Page 88 of The Voicemail

“Drive,” I tell Marco.

The SUV pulls away from the alley. Beside me, Elena leans into my shoulder, still shaking, still holding my hand, still carrying a secret she doesn’t know I already have. I look down at our joined hands and keep my voice low enough that only she can hear it.

“I’m taking you home.”

27

ELENA

Alex’s doctor tells me I’m lucky. I almost laugh in his face. I don’t feel lucky. I feel like every inch of my body has been dropped from a height and dragged across a restaurant kitchen for good measure. My wrists burn under the bandages. My shoulder aches no matter how I sit. My cheek is swollen, my lip is split, and there’s a bruise along my ribs that looks worse every time someone checks it.

Still, nothing is broken thankfully. No internal bleeding or alarming cramping either.

The doctor doesn’t directly ask about the baby or allude to my pregnancy. He’s careful in the way expensive doctors are. He asks about nausea, pain, dizziness, spotting, and whether I have a preferred OB.

I stare at him. A preferred OB. As if I’ve had time to build a medical team between being stalked, kidnapped, and finding out the man I created a life with is one of the most dangerous people in New York.

“I don’t have one,” I say.

“That’s all right,” he says. “We can arrange someone discreet.”

I look past him at Alex. He stands near the windows, blood still on his cuff, and his face unreadable. He’s barely spoken since we got here, except to answer the doctor’s questions when I got too tired to remember the order things happened in. He doesn’t look away when I catch him watching me.

That makes my stomach twist.

He knows. I don’t know how, but I know he knows.

The doctor finishes with another warning list. Get some rest, drink lots of fluids, and no strenuous activity. Make sure someone’s there to wake me if the headache worsens. Call him immediately if there’s bleeding, abdominal pain, or fainting.

After he leaves, I sit against the pillows in Alex’s bed and try not to look like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Alex walks back in a minute later.

“Maya’s here,” he says.

I push myself up too fast and immediately regret it. “Here?”

“In the living room. Luca brought her up after the doctor cleared the worst of it.”

“I want to see her.”

“I know.”

He moves like he wants to help me sit up, then stops himself. I notice.

That one tiny hesitation feels bigger than it should. Yesterday, he’d have crossed the room and fixed the pillows whether I asked or not. Today, he stays put and lets me struggle with the blanket. Respect for my boundaries. Who is this man?

“I’ll send her in,” he says.

Maya enters thirty seconds later with a bandage on one wrist, a bruise on her cheek, and a furious expression on her face. For a second, neither of us says anything. Then her face crumples.

I start crying before she reaches the bed. Maya climbs onto the mattress carefully, moving like her whole body hurts too, and wraps her arms around me without squeezing too hard.

“I’m sorry,” I say into her shoulder.

“You have no reason to be sorry.”

“They took you because of me.”

Her voice shakes against my hair. “Don’t make me comfort you and argue basic logic while I’m concussed.”