There. I'd gone and done it. Again.

"Faith! Please just let me explain—" And then I was talking to the door. "Awww, dammit!"

I'd messed up royally and I knew that I had really blown it and probably for good. As Faith shut the door in my face I could feel my anger heating up in a different way than it had before; It was an anger born outta betrayal and my so called best friend had been the one to rip out my happiness and stamp all over it.

"What the hell did ya do that for?" I yelled at Sean as I put on my shoes and grabbed my keys off of the dirty carpet. "Do you know what you've done? You know damn well that I didn't know that girl was a whore and I'm sorry that I trusted you, asshole!"

He wiped the blood off of his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and glared at me hatefully. "Done?" He pointed to himself. "What I've done? I was goin out with her, pal, not you." He spat at me. "You're just pissed because I got to her first and you had to go and steel her away."

I almost laughed. "Steel? I'd say that's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say!" I started to walk away, knowing that if we talked out in the hall that someone would call my fellow officers and even though I was mad as hell, I knew that Faith wouldn't be opening the door to me anytime soon. "There's no one in this world that knows her the way that I do." I barked childishly over my shoulder. "And I love her and I know she loves me, so piss off."

"Love–that's a laugh." He said dryly as he followed me down the hall and out of the building. "You don't know what love is."

"How the hell would you know?"

"How would you?" He countered. "Did she tell you?"

"Go to hell."

"Well did she? Did you hear her say the words? Cause if you didn't I'd say that she's fair game."

"Fair game?" I stopped and turned around and gave him the dirtiest look I could muster. "This is no game, Kelly! You don't get it do you? I love her and I want to be with her for the rest of my life and thanks to you it's all shot to hell!"

"I think that you wouldn't know what love was if it hit you in the face, Boscorelli."

"Maybe I never did know what it was." I replied, as we parted ways on the sidewalk. I had nothing left to say to him but one thing. "But I do now. And no one, especially you, is gonna take it away from me."

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Faith's cell, praying that she'd at least pick up and let me explain.

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In the end, as soon as I picked up the phone to call the cops they both stopped. They were both bloody and sodden, both mean as snakes, cursing obscenities at one another while trying to catch their breaths. To say that they were angry with one another would have been an understatement.

And they had nothing on how I felt.

With tears coursing down my cheeks I kicked the both of them out, not caring what they said or the apologies that they both muttered as I threw out Bosco's shoes and his car keys–ignoring the blatantly sorry look that was radiating from him to me-- and slammed the door shut behind me.

"Faith! Please just let me explain—" I put my hands over my ears, shutting out the sound of Bosco's voice in the hall.

The truth was that I couldn't stand to hear what he had to say. I was so hurt, so mortally wounded that I knew there was no way I could make it into work the next day–and I knew that he would cover for me. He would damn well cover me–after what he pulled he knew it would be in his best interest to shut his mouth and say nothing at all.

My cell phone rang from its place on the kitchen table. I went in and picked it up and looked at the caller i.d.

"Bosco". It said.

Just seeing his name on the display made me cry even harder. The thing was that I really had no reason to be upset with him. He'd slept with the woman–if you could call her that—when we weren't together but it was the fact that she was a prostitute that really got to me. But I guess the thing that really mattered most to me was that he hadn't told me.

As a woman in a relationship why was it that we never seemed to get the whole truth? Just versions of what men thought we could handle and nothing more. I knew that he hadn't told me because of what I would think. This prostitute—did he have plans to see her again? Was she someone that he had known for a long time?

These questions were running through my sleep deprived mind as I tucked myself into bed and shut off the light–not knowing what tomorrow would bring.

And somewhere across town...

Nicole Nicholson sat at her kitchen table with a pen in one hand and a tumbler of scotch in the other, all the while looking down at the empty scented stationary that sat in front of her. Her golden hair hung loose around her shoulders that shook with silent sobs. The pale peach nightie she wore provided little or no comfort to the air conditioner that her husband insisted that she keep on at all times. Tony hated the heat—and she knew all too well what it meant when Tony was upset. Still, she made no move to put on a housecoat.

Her thoughts were jumbled, her mind a mess as she contemplated the letter that she was about to write...if she would muster the courage. Even after four glasses of the amber liquid that no longer burned as it went down, she still didn't know what to say, or more importantly, how to say it. It wasn't every day that she sat down to tell a man that she hadn't seen in almost ten years that he had fathered a child with her.

A child that she had never told him about. A child that she wished she'd never had.

It wasn't like she could pretend it never happened. Lily was a Boscorelli–through and through. She just hoped that Maurice hadn't seen the resemblance and put two and two together.

She almost laughed; As if he was that smart.

She needed time to find the right words. Sometimes Nicole wondered if Rose Boscorelli had thought about giving her boys away. From the stories that the family had told her, both Maurice and Mikey were hellions. Was it possible that Lily had just inherited those bad genes?

It never occurred to her that the thing she should be worried about the most was the tiny girl who sat in the hospital bed miles away, yearning for her mother. The very person who was supposed to protect her from all harm was the one who had continued to live under a cloud of illusion—and still, Nicole did not believe that her husband was capable of doing anything of that nature.

Yes, she reasoned, he was cruel; sometimes downright inhuman, but never, never to the children. Tony Nicholson was a man with many desires, big and small and many different adult perversions—and none of them included children as far as she knew. The things that he lusted after were kinky and sordid, she told herself, and he would never be satisfied with a child.

Or one woman.

There was a time that she hated the fact that he bedded other women; That he didn't take their marriage vows seriously, and she felt like a fool. Coming to the policeman's ball year after year looking at the beautiful women who seemingly feel all over her husband used to make her sick. But after ten years of marriage, she found herself not caring as much. The more women he slept with, the easier it was for her at home. Not as many beatings, black eyes, or nights being tied to the bed while he did things to her that she pretended never happened. No, as long as she played the part of the happy wife and mother, things would be fine and as long as the other women let him do things to them that would only be found in underground snuff movies, she was safe.

As she finally put the pen to the paper, she was startled to feel two cold hands cup her breasts from behind. She jumped as two strong thumbs kneaded her nipples roughly–so roughly it hurt.

"Tony!" She barked, dropping the pen to the table surface. "Can't you see that I'm in the middle of something?"

"Come to bed."

"In a minute. I just have to finish up here." She said softly, reaching down to push his hands off of her.

The sudden jerking of her chair being pulled backwards was enough for her to shut her mouth. In an instant her six foot four, two hundred pound husband was crouching down beside her, a sick smile pasted on his handsome face. She glanced down at his naked torso and felt the beginning of real fear prick holes in her drunkenness.

"I said, come to bed." He said lightly, running his palms down her leg to pull her nightie up to her waist. "I have a surprise for you, my darling." He whispered fiercely.

It was not a request.

It was an order.