That One Time by Aja Foxx

Chapter Twenty Three

~ Henry ~

 

I clenched my jaw in frustration. My nerves were starting to fray. I didn't really want to run into whoever was here, but I had a burning need to find out who that someone actually was. If there were others working with Stewart that we didn't know about, we were screwed.

I also wanted to find Frank. I hadn't seen him in the living room with any of the others and that worried me.

The laundry room had a lot of creaking boards. I wasn't exactly sure how to get through it without someone hearing me. I briefly entertained the idea of going out and coming in through the garage door, but that would be too obvious. Whoever was in there would hear me the second I unlocked the garage door.

There was a washer and dryer on one side and pantry shelves on the other. I leveraged myself between them and used my arms to steady me as I lifted my feet and crab walked along the tops of them. It was slow going, but there were no creaks.

When I got to the other side, I cautiously lowered myself back down to the floor and then plastered myself against the wall. I gripped the tazer tightly and then peeked around the corner. What I saw threw all my careful caution to the wind.

I ran toward Stewart, raising the tazer in the air. I barreled into him and pressed the tazer against his skin over and over again. The man screamed and went down, taking me with him. I tazed him again and again until he stopped moving.

Once I was sure he wasn't going to move, I dropped the tazer and scrambled over to Frank. "Oh, baby." I didn't quite know where to touch him. His face was a bloody mess. One eye was swollen and there was blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

"Un...tie me."

I hurried around behind Frank and untied his hands. As soon as he was free, he slumped forward. I grabbed him before he could fall to the floor and propped him up in the chair. I squatted down in front of him.

"What can I do?" I felt helpless. This sort of situation was outside my knowledge. I didn't know whether to go get the kids, call the cops, help Frank out, or taze Stewart again.

"Make...make sure he's tied up."

Right.

It felt a bit like poetic justice when I grabbed the rope Stewart had used to restrain Frank to the chair to tie his hands behind his back. Stewart's eyelids were fluttering so I knew he wasn't unconscious, so I kept the tazer close at hand in case I'd need it.

"Now what?"

"Kids?"

"They're safe. I hid them before I came in here."

A huff of air came out of Frank.

I smiled through the tears that started flooding my eyes. "They're safe, Frank. I promise."

"You?"

"I'm okay. I'm not hurt at all."

Frank's eyes sparkled with moisture. "He said...he said he hurt you"

"He never touched me."

"C-Can't have anything happen to you."

A loud crash sounded from the front of the house followed by Martino calling out, "Frank? Henry?"

"We're back here, Martino," I called out. "In the garage."

I heard pounding footsteps and then Martino appeared in the doorway. He seemed to take in the scene with a single swipe of his eyes. He growled when he spotted Stewart on the floor and started for him.

I couldn't believe I found myself standing between them. "He's restrained, Martino. You can't touch him."

"Watch me!"

"Martino," Frank whispered in a voice that sounded like it was fading. "Have to take care of kids, Henry. Can't...Can't..."

I cried out when Frank started to fall forward and pushed past Martino to catch him before he hit the floor. A moment later, Martino was there, helping me gently lower Frank to the floor.

"Get something for his head."

I raced into the laundry room and grabbed several towels from the laundry basket. I hurried back into the garage and stacked them under Frank's head. "He needs an ambulance." I didn't think anything was broken, but it wouldn't hurt to have him examined by a doctor.

"The other officers are in the living room trying to revive the others. Go tell them we need an ambulance and someone to take Stewart into custody."

I got up and hurried back into the main area of the house. The place was a flurry of activity. Several of the officers were trying to rouse the ones passed out. One was talking on his cell phone. The detective we'd been dealing with this other time was pacing as he talked on his own phone.

"Detective."

The man looked up when I called out to him, then said something into his phone and hung up. "Mr. Warner. Do you know what happened here?"

I shook my head. "Not totally. Everyone was passed out when I woke up. But I need an ambulance for Frank and someone needs to come take Stewart into custody." I held out the tazer. "I took this off one of your officers. Sorry."

The man gave me a raised eyebrow look as he took the tazer.

"It was better than taking his gun." I flushed just a bit. "I kind of used it on Stewart."

Several times.

"Where is he?"

"In the garage. Stewart was smacking him around when I found them. I tazed Stewart and then used the rope he used on Frank to tie him up."

The detective told a couple of his officers to go take Stewart into custody before assuring me paramedics were already on the way.

"Where were you?" I asked. That wasn't something I had really thought about before, but now it was a burning question. "When I fell asleep, you all were in here waiting for pizza."

"We received word that someone was trying to get to Ryan so I left a few officers here to guard you and raced to the hospital with the others."

