When I land in Chicago, I take a cab right to Riona’s office building. I feel certain that’s where she’ll be, and sure enough, I see a light burning in her corner office.
Carl is manning the front desk. He recognizes me from all the days I tailed Riona, and he waves me in saying, “She’s already upstairs.”
I take the elevator up, my heart beating hard. I already went over all the things I wanted to say to her on the flight over. All I’m doing now is hoping against hope that when she sees me, her face lights up with happiness, not annoyance.
But when I get to her floor, her office is empty. Her light is on and her chair is swiveled around, as if she was sitting in it not long before. But there’s no one around. The floor is silent.
I stand there waiting, wondering if she went to the bathroom. Carl said she was up here—he would have noticed if she left.
I peek my head out the doorway and see a faint glow of light down the hall.
I head in that direction, recognizing the route to Oran’s office. I’m walking slowly at first, thinking that Riona must be talking to her uncle. But it’s too quiet, too still. There’s a metallic scent in the air, and something else—a faint whiff of smoke. I start to jog, and then I run. I shove my way through Oran’s door.
Oran is spread-eagle on the carpet, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. A round, black hole marks the middle of his forehead, and a stain spreads out from under his head like a dark halo. Riona lays ten feet away, facedown.
An inhuman sound comes out of me—halfway between a roar and a sob. I run over to her and roll her over, terrified at what I’m about to find.
Her face is bruised and pale—paler than I’ve ever seen it. Her lips are turning blue. But she isn’t dead. Putting my fingers to her throat, I feel a pulse. Weak and erratic, but there.
I scoop her up in my arms and I run for the elevators. She feels too light and too cold—her skin is clammy, as if she just came in from the rain. As we’re riding down, I’m already calling an ambulance.
The paramedics take her to Northwestern Memorial, and pump her stomach on the way. They ask me what she took, but I have no idea. Whatever it was, I’m pretty sure she didn’t take it willingly.
The nurses put an IV in her arm and fill her with fluids. Within minutes of the saline drip running down into her arm, the color begins to come back into her cheeks. Just a light tinge of pink, but it fills me with hope.
I’ve already called Dante. He calls Callum and Fergus. Fergus is the first to arrive at the hospital. He comes into Riona’s room, his face chalk-white with fury.
“Where is he?” he hisses at me.
“Oran?” I say. I’m mindful of the fact that whatever he may have done, Oran is still Fergus’s brother. “He’s back at the law office. But I’m sorry to tell you, Sir—he’s dead.”
I see a twitch at the corner of Fergus’s mouth. A tiny grimace. It’s immediately swallowed up by his cold fury.
“He’s damned lucky, then,” Fergus says.
He sits down next to Riona’s bed, stroking her hair back from her forehead. That red hair is the only color on her person at the moment. It looks more brilliant than ever against her pallor.
I’m torn, because I think Fergus might want to be alone with his daughter. But I don’t want to leave Riona’s side—not for an instant.
Fergus can feel me standing behind him, my eyes fixed on Riona’s face.
“You don’t have to leave,” he tells me. “It’s because of you she’s alive.”
“I shouldn’t have let her drive back alone,” I say.
Fergus lets out a small chuckle. “I doubt you had much choice about that,” he says. “I know my daughter. She makes her own decisions.”
He turns around to look at me fully. His face gives me a bit of a shock, because it’s so similar to Oran’s. Other than some small differences in coloring, Fergus could have been the man I saw lying dead on the carpet an hour ago. But there’s a fierceness in his face that Oran didn’t have. Men have the ability to recognize leaders—it’s clear at a glance that Fergus is a boss.
“Parents love all their children,” he tells me. “But not all children are equally able to accept love. I’ve tried to show Riona how much I value her. But I don’t think she’s ever understood how much she means to me.” He touches her hair again, gently, just like Imogen did in the kitchen. “I’m not blaming her,” he says. “I only wish I spoke her language better.”
I look at Fergus, and I think about my own father. I think about the day I discovered that Waya wasn’t related to me by blood. He was only my father by caring for me, teaching me, protecting me, and loving me. He was only my father in all the ways that mattered.
I wasn’t able to accept his love in that moment.
But I felt it every day since.
“She knows,” I say to Fergus. “Trust me, she knows.”
Fergus nods, slowly. “I hope you’re right,” he says. After a moment, he adds, “I owe you a debt. Whatever we were paying you—”
I interrupt him. “There’s no debt.”
Fergus persists. “Yes, there is. Forgetting a debt doesn’t mean it’s paid.”
He can see that I’m uncomfortable. That I don’t want to be rewarded for taking care of Riona.
Not by him, anyway. Only Riona can give me what I actually want.
“You think on it,” he says to me. “Then come find me.”
Most of Riona’s family comes to the hospital that night. Imogen arrives shortly after her husband. They stay several hours in the hopes that Riona might wake up. Dante and Callum come at 3:00 in the morning, delayed by the necessity of disposing of Oran’s body first.
“Can’t have the other lawyers finding him in morning,” Dante mutters to me.
“Did you take the carpet out, too?” I say, remembering the bloodstain.
“Of course. That’s how we carried the body out. Cal shut off the cameras, and told Carl to take a smoke break.”
