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I’d been there for them, as best as I could be, and I couldn’t talk earlier. Maybe Hope would forgive me for the late-night call, despite her twin baby girls being less than a year old.
I let it ring once before I decided I’d made a mistake. Who called and woke new parents? I was being really shitty. But when I would have hung up, she answered. “Michael? Is she okay?”
I sighed. “Not Michael. It’s me.” I leaned my head out the window and looked outside, recognizing the view all too well. I looked out the same window, I think, when Hope got shot. What did it say about my life if all these people I was close to kept getting shot? Was I a total narcissist for having the thought in the first place?
“Bridget!” She audibly exhaled. “Thank goodness.”
I heard her sigh, then footsteps, like she headed somewhere quickly. Since it was the middle of the night, I wondered if she hoped to let Max or the girls sleep. I should’ve waited to call, and I added the mistake to my long list of failures.
I began to apologize with, “Sorry it’s so late. I can call back another time. I’d be happy to—”
“No!” She stopped me with the quick interruption. “No, I’msoglad you called. Don’t ever worry about the time with me. You know that. You’re my sister.” Hope had always felt like the lost one of us, but that was only because she didn’t know what a mess I really was.
“Okay.” I sighed. “It’s a long story. I mean…how much of this do you want to hear?”
A chair screeched, and I imagined her sitting down in her comfortable, warm little kitchen. “I want to hearallof it. Michael messaged Max while I had a really bad flu, so I was out cold when things started. I only know that you were in Russia, and it was Justin’s fault. Layla and I have been trying to figure out if we could get to Russia, but we didn’t even know where in Russia you were. So, what did Justin do? I’m so confused.”
“Justin pretended he had a loaded gun—I mean he had a gun, but it wasn’t loaded—and then kidnapped me to Russia. Dad wanted to make me marry the son of a Russian mobster. I wasn’t going to have a choice.” I was simplifying a lot of it, but I didn’t want to think about it too much. I remembered posing for all of those pictures again and shook my head in irritation. “It wasrough. Michael came and he tried some amazing stuff, but he got shot in the process. You should probably tell Max and Zeke that their friend in the mob was murdered. Bit of a coup going on there right now, and Dad’s in the middle of it, I’m sorry to say. Anyway, now I’m in Germany. Michael is hurt, and he had surgery, and all of this is my fault.”
Hope was silent for a moment. I wondered if we’d lost our connection, but the timer still ticked on the screen.
Finally, my sister said, “How could any of this be your fault? You’re responsible for a lot of things, Bridget, but I can’t believe the workings of the Russian mob fall into your domain. I mean, are you doing things that I don’t know about for your job?”
My job.I closed my eyes for a second. I hadn’t even thought about it. I had to contact work.I mean, fuck. “No, I’m exactly who you think I am, Hope-y. I am. But if I’d taken a second to think about things and really forced Justin’s hand—he’s totally fucked up. I should have realized I wasn’t in any danger and not ended up there in the first place.” I opened my lids to look back outside again, but all I could see was his blood. “Then Michael wouldn’t be fighting for his life.”
My sister blew out a breath. “I’ll come to Germany. It’s going to take me a minute, but we’ll come. I’m pregnant again. I know. It’s very soon. It’s…actually very exciting but never mind that right now.”
She was pregnant again! My sisters were living these incredible lives with huge milestones, and I was…a mess. I blinked fast before I said, “I’m so happy for you. Hope, you are the most amazing mother. I love you. Don’t come to Germany. Just be careful, okay? Tell Max and Zeke and Layla for me, too, please. We might all be in danger again. I mean, you might all be, but I think I probably am already. Michael would not want you to come, I don’t think. I can ask his colleagues—they’re here watching me.”
“Bridget…” Hope lowered her voice. “Are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”
I waved my hand in frustration before I realized she couldn’t see me. “This is who I am. Who I’ve always been. Maybe you just didn’t notice, even though you seem to know all sorts of things that I don’t tell you. Like Michael confessing his feelings to me? Apparently, according to your text, you know about that?” I sounded hysterical even to my own ears, so I clamped my lips together tightly to stop the flow of words.
The chair screeched again; she must have gotten up. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” She wasn’t talking to me, I realized. “It’s Bridget. I’m sorry, Bridget. I wanted to bring this up to you a million times. He told me when Max broke up with me.” There was grumbling in the background, and I couldn’t help my smile. Max didn’t like her saying that he’d broken up with her, but it had certainly been complicated. He’d fucked up and lost her for a long while, but maybe he hadn’t officially broken up with her or said the words. I’d officially woken them both up. “Anyway,” she said as she came back to the phone. “It wasn’t like he called me up to tell me. I think he just wanted to let me know he understood how hard it was.”
“The next time someone tells you something about me, I’d really appreciate it if you could talk to me about it instead of texting with him.” I was being ridiculously touchy about it, but it felt like a raw wound. “This was a secret I kept close to my heart. It’s complicated in a way you don’t understand because you never asked me. Now it’s clear that you already knew, and I guess I don’t understand, since we’re sisters—and Michael is not related to you—why you didn’t just ask me about it?”
As I spoke, my words became increasingly loud until I practically shouted.
“Bridget…” She spoke in a steady voice meant to calm me. I knew that tone. It didn’t help, but noticing it at least made me cognizant again.
“Don’t. I mean, I woke you up in the middle of the night. Forget it. I’ll leave you alone. I’m fine. That’s the point. I’ll text you when Michael is better. You can talk to him. I know now how close you two are.” I hung up the phone with hands that shook.
That hadn’t been well done. Not at all. I could apologize to her tomorrow, and they’d all be so glad that I was back to having my shit together. I blew out a wobbly breath.
I walked back into Michael’s room just in time to see him trying to take the IV out of his arm.
“What are you doing?” I ran over, almost tripping over a chair to stop him. With gentle hands, I stopped him seconds before he got it out of his arm. “Stop that. It’s helping you.”
He glared at me. “I needed it out so I could come find you. I woke up and you weren’t here. I don’t remember huge chunks of things, but I clearly remember asking you to stay here so I could protect you.”
Michael was strikingly handsome, but I’d never seen him so cute before, all disgruntled and adorable. I smoothed his hair away from his face and tried not to overthink why I did it. “I went into the hall to call your friend Hope. I didn’t want to wake you, so I stepped just outside the door. Roy was out there, and he’s watching things. I don’t need you to rip out your IV to come find me the moment I leave the room. We’re in Germany. We’re safe now.”
He cleared his throat. “If that were true, Justin would be here, too. Am I right to assume he hasn’t showed up?”
I hadn’t really considered Justin. “No, he’s not here.”
“Right, so let’s assume they got him. My guy would have checked in if he recovered Justin, which means he’s either dead or he took off to avoid capture in Russia. I’m betting on thesecond one. He’s not easy to kill, so if we can, then Justin got away. If he’s been recaptured by the Bratva, then Konstantin’s learned who I am and what happened to you by now.Arewe safe here in the hospital? Probably. The location is a pretty well-preserved secret, for the most part.” He visibly swallowed. “But they could be headed for Germany, or to your place in Hong Kong, or looking for you stateside. They can’t let this go.”
