Redemption (Iris Series) (40 page)

She glared at him, as if to say
You wouldn’t dare.

He shrugged, as if to say
Try me.

She started to hop off of his lap, but he held her tight not letting her up.

“I’m telling you right now, Jonathan, and I’m not fucking around.  You will do no such thing.  We’re going to wait and see what Emily’s IT guy comes up with, then we’ll go from there.”

“And
you’re
not going to take the subway alone.  Or walk around outside alone, for that matter.”

She barked out a laugh.  “Are you fucking kidding me, Jonathan?  How the hell do you expect me to do that?” she sputtered.  “I have to go to work!”

“Then I’ll drive you.”

“No.  Absolutely not.  You’re gonna be starting school soon and...this...it’s just ridiculous!  No.  I’ll learn my little defense moves and go on living like the rest of the world.” 
She harrumphed, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” she grumbled.

“And I’m telling
you
right now, do not hide this stuff from me.  I’m serious.  If you don’t like the way I react, then fine.  But I love you, and as the man who would take a bullet for you, I deserve to know when things like this happen.”

She stopped pouting when she heard his wording.

“Baby, I love you too.  And I love that you want to protect me, but I can’t stop living my life.  Let’s wait and see if the IT guy can come up with anything, then if we need to go to the police, we will.”

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on hers.  She nuzzled into him, hugging him around the neck. 

“Does this mean we get to have stupendous makeup sex now?” she asked.

“Please don’t hide things like this from me. 
Please.
”  He sounded tormented.

She didn’t want to joke with him, not when he was so serious.  And given that the ex-fiancé arm candy hid her shady dealings from him, she knew she needed to acquiesce.  She didn’t want something like this to ever come between them.

“I promise,” she whispered, touching his face and making eye contact with him so he knew she was serious. She waited a beat.  “
Now
let’s have stupendous makeup sex.”

He rolled his eyes at her comment.  Then he turned her and pushed her down onto the bed with him on top of her.  

“You’re impossible.”

“But that’s one of the reasons why you love me, right?”

He looked over at the laptop still on the bed and pushed it out of the way, not wanting to see the offending message any longer.

“How about stupendous I-love-you-and-I-don’t-ever-want-anything-bad-to-happen-to-you sex instead?”

She steadied herself and looked at him, whispering sweetly, “I love you, JBG.” 

“I love you too, baby.”  He dropped his forehead onto hers and proceeded to show her how much. 

Slowly, reverently, taking off each other’s clothes, they connected as lovers and friends, knowing that time spent together was so precious.

They both sig
hed at the moment their bodies connected. This was what they needed. This was what they craved. She didn’t want anything bad to happen to him either, and the thought nearly stopped her cold.

They stilled, allowing their souls to mesh with each other, touching and murmuring love words until he began to move, taking all of their worrie
s and disagreements and pushing them away.

Quietly they made love, their only form of communication with their bodies and the sounds of pleasure they expressed. Fitting perfectly together, all Ayanna could think about was her love for this amazing man, and what life would be like without him.

She never wanted to experience it.

She let g
o of an unexpected sob that snuck up on her in the emotion of the moment. He let his eyes rest on hers and nuzzled her nose with his, kissing her so softly she wanted to hold onto him forever.

“I love you, Yan,” he whispered. “
So
much that I can’t breathe sometimes.”

“Shh. It’s okay, it’s okay,” she murmured. The message had thrown her for a loop, but it appeared to have devastated Jonathan.

Now she felt guilty for arguing with him. He did need to know about things like this. Why had she hesitated in calling him? It had hurt him, and she never wanted to do that. Not to this man.

Her thoughts along with his sensual and slow claiming of her brought her to the edge. Reaching the pinnacle together, they allowed the waves of love to crash over them and hold at bay the fear they both felt.

……

“So, just as Michael said a couple of weeks ago, you probably won’t be able to defeat an attacker with your physical strength, but you can defeat him with your
mental
strength.  If that message really was from Robert, then you have the benefit of knowing your attacker.  You know how he thinks, so use that to your advantage,” Emily said.

Ayanna and Emily had moved the big ottoman away from the front of the sofa to give them space to maneuver.

“When he attacked me, he wasn’t expecting me to fight back. I think I had the element of surprise on my side.”

“He also didn’t have a weapon last time.  So let’s hope that if there
is
a next time, there’s no weapon again.  We’re going to go over some moves anyway, just to be prepared.”

“This is so fuckin’ surreal,” Ayanna muttered.

“I know,” Em sighed.

“Did you contact your IT guy?”

“Yeah, he’s already on it.  He was working on something else, so he said he’d call me when he got to it.  I’ll keep you posted as soon as he gets back to me.  So,” she took a breath to begin, “let’s get down to it.”

Em be
gan her spiel.  “If you search YouTube, you’ll find a million and one defense moves on how to get out of a gun or knife attack.  Most of them show how
men
should do it, and require you to be strong and skillful.  But again, you want to use your brains just as much as your skill.  Unless the attacker tries to get you in a car, or tries to take you to another location, you should give them what they want, like if they just want your wallet or valuables.  Nothing is worth your life and all of those things can be replaced.

“But if the attacker isn’t happy with just robbing you, and you sense he wants to hurt you or move you to another location, try everything in your power not to let him.  You need to change your tactic.  So, let’s look at if someone approaches you with a gun.”

Emily began to go through the thinking process of what a person on the receiving end of an attack should do.  The first and most logical thing she said to do was to avoid the line of fire.  She went through a series of moves in how to grab the wrist and the barrel, where the victim pivots out of the way. 

