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“Will do, Ray. Stay safe,” she says softly.
He loves her pet name for him. Margarita has retained much of her thick Bulgarian accent and neither Rian nor Ryan are names she can twist her tongue around. She calls him Ray instead – ‘Ra-I’. She tells him, it meansparadise, so it suits him – he is kind and beautiful as an angel.
She’s not mushy like that often, but on the eighth of March, the official date of Mother’s Day in her native Bulgaria, Rian and Bran surprised her by taking her out for a lavish breakfast and then a visit to her favorite farmer’s market. She let her guard down and shared the pet name she had been calling him in private. Needless to say, Rian had been deeply moved.
He texts Margarita up until she puts Bran to bed and retires for the night herself.
Luckily for them, Harris has informed Margarita he will be working late in his office. He hasn’t called Rian by some miracle, but Rian knows exactly what that means.
You got him, Rick. He’s all yours.
* * *
He’s been therefor hours now, drinking shitty coffee and thinking about the last time he’s been in a hospital this long. The place brings him back to the day Cyril had been rushed to the emergency room after his accident.
Sometime past midnight, he is woken up by a sweet-looking, older Filipino nurse – her name tag reads Gloria Dominguez. She takes him to see Stephanie.
Rian’s heart breaks at the sight of his friend. She is severely injured, black and blue. Her small frame is tucked in beneath thick linen blankets. Her right hand is in a cast. She’s wearing a neck brace. The machines connected to her give out a quiet beep and the lights of the monitors illuminate the left side of her face.
Rian tries to calm down and not worry her by reacting too emotionally at the sight of her battered face. His treacherous tears betray him. Rian can’t help but let out a sob as he nears her left side and Stephanie weakly offers him her small hand.
“I’m so sorry, darling. I shouldn’t have left you. I should have done something. I’m so sorry.”
Tears run down her face and Rian quickly finds tissues and dabs the corners of her eyes clean. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs as Stephanie calms down.
After a long moment of silence, he brushes her fingers gently, still too scared he could hurt her already severely bruised flesh.
She tugs his hand closer and clasps it lightly. “I wanted…I wanted you to know…Thank you…” Her tears run down again but before Rian can reach for her face, she shakes her head lightly. “They got him, Rian. They found my baby. Colton was about to take him out of the country. If you hadn’t come…”
Her face twists into a terrible painful grimace, and her sobs are mixed with low groans of pain.
“I shouldn’t have left you. I should have done something…”
“I never imagined he was capable of this. Rian, don’t blame yourself. You did nothing wrong.”
“Did I…did I cause this by showing up?”
“No.” She is adamant. “We had been fighting for months. The past few days things escalated, but I thought…I never imagined it could be that bad. Colton hasn’t gone this far before and I didn’t think…I was naïve. Then, I was plain scared. I was too embarrassed to reach out to my family. They have never approved of my marriage.
“Admitting they had been right all along…I didn’t care about that. But I knew my brothers would hurt him badly if I told them the whole truth. I didn’t want Toby to lose his father. I tried tofixthings. I tried to make usworkagain.” She sobbed in pain again and Rian felt so hopeless and ridiculous. He couldn’t even touch her to comfort her.
“Where is Toby now?” He asks quietly.
“He’s with my sister Danika. I mean…he’s about to be. She flew from New York to stay with me. She is with the police now and as soon as she has him, Danika will bring him here. My brothers are on their way back from Europe. They will arrive the day after tomorrow.”
Rian sits on the chair next to her bed. He fiddles with her blanket for a moment then mutters, “You need to rest. I’ll be here. I promise, I won’t leave you. I’ll wait until Danika arrives.”
Stephanie’s eyes close as if she had been waiting for Rian to take over.
* * *
He spendsthe night in her room, watching over Stephanie as she drifts in and out of a shallow sleep. His heart breaks every time she whimpers Toby’s name.
The same nurse, who had brought him in earlier, comes back to check on Stephanie.
“You saved her life, you know. She would have been dead if you hadn’t shown up,” Gloria mutters, while she is fixing Stephanie’s blankets.
“I shouldn’t have left her at all…”
