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The plea was urgent, and I chuckled. “Yeah, we do.”
She blew out a relieved breath. “I was awake when we got the call, Jacob needed feeding, but God, I’m tired.”
“You can use the bedroom for rest too,” I said dryly.
“Thanks, but there’ll be no sleep tonight.”
“Has this happened before?” I asked curiously.
“Not often. Maybe twice since I’ve met Finn. He went off last time and—”
When she bit her lip, I patted her arm. “He got hurt?”
“Yeah. Stray bullet. He was lucky.” She squeezed Jacob. “I want him to know his dad.”
“Of course you do. Nothing wrong with that.”
Aoife huffed. “You’d never tell. You’d think I asked him for a divorce!”
When she glared at her husband’s back, I patted her arm again. “I’ll get you that coffee.”
“Thanks, Inessa. I appreciate that.”
With a shrug, I drifted off, wishing now was the time to talk about the convention we were planning on going to, but life was on hold for the moment. It would stay that way until the family was back together again.
“Want to come with me?” I asked Amaryllis, feeling for her, more than she would probably ever know.
She blinked and peered around the room like she hadn’t even known she was here, with strangers.
I grabbed her hand and tugged her along to the kitchen, recognizing the signs of someone in deep shock.
“If Finn says it won’t take long, it won’t.”
My attempt at reassurance had tears prickling her eyes, turning them a soft pink. She really was beautiful. All delicate and pretty. We were of a similar build, but she seemed to be more fragile somehow. On her hands, there were flecks of paint, same in the grooves on her nails.
“I-I can’t sleep without him,” she whispered.
The statement surprised me. “You can’t?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say to that, so I murmured, “They’re going to get him back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t, but I know they’ll do their best.”
“What good is their best if he’s already dead?” she whispered brokenly.
Because I felt guilty and ashamed and a little lost, I did what I wouldn’t ordinarily do—I reached for her and slipped my arms around her waist, hugging her.
I knew, in this situation, that was what I’d need.
“You’ll sleep again. He’ll be okay. He might be hurt, but as long as he’s alive, hurt can be fixed.”
She tensed, then abruptly sank into me, to the point where I almost staggered back in surprise at her weight as she released all the terror in a heart that was no longer hers, but that belonged with the man who’d been taken by theFamiglia.
And because, for the first time in my life I knew what it felt like for your heart to be with someone else, to have given it to another, I hugged her tightly, trying to keep her together until Eoghan could bring her man back home.
