“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t even see any of your ‘private areas’ as you call them. But even if I did, I don’t think you should take your hurt pride out on me.”
“Fine. Billings, go clean the bathrooms. They’re disgusting,” he yelled as he picked his cup back up and continued making his coffee.
Billings shook his head and got up from his seat. As he walked past us he gave me an icy stare. I felt bad that Chance had stuck him with the job, but I was glad that I didn’t have to do it.
“What the hell is going on with you two?” Anderson asked when we sat down with the others.
“Nothing,” Chance and I both said in unison.
“Well, you’d better figure it out before it affects the team,” Anderson said.
“Alex, get your ass down here,” a slurred voice started yelling up the stairs.
God, I’d almost forgotten about Mike. Now here he was to remind me that my life was hell.
“Well, that’s my cue,” I said as I set my cup down on the table and went to stand up.
“I’ll go,” Chance said, motioning for me to sit back down.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ll go. He’s my husband, not yours.”
“I don’t want you talking to him. Look what he’s done to you already,” Chance said, trying to reason with me.
“Who are you to tell me I can’t talk to my husband?” I asked, raising my voice.
“Alex, baby, hurry your ass up, we need to talk,” my husband yelled, slurring all the words.
“Think about this, Alex,” Chance said as he grabbed my arm.
“Let me go,” I said, breaking free from his grip and heading toward the stairs.
The whole way down, I dreaded reaching the bottom. The last thing I wanted was to have to deal with Mike.
“You little bitch,” he slurred as soon as he saw me. “Had to go to a fire my ass. I don’t see any soot on you. Only wrinkled clothes and messy hair.”
“Mike, go home,” I said as I watched him wave his bottle around. He looked so pathetic standing there, and the scene was getting old.
“I tried to check the bank accounts online this morning, Alex. Tell me why there’s no money in any of them.”
Oh God, I hadn’t thought he’d find out before I left. I didn’t even know he knew how to do online banking. In his state, I was surprised he could still use a computer.
“That’s strange,” I said. “I have no idea.”
“Bullshit you don’t. I checked to make sure I could get a bottle as soon as the liquor store opened and there’s nothing in there. Nothing. Where did the money go?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, hoping the others wouldn’t hear all the commotion.
“Where is it, Alex?” he yelled.
“I don’t know,” I insisted.
A blur of darkness flashed in front of my face before my head snapped back, hitting the brick wall behind me. I felt my body slowly slumping to the ground before I felt the sting of the impact, both to my face from his fist and my head from the building.
Mike just stood there yelling while I realized that I would die at his hands. His slurred words all ran together as my mind clouded over. A sharp pain in my side brought me back to reality when I realized he was kicking me. This was it, I was really going to die.
I curled myself into a ball, trying desperately to protect myself, but the kicks came harder and harder until I couldn’t feel them anymore. I couldn’t even cry anymore. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing as I lay there on the cool asphalt.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
~Chance~
“Are you sure there’s nothing going on with you and O’Neil?” Anderson asked while we sat upstairs waiting patiently for her to come back.
“No, nothing. She’s definitely not my type. Too controlling. Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You two just seem rather close, and then after last night...”
“We’ve known each other since we were kids. Last night, she was sleeping in the shower room on a bunch of towels and I went to grab one in the dark, that’s it.”
“What about just now?” Billings asked. “You offered to go talk to her husband in place of her. What’s up with that?”
“Look,” I said, putting my cup down. “Her husband is a drunk, a violent drunk. Have you not seen the bruises on her face? I thought I could help her out by going down there for her.”
“She’s still with him,” Billings said. “Sometimes it’s best not to get involved.”
“Listen to yourselves. Not getting involved is like saying it’s okay. It’s not okay.”
I could feel myself getting angrier by the second. They couldn’t understand why I wanted to protect a member of my team. I would have protected any one of them if I felt they were in some kind of danger.
“I just don’t want to see you set yourself up to get hurt,” Anderson said, looking up from the newspaper in front of him.
“Get hurt, by that pitiful drunk she’s married to? I don’t think so. I’ll beat that little cocksucker into the ground if that’s what it takes to teach him to keep his hands of women,” I said as I took another sip of my coffee.
“Not by him,” Anderson said. “I’m worried that you’re getting too emotionally involved with her, and that you’re going to get hurt.”
“Emotionally involved? Is that what you all think? I want to protect a member of this team and you all think I’m emotionally involved. So tomorrow if I want to protect Carmella are you going to think there’s something going on there? Or if I want to protect Billings are you going to suddenly think I’m gay? You guys need to get a handle on the gossip around here.”
“Calm down, Friedman,” Billings said. “Nobody’s getting on your case. We’re just concerned.”
“It’s my job to make sure you’re all in the proper mental and physical state to do your jobs. Right now she needs my help. Got it?”
They all sat there and looked at me. Maybe I was too involved, but I didn’t care. No woman should have to go through that.
“Got it?” I said again, raising my voice.
