arms around her son right then, but he was safer and far more comfortable with Frank back at the compound than he’d be with her here. And she couldn’t abandon Jake after all he’d done for them. Saving their lives. “Of course you’d never know it by the way he was acting. From the story he gave the police, it was all one great big adventure. In fact, he handled everything far better than I did. I was a nervous wreck giving my statement.”

  “Kids are resilient,” the nurse said.

  “And thank God for that,” Michelle nodded in agreement.

  “Speaking of,” Susan shook her head in wonder. “He works in mysterious ways, doesn’t He?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Mr. Sommers here donated blood for your son’s surgery, and lo and behold, barely a day later, he comes in needing that same blood. I’d say that’s a miracle.”

  “Yeah, miraculous,” she murmured, though, for her part, she was just happy and thankful Jake was alive.

  All that’d happened out in California, the rejection and abandonment, didn’t matter anymore. His ignoring her letter, refusing to come to her even when she begged him, didn’t matter anymore. Even his demanding joint custody of Franklin didn’t matter anymore.

  All that mattered was that he was alive. Because despite everything, maybe because of everything, she loved him.

  And even if there was no future for them, even if he was never able to forgive her for what she’d done, she’d go on loving him. Because she didn’t
want to imagine, could not fathom, a world without him in it…

  ***

  “How’s our resident man of the hour?” Rock asked, leaning against the door jamb Nurse Susan had vacated not more than ten minutes before.

  Michelle glanced at Jake lying in the hospital bed, frowning at his pale cheeks, which came frighteningly close to matching the white gauze wrapped around his head. Without his deep, California tan he looked…not weak, he was still roped with muscle, all big and imposing in that hospital gown…maybe the word to use would be vulnerable. For the first time in their long history together, Jake appeared vulnerable.

  “Forty stitches,” she murmured, marveling once more at the strength it must have taken for him to function with that type of head wound long enough to get Franklin to safety and to save her as well, “a pint of blood—maybe more to come, the doctor says we’ll wait and see—and a moderate concussion. I’d say our man of the hour is in rough shape, but I’ve been told he’ll pull through.”

  “Never doubted it for an instant, chère,” Rock winked.

  “No?” She slowly pushed up from the lumpy love seat and softly padded across the room, backing Rock out into the hall so their conversation wouldn’t disturb the small amount of sleep Jake was able to snatch between doctor’s visits. With a concussion, he was prodded awake and bombarded with questions to check his cognition every hour on the hour. “You didn’t even doubt it when he did a swan dive into my kitchen floor?”

  Lord knows she’d suffered a moment of uncertainty. Especially when it seemed to take for-freakin’-ever for the ambulance to arrive, and all the while Jake’s breathing was rapid and shallow, his pulse thready. Holding his ravaged head in her lap, applying pressure to that gruesome wound, she’d made a deal with God.

  Let Jake live, and she wouldn’t fight him over the joint custody of Franklin.