“I don’t understand. How are you standing out here, free? With no cuffs or anything? I thought it’d take forever to get you out of here. Did you find a lawyer already?”
“It’s a bit of a long story.”
“Go, Emanuel. Take the car. I have another one coming for me. Take your lady home and talk. I’ll be in touch soon,” Christian instructs as his phone begins ringing. “Go, this has to do with another matter.”
I nod and redirect Janine toward the exit. “Let’s talk at home.”
****
Janine
“I still can’t believe that son of a bitch,” I grumble as I pace back and forth in Emanuel’s living room. I’m so livid that even thirty minutes after falling into Emanuel’s arms at the police station, I can’t manage to calm down. Instead of taking his cousin’s chauffeured car, Emanuel had to drive my car home from the station because my hands were shaking with anger so much.
“Calm down, butterfly.”
“Calm down? How the hell am I supposed to be calm when my ex had you arrested?” I squeal, raising my hands in the air.
“I forgot sayingcalm downto an upset woman is the last thing any man should do.”
“Please remember it from now on,” I retort.
“Come here.” Emanuel doesn’t wait for me to move in his direction, instead coming off the stool he was sitting on and pulling me by the waist to sit down on his lap, on the couch.
“I don’t understand how you can be so nonchalant about all of this. This could hurt your reputation. Oh my god! You could get fired from the department over this,” I gasp, covering my mouth. “We can’t let that happen.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because all of the charges were dropped. The arrest will be expunged. It’ll be like it never happened.”
Feeling totally confused, I study him. “How is that possible? I didn’t see your lawyer down there. How did they work so quickly?”
Emanuel briefly averts his gaze away from me to something over my shoulder. “Christian’s lawyer was there. He left just before you came. Had a meeting with the commissioner.”
“The commissioner? Isn’t that someone really high up in the police department?”
He nods. “The highest.”
“Oh, so the lawyer knows the head of the department? Now I’m totally confused.”
Emanuel inhales deeply, his eyes narrowing a bit as if preparing to tell me something important. “When I got arrested, I used my call to phone Christian. Thankfully, he was in Williamsport at the time. However, even if he wasn’t he would’ve sent his attorney to get it straightened out.”
“And Christian is your cousin?” I ask with furrowed brows, feeling even more confused.
He nods.
“Like, your play cousin or a real cousin?”
“If aplay cousinis what I think it means, he’s myrealcousin. As in we share some of the same genetic line.”
“How is that possible? I thought you were raised in foster care your entire life. That you don’t have a family.”
“I was and I do.”
I wrinkle my forehead, obviously looking perplexed.
“What I told you about being brought up in foster care is true. I was. Ever since I was about one, I was a ward of the state. At seventeen I went off to the military without a second thought. But at about year seven of my eight years of service, I began wondering for the first time where I’d come from. Who made me? So, I hired a PI. The guy was good. He was able to find out information that was supposed to have been sealed up and locked away forever.