"Ryan?" I pressed a hand to my chest. "Is he okay?"

"Yes, we caught the man who tried to get into his room. He said Stewart paid him to get to Ryan and eliminate him if he could, or create a distraction if he couldn't. That's when I suspected Stewart was going to try to go after you guys. I called, but there was no answer so we raced back here." The detective shook his head as he glanced around. "I don't know how this happened."

I didn't either.

"Are any of your men hurt?"

"It doesn't look like it. They're just unconscious."

"If they're not hurt, just unconscious, I'd say it was something they either ate or drank." My eyes settled on the pizza boxes stacked on the table. The lid of the top box was open and the box was empty. "I'd check the pizza."

"Sir." One of the officers came running into the room with a small black canister in his hand. "We found this on the suspect when we searched him."

The detective frowned as he looked it over. "It looks to be some sort of aerosolizable incapacitating agent."

I blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry, aero what?"

"Sleeping gas."

"So, not the pizza?"

"Probably not, but it would be better to get it tested just to be safe."

He didn't have to tell me twice.

Things became pretty chaotic after that. Several ambulances arrived to care for the fallen officers as well as Frank. Stewart was seen to also, since I'd tazed him a number of times, and then taken away in handcuffs.

Morning was breaking by the time Frank walked into my bedroom where I was laying down with the kids. They'd grown anxious every time I tried to leave the room, which was totally understandable, so I'd taken them to my room to sleep in my bed.

"Hey."

"Hey." Frank smiled and then winced as he pressed his finger to his lip. "Ouch."

"You probably shouldn't do that, at least not until your lip heals."

Frank walked over to the side of the bed and stretched out on the mattress, the kids cuddled between us. His eyes sparkled as he stared down at Eva and Arty. "I was kind of hoping the next time I got you into bed that it would be just the two of us, but this is okay, too."

"Everything calm down out there?"

"Yeah, my father's security guys showed up and took over. They want to talk to you tomorrow about some security measures around the house so we can prevent something like this from ever happening again."

"Pretty sure this type of thing doesn't happen often."

"No, but I don't want to take any chances. Once was more than enough."

I could agree with that one.

“Martino went back up to the hospital to sit with Ryan. He doesn't want him to wake up alone and in a strange place."

Hmm. Interesting.

"Maybe they'll be able to work things out so they can at least be friends and Ryan doesn't feel weird about Martino being in Arty's life." That was assuming Martino wanted to be in Arty's life. I had no idea how he felt about kids.

"I'm not even sure Martino has...accepted is the wrong word, but I'm sure this whole situation is surreal for him. I know it was for me when I first found out about Eva, and I was still in love with you. I have no idea how Martino feels about Ryan."

My breath caught. "You still love me?"

Hope pounded in my heart.

Frank's dark eyebrows slammed down over his eyes. "Of course I still love you. Do you think I would be going through all of this if I wasn't?"

"No...Maybe...I Just thought, with Eva and all—"

Frank grabbed my hand and brought it to his lips. "I am over the moon about Eva, saddened that I wasn't there from the very beginning, and angry for letting myself be fooled by Stewart. I am in love with you and have been for five very long years. My feelings didn't change because of what I thought you had done, and that might be why I was so damn angry at you. I felt like you had stabbed me in the heart."

"You know I didn't—"

"I know, baby. I think I always knew. But like you said, I was in the mindset where you were guilty until proven innocent, so when Stewart presented his evidence, it just proved to me I was right."

"What's going to prevent this from happening again?"

"Besides the fact that I trust you, you mean?"

"Do you?"

"Yes, Henry, I do. I should have trusted you before and I didn't." Frank's eyes turned glossy as they went to Eva. "And I will pay for that for the rest of my life. There are memories you have with her that I will never have, and I only have myself to blame for that."

"Frank—"

"I'll give up the money if that's what you want me to do, Henry. I'll donate it all to charity or give it to my family, whatever you want. I'll resign as CEO and get a job as a construction worker again. I'll just be a regular guy."

Francesco Galeazzi would never be a regular guy, but maybe Frank could be.

Frank still had a hold of my hand. I pulled his toward me and pressed a kiss to the top. "How about we see how things go?"

"Do you mean that, Henry?"

"I do."

Frank grinned. "Remember those words."

"Are you going to kiss?"

My mouth dropped open as I glanced down and found two sets of soft brown eyes staring up and me and Frank. I chuckled at the inquisitive look Eva was giving Frank. "We might."

"He looks like me," Eva said.

I felt a warm glow flow through me as I gazed across at Frank, who was staring down at Eva as if she was the most precious treasure in the world, and she was. "That's because he's your daddy."