“Where’s the body now?”
“Buried on the South Shore property,” Cal says to me. “He can rot on the land he used to defraud us.”
Cal seems to have no compunction about burying his uncle’s body. None of the Griffins have shed a tear for Oran. Riona would have. But the fool tried to kill the only person who actually loved him.
Early in the morning, right as the sun is coming up, a slim, pretty girl with light-brown hair and a smattering of freckles comes into Riona’s room. I’ve never met her before, but I know immediately this is Riona’s little sister Nessa. The way she moves and stands gives her away as a dancer. Plus she’s carrying a huge bouquet of peonies, which I know are Riona’s favorite.
“Oh!” Nessa cries, her green eyes filling with tears at the sight of the bruise on Riona’s cheek. “Dad said she wasn’t hurt . . . ”
“She’s okay,” I tell her. “Just sleeping.”
Nessa grabs Riona’s hand and squeezes it. She’s dropped the peonies on the nightstand, totally forgotten in her anxiousness over her sister.
She’s truly crying now, tears running down both cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just . . . Riona seems so invincible. It’s hard to see her like this.”
“I know,” I say, shaking my head. “She’ll be alright, though. I promise.”
Nessa looks over at me, really seeing me for the first time. “You’re her bodyguard,” she says. “Raylan?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Nessa.”
“I know,” I say. “Riona talks about you a lot.”
“She does?” Nessa says, her eyes bright with pleasure.
“Yeah,” I say. “A lot more than Callum. She barely likes him at all.”
Nessa laughs. Her laugh is higher than Riona’s, but the cadence is the same.
“You’re funny,” she says. “That makes sense.”
“What does?”
“Riona pretends to be so serious. But she likes to laugh . . . you just kinda have to make her.”
“I figured that out over time,” I say. “She doesn’t like to do anything the easy way.”
“Better not say that too loud,” Nessa smiles. “In case she can hear us.”
“I wouldn’t dare say anything behind her back that I wouldn’t say right to her face.”
Nessa looks at her sleeping sister, her face full of affection. Then she bites her lip, her expression troubled again.
“Poor Riona,” she says. “She was so close to Uncle Oran . . . I can’t believe he would do that to her.”
I think about what Fergus said. And I think what I’d like to do to Oran, if he was still alive. Fergus is right. Oran got off easy, with a clean shot between the eyes.
Nessa sees the murderous expression on my face. Far from frightening her, it seems to please her.
“I’m glad she has you here,” Nessa says. “You’re going to stay here with her?”
“Yes,” I say, firmly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” Nessa says. She leans over and kisses Riona softly on the cheek. “Tell her I came to see her,” she says. “I’ll come back again in the afternoon.”
“I’ll tell her,” I promise.
I’m glad that I’m the only one in the room when Riona finally wakes. I’d hate to sit back and let the others crowd around her. I’d hate to try to hide what I feel.
When her eyelids flutter open, the first thing she sees is my face. I watch her expression. I see the relief and happiness in her eyes.
“Raylan,” she whispers.
Her voice is hoarse because of the tube they put down her throat.
“You don’t have to talk,” I tell her.
“Yes, I do,” she says.
I grab the tumbler of ice water the nurses left, and I hold the straw to her lips so she can take a sip. Once she’s swallowed it down, she can speak a little easier.
“You saved me,” she says. “Again.”
“You saved yourself,” I tell her. “You shot Oran.”
She frowns, that green fire flaring up in her eyes. “That asshole,” she says. “He stole the money, not Josh.”
“I figured as much,” I say. “I didn’t think you shot him just for having bad taste in pocket squares.”
Riona gives a raspy little chuckle. “Don’t joke,” she says. “I can’t laugh right now.”
“I can’t help it,” I say. “I’d do anything to make you smile.”
She’s smiling now. She reaches up and touches my face, gently.
“I can’t believe you came back here,” she says.
“I’d go anywhere for you, Riona. I’d do anything. I know I probably shouldn’t tell you that. You don’t like anything if it’s too easy. But it’s true—you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger.”
“I could say the same to you,” she says, arching one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “I know what Long Shot means.”
“Yeah? Well you were the longest shot I ever took. What do you think? Did I make it?”
“Yes,” she tries to hold back her smile but she can’t. “I don’t know how you did it, but you hit the bullseye.”
I can’t stop grinning. I have to lean over her hospital bed to kiss her. And what was supposed to be a gentle, careful kiss turns into something much harder and deeper. Because I’m flooded with too much emotion—relief that this woman I adore is safe and sound in my arms. Happiness that she wants me here. And that intense desire that’s sparked by the softness of her lips and the scent of her skin. A desire that doesn’t give a damn that she’s stuck in this bed with an IV in her arm. I still want her. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
I don’t know what I’d do, if the nurse didn’t interrupt us.
“Don’t crush the patient,” she says to me. “You know I wasn’t even supposed to let you stay the night.”
“Well, you’d need a whole lot more nurses to drag me out of here,” I say.
“We’ve got a nurse named Barney,” she says. “He was a lineman for Penn State.”
“Alright,” I grin, stepping back so the nurse can take Riona’s vitals. “Don’t sic Barney on me.”
