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“I don’t expect you to risk anything more than you already have.” I bowed my head, cursing my headache. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Thank me by looking after Nerida.” She shot forward, grabbed the empty duffel, squeezed my hand, and whispered, “You and Neri are invited around to dinner next week, okay? It will be nice to finally catch up with both of you, now that secrets are out in the open.”
I squeezed her back. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” Letting me go, she slung the bag over her shoulder and sighed heavily. “Quick healing, Aslan. See you next week.”
She rushed out the double doors.
Patients in the rows of beds paid me no heed as I locked down my pain, calmed my panicking heart, and put one foot in front of the other.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
*
Aslan
*
(Heart in Hindi: Dil)
SUNLIGHT TOUCHED MY FACE AS I MARCHED with purpose, doing my best to hide my pain. The warren of hospital corridors had leached what strength I had left, and the faint dullness of morphine was giving way to sharp slicing discomfort.
The sooner I was home, the better.
The sooner I was in Neri’s arms, the sooner I could breathe.
I stepped outside.
I was free.
An elderly man pushed a white-haired woman in a wheelchair. The fear in his eyes held aching concern from a husband for his wife. A mother ducked past me with a screaming boy in her arms, and a young woman brushed away tears as she darted toward the ER with a tea-towel wrapped around her bloody hand.
So many maladies.
So many people.
But no one stopped me.
No one cared who I was or that I was leaving without being discharged.
I stood outside the hospital and fought the urge to crumple with relief.
Neri.
My entire nervous system screamed to see her. Anxiety roared through my veins. Impatience cracked my bones.
I moved farther away from the yawning entrance of the hospital.
A silver SUV pulled up in the drop-off zone as I followed the footpath, glancing around the many vehicles for Jack’s Wrangler. Four men in black suits stepped out, official and stern.
Instincts prickled to move out of their way, and I cut to the left, scanning the parked cars, wishing I had my phone so I could call Jack and find out where he’d parked.
Is he even here?
Where should I wait if he isn’t?
One of the suited men caught my gaze as he headed toward the hospital doors. Dark-brown eyes, neatly styled blond hair, and lips that were so thin they seemed drawn on with a pencil. Our stare held then broke as I continued on my way, and he followed his colleagues toward the sliding doors.
The sound of their footsteps suddenly stopped.
Whispers rose from behind me.
It’s nothing.
They’re no one.
You’re no one.
Just keep walking.
I balled my hands and marched faster, ignoring the screeching in my hip and the stabbing pains of my ribs as I struggled to catch a proper breath.
A glint of sunlight on a windscreen.
The familiar dinged-up sides of Jack’s Jeep as he pulled into the hospital drop-off zone, inching toward me.
Relief tried to buckle my knees.
My gaze shot immediately to the passenger side, my heart screaming for Neri.
Had she come?
Is she here?
But it was just Jack.
Just my father-in-law from a marriage witnessed by the moon and sea. A guy who’d probably banished his daughter from coming, just in case something happened.
I couldn’t blame him.
I couldn’t get mad.
But my heart didn’t behave.
It wasn’t mad.
It was sad.
Fucking endlessly sad because it missed her so fucking much.
Fifteen minutes and you’ll see her again.
Fifteen minutes and you’ll be home.
Sucking in a breath, I picked up my pace.
Just a little farther.
Hurry.
Jack spotted me and grinned.
His hand lifted from the steering wheel. He waved as he navigated into a parking spot ten metres away.
So close.
So near.
Keep walking.
Keeping my chin down, I focused on keeping my pain at bay and—
“Excuse me.” A solid hand landed on my shoulder, spinning me around.
My stitches yanked, and my ribs poked. But it was my hip that almost made me black out as the man made me twist on the spot. Breathing heavily, I glowered at the guy who’d stopped me, and my heart fucking froze.
Four suited men stood before me.
In the hands of the closest one hung a picture.
My picture.
No...not my picture.
Someone else.
Someone I looked exactly like.
My world narrowed to a single moment, a single breath, a single rip-roaring heartbeat.
I felt as if I was choking, dying, screaming.
My nostrils flared as the men glanced at the photo of my father—my biological father—and nodded at each other. “You’re Aslan Avci? Or should I say Aslan Kara?”
The sound of Jack’s door slamming made me look over my shoulder.
Our eyes connected.
True fear tore between us.
It was tangible.
Alive.
A hot, stinging conduit of disbelief.
One of the men stepped closer, raising the photo of Cem. Planting it in my face, he snapped, “Is this your father?”