“Yes,” they all said, immediately looking away and starting to talk amongst themselves.
As glad as I was that they were finally leaving me alone, the time to think made me look at the clock. Alex had been down there for a bit too long in my book. I kept telling myself that everything was probably fine, but still a part of me didn’t like it at all.
“She’s taking a really long time,” I mumbled before I took another sip of my coffee.
“They’re just talking. Relax,” Billings said.
“No, she’s been gone too long,” I said, glancing up at the clock.
“Give them some time,” Anderson said. “They probably have a lot to talk about.”
Yeah, lots to talk about. Like the cuts and bruises all over her body and face, I thought to myself. She’d been down there way too long for my liking and I couldn’t take it anymore. I set my cup down and stood up from my chair.
“Where are you going?” Anderson asked as if he didn’t already know.
“I’m going down there,” I said as I pushed my chair in and headed toward the stairs.
“Seriously, Friedman, stay out of it. It isn’t your business,” Billings said.
“I’m going,” I yelled as I darted down the stairs.
When I got to the bottom, I realized they’d taken their conversation outside. All I could hear was him yelling something about money. It was difficult to make out what he was saying, the way he was slurring his words. Alex wasn’t answering back, or if she was, her responses were quiet.
I slowly opened the door and saw that idiot standing over her limp body kicking her and screaming. Fire rose within my body and I flew into a rage. I wanted to tear him limb from limb. The next few minutes were a blur as I ran over to him and took him down, pounding him into the asphalt.
My rage was so intense that I
couldn’t stop hitting him. My fist had a mind of its own and it kept slamming down on his face over and over again.
My senses had zoned out, and although I could hear Alex trying to say something, her voice sounded like it was a million miles away. Even when I heard the sirens, they sounded like they were way off in the distance.
“Get off him,” an officer yelled while I whaled away on her husband’s face.
A second officer walked over and grabbed my arms, tackling me to the ground before cuffing me. At that moment I became aware of my heavy breathing and racing pulse. I tried to reach up to wipe the sweat from my forehead, but the cuffs were so tight that I couldn’t quite make it.
They questioned Mike, Alex, and I separately on the scene. I explained the situation, hoping I wouldn’t be going on a ride in a cruiser, but the cops had other things in mind. Before I knew it, I was sitting in the back of a police car with the sirens going like any common criminal.
This is going to look so bad on my record, I thought to myself. Assault right outside the station. Maybe the other guys were right, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I just hoped beyond hope that Alex was okay.
When we arrived at the station I started asking the officer who took me to my holding cell about her, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. Instead, they just placed me in a cold, dark cell all by myself. I was hoping they’d put me in with Mike so I could take another round out of him, but no such luck.
I sat on the shelf they called a bed with the wafer-thin piece of cloth that they called a mattress. Looks more like a giant maxi pad to me, I thought to myself.
“You guys can’t keep me here long,” I yelled. “What if there’s a fire? Don’t you know who I am?”
“Keep it down in there,” an officer yelled back.
I started pacing the floor of my cell. What if Alex was dying somewhere while I was stuck in this hole? I kept brushing my hair back with my hands, trying to think, but I knew there was no way to think my way out of this one.
Finally, an officer came in to get me for questioning. It’s about time, I thought as I followed him.
“Would you like a coffee?” he asked after I sat down.
“I’m not thirsty,” I said as I stared at the icy-blue walls around me. Blue for calmness my ass. I was in a goddamned police station. How the hell was I supposed to keep calm?
“Would you mind telling me in your own words what happened out there today?” the officer asked.
“It was self-defense,” I answered. “Alex, the woman, is a member of my team. Her husband Mike is a violent drunk. I went outside, saw him hitting her, and called him on it. He hit me and I hit him back. End of story.”
“Is that all you’d like to tell me?” the officer asked as he looked up from the notes he was writing.
“That’s all there is to tell,” I answered.
“Alex said you came out of the building and beat her husband up for no reason. Would you like to comment on that?”
Alex, how could you do this to me? I thought. I was defending you and now you throw me under the bus?
“Did you see her face?” I asked the officer. “She’s in no condition to remember what happened today.”
“Her husband made the same statement,” the officer said. “Is anything starting to ring a bell?”
“He’s a goddamned drunk. Couldn’t you smell him or see the bottle in his hand? How the hell do you expect him to remember?” I yelled.
The officer stood up and walked me back to my cell. The whole way there I kept thinking they would keep me for a long time and throw away the key. As far as the law was concerned I looked like a violent attacker on a psychotic break.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
~Alexandria~
“Here comes Muhammad Ali,” Billings said when Chance came waltzing back into the station.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said as he walked over to the coffee maker.
“Is that how you got those bloody knuckles, Sugar Ray?” Anderson asked.
Chance looked down at the knuckles on his right hand, titling it from side to side as if he were inspecting it. His facial expression made me think he was deep in thought.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “His face is made of stone to go along with the rocks in his skull.”
“Nice,” I said as I looked over at him from the chair where I was sitting.