“An attacker is usually aiming at your chest or your face.  If it’s at your chest and you’re within arm’s distance, you can do the move I just showed you with grabbing the wrist and barrel.  When you do, make sure you pivot out of the way then twist the gun
away
from you but
toward
the attacker.  If it’s aimed at your face, you would duck, push your hands up under their wrists and twist the gun up and back, then pull down sharply which usually dislodges the weapon from their hands.”

Emily slowly rehearsed with her the two scenarios with her fake plastic gun that she brought.  “When you twist the gun a certain way, you can break the finger of the attacker.  Since their finger is on the trigger and you’re twisting the gun, it will usually trap their finger and at the very least cause a lot of pain.

“And don’t forget those soft targets,” she continued.  “Kick to the groin whenever you can, claw at the face or eyes; always remember to go for those.  Don’t be surprised if the gun goes off, just make sure you’re off to the side from the aim, or you’ve ducked if the attacker is pointing it at your face.”

“This all seems like it’s easier said than done,” Ayanna muttered.

“Of course it is.  We all pray and hope that we’ll never be in these situations.  But ya never know, right?  I want to give you as much info as you can take without overloading you so you can do different combinations with these ideas. 

“A great tactic to always use is to distract them.  Often times, your hands will be up.  Talk to them about how you’re scared, or how you don’t want them to hurt you, then at some point in the middle of your sentence, that’s when you make your move.  They’re listening to
your words and psychologically, they won’t think you’ll do anything until the end of your sentence.  If you’re going to defend yourself, you should make your attack while you’re talking to them.  In these instances you need to act quickly and decisively.  Let’s go over some moves and scenarios.”

They did, for close to 25 minutes.  They also went over strategies for knife attacks.  After an hour, Ayanna was exhausted.

“It’s nuts that we have to learn all of this stuff.  What the hell is wrong with our world that we have to worry about this shit?” Ayanna asked, shaking her head.

Just as they were finishing up, Em’s phone went off indicating a text message had just come in.  She reached for it and scrolled through. 

“It’s from Ollie, my IT guy,” she mumbled, reading his text.  Then she looked up at Ayanna and said with a triumphant smile.  “Got him.”

“It was from Robert?” Ayanna asked excitedly.

Emily was calling Ollie and held up her finger to hold off Ayanna’s questions.

“Hey, Ol.  What did you find?” Em said into her cell.

Ayanna watched as Emily asked questions and murmured responses.  She couldn’t believe it.  She figured Robert sent the message, but she couldn’t believe he had sent it from a traceable computer.  He had to be the biggest fucking idiot in the world.  Was he really that stupid to use his own computer sending messages like that?

“Awesome.  Thanks, Ol.  I owe you big,” Em was saying. Then she rolled her eyes.  “Let me check my calendar and get back to you...Yeah, okay.  Later.”  She looked at Ayanna and said, “Can’t someone just do a good deed for someone? I’m probably going to have go on a date with this guy,” she mumbled.

“Focus, woman!  What happened?”

Emily got serious.  “The email originated from a computer owned by a Roberto J. Rivera.  Sound familiar?”

“Unbelievable,” Ayanna said, shaking her head in disbelief.  “The guy has seriously lost it.”

“Yup.  And things are about to get worse for him.  Time to call the police.”

……

They called the precinct near the restaurant and talked to one of the officers who interviewed Ayanna after Robert’s attack.  After Ayanna explained the message and forwarded it to the police, Emily got on the phone and explained how she was able to have the email traced back to Robert.

By that time, Jonathan was home and looking like he wanted to kill someone, pacing the floor and running his fingers through his hair continually.  Ayanna walked over and took his hand, leading him to the sofa to sit so he would calm down.

The police had said they would pay a visit to Robert to ask him some questions, but they would need to verify through their own department the origin of the email first before they could pursue it more aggressively.

So they ordered pizza and waited.  Ayanna called Ryann to give her a heads up, who said she was going to call Michael to get his thoughts on the matter.  Eventually Emily went home, but by the end of the evening, the entire crew of friends knew about the situation and was waiting on tenterhooks for the results.

The results came a little after
nine that night with two police officers arriving at the apartment asking to see Ayanna.  By the time they’d left, both Ayanna and Jonathan were in a state of shock, hearing from the police that when they had arrived to Robert’s place to question him, they had found him dead with a bullet to the head in an apparent suicide.

“I can’t believe he killed himself,” Ayanna whispered furiously after the police had left.  “God, Jon.  My charges set all of this into motion. 
Shit.
”

He grabbed her face and forced her to look up at him.  “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this, Ayanna.
When people commit suicide, that’s their choice. It may be a really sad one, but it’s still their choice. We know he had financial difficulties and marital problems.  This was his choice, Yan.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But still.  Why the fuck would he send me a message like that, then kill himself?”

“I’m sure the cops are asking the same questions.  You’re right that it doesn’t make sense, but he was obviously unstable, baby.  Who can predict the behavior of a person like that?”

“Yeah,” she said, deep in thought.  “His poor wife.”

“No doubt.  She left him, right?”

“That’s what Catherine said.”

“This whole situation is sad.”  He cupped her face with his hand.  “What do you want to do tonight, babe?  Do you want me to draw you a bath?  Give you a massage?  What can I do?  I hate seeing you like this.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist.  She felt kind of lost.  The thought of Robert killing himself, and knowing that she helped put the wheels in motion leading to his downfall made her feel a little off.