“You’re okay,” he said, smiling at me. “I was so worried about you.”
“How dare you,” I said loudly as I marched over and slapped him across the face.
I hadn’t intended to slap him when I went over there. It was an involuntary reaction. But oh, it felt so good when my hand made contact with his face. The smacking noise it made relieved weeks of tension. He stood there shocked for a few seconds.
“What was that for?” he asked as he reached up and touched his cheek.
“For hitting my husband,” I said. “Now he’s in jail, and apparently he’ll be there for a few years if I testify against him.”
“Are you going to?” he asked me as he put the cream and sugar into his cup.
“No, of course not,” I said, putting my hand over his cup.
“Alex, if he doesn’t stay locked up, he’ll kill you. And why did you lie to the police earlier?”
“Why did you lie to them? Self-defense. He didn’t touch you.”
“Can you guys take this somewhere else?” Billings asked. “We’re trying to think over here.”
“Then go somewhere else,” I said, glaring at him. “Right now Friedman and I have some things to discuss.”
Everybody turned to look away from us and started talking amongst themselves. I’d clearly gotten my message across.
“Now Chance, why’d you do it? Why’d you lie? You knew they’d take him away,” I said with my hands on my hips.
“I was saving you,” he said as he looked down at me.
“Do I look like I need saving?” I sneered.
“Yes, you do. Take a good look at yourself, Alex. You’re falling apart. You’re all bruised up both emotionally and physically. You need rescuing.”
“I can rescue myself with no help from you,” I said as I reached out for a cup.
“Apparently not, or that sick bastard wouldn’t still be doing this to you,” I said as I grabbed her hand.
“I didn’t need you to step in,” I whispered. “I was already planning on leaving. I just need time to get everything set up.”
“And what happens in the meantime? He kills you? That sounds like a perfectly acceptable plan to me,” Chance laughed.
“It wouldn’t have taken that long. I already had my finances in check. I’m just working on custody of Emily.”
“Alex, use your head. He’d never get custody,” he said, trying to reason with me.
“You don’t get it. I didn’t want to leave the house. He needed to leave. He hasn’t paid one dime towards it, and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving him with it,” I said, pulling my hand back.
“So that’s what this is all about. You were worried about your house? You’re seriously telling me that your house is more important than your life?” he said as he shook his head.
“No,” I said as I rested my hand against the corner. “But the house is important to me and he can’t have it.”
“You know, if you’d died, he’d have wound up getting it anyway,” Chance said as he put creamer in my coffee.
“I can do that myself too, you know,” I said, getting angry. “I don’t know why everybody thinks I need to be taken care of. I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not doing such a good job of showing it. Anyway, right now he’s in jail where he should be, and you’re safe. That’s what matters,” he said as he put his hand on my shoulder.
The pain soared through my body from his light touch and I bit my lip to keep myself from screaming out in agony. I looked up at him and I could tell by his eyes that he knew how grateful
I was, even though I was telling him otherwise.
At that moment I blocked everything else out. I’d been through so much and everything had come to a head.
“Thank you,” I whispered as I burst into tears before I collapsed in his arms.
“Anderson, can you man the station while I drive her home?” Chance called while I continued to sob into his chest.
“You got it,” Anderson answered.
“Let’s get you home,” Chance said when he wrapped his jacket around my shoulders and started wiping my tears away. It didn’t do any good. I just kept crying harder.
“Is she going to be okay?” Billings asked when we were on our way out.
“She’ll be fine. She just needs some time to come to terms with everything,” Chance said.
During the entire ride to my house, I sat sobbing in the passenger seat. The damn seatbelt kept me from curling up into a tiny ball. All I wanted to do was make myself as small as possible, almost invisible. Yet that thin strap wouldn’t let it happen.
“It’s okay now, Alex,” Chance said, trying to calm me down. “He won’t be there. You’re safe now.”
The closer we got to the house the worse my reactions became. When he pulled into the driveway, I started trembling and refused to get out of the car. I knew Mike was in jail and that he’d been denied bail, yet I was still terrified to go inside.
My brain was in a loop. I’d gone from being mad at Chance at the station for interfering and getting Mike arrested, to being terrified to walk into my own house. I was going insane. I knew it.
“Oh God, Chance, I can’t go in there,” I sobbed when he came around and opened the passenger door for me.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here with you. We’ll take it slow.”
He held his hand out for me and helped me out of the car. I stared up the driveway at the front door. The short distance now looked like a walk of a thousand miles. I looked up into Chance’s face and then back toward the door.
“We can do this,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve got you.”
Together we walked while he kept his hand on my elbow and the small of my back. I even started to feel better, until we got inside. Everything was still in disarray from the struggle the night before. Pictures and broken glass were all over the floor, and my blood was splattered everywhere.
Nausea washed over me and I fell to my knees with my arms folded in front of my stomach. Chance knelt down and wrapped his arms around me. I tried to raise my head to look around, but every time I did, everything started spinning again.