36. You’re a Flight Risk
Chapter 36
You’re a Flight Risk
Taz
Insanity was slow to creep into my consciousness. It started with realizing that I was his medical proxy. Then it hit that I had the same rights as a wife. A wife that lived separately from him, of course. But a wife nonetheless.
A wife.
Wife.
Power of Attorney. Keys. Shared vehicles. Medical proxy.
A ring on my finger.
As much as I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t the same as before, that he wasn’t like Heath, and that he wouldn’t magically turn into my ex after we got married… if we got married… I felt that same rising need to move. To hop on my bike, and head down the road until the gas tank ran out, and I was stuck in a place unknown.
Until the wind and the winding road put me in a trance and I forgot who I was. What I was.
What I had been.
I stared into the unflattering bathroom mirror, staring at my bruised face. I wish I was shocked by what I saw, but I wasn’t. Heath had done this to me before, and I had to cover it up with makeup - the only makeup I ever used. Green paste to cover the red swelling. Orange to reduce the look of blue bruising.
That’s what it was like to be a wife.
“Where is he?” A woman’s voice echoed down the hall outside, and my ears pricked up. “I know he’s on this floor. Do you know who I am?”
“Ma’am, please wait here.” That was Noam. What on earth was going on?
“I will not wait here! Do you know who I am? Go downstairs, to the hall. You’ll see my portrait on the wall, right above the sign that said DONOR!”
I splashed water on my face, washed my hands, despite not having used the toilet, but that was what was expected of me. I even flushed the unused toilet just… because.
I knew who was out there. I had never met her, but I didn’t need to.
I walked into the hall, and there she was, designer skirt suit from head to toe, her hair perfectly blow dried, and makeup impeccable. Brett and Noam stood shoulder to shoulder in front of her, keeping her in the lobby area by the elevators.
“I know he’s here. He’s my son! How dare you keep me away from him! I demand to see him…”
She continued that way, appealing to their sense of decency. When that failed, resorting to calling them nothing but brainless muscle.
I skirted along the wall, my head down, my hands held in front of me. Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me…
But then she did.
“You! You there!” She called out.
I couldn’t help it. I looked. I made eye contact with her, and her eyes narrowed.
Her perfect Jackie Kennedy bob seemed to vibrate with her agitation.
“It’s that woman! ” I knew that wasn’t a positive thing. Woman. She may as well have called me a whore.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, as I tried to walk past into the door, to get to Griff’s room.
“Why is she allowed on this floor?” I wondered why Griff’s mother seemed so well acquainted with me. “Why is she allowed here, and not me?”
Though, of course, I already knew the answer.
Kristin.
“Ma’am,” A nurse came, her hands out in a placating gesture, “She’s the designated medical proxy for the patient. I’m afraid that until he’s conscious, it’ll be up to her if…”
“How dare you!” I swear, Kamilla Griffith was about to slap the poor nurse even as she stared daggers at me. “How dare you trick him into putting you on his paperwork.”
She unleashed a torrent of insults, denigrating me, my stature, my looks, my relations with men. The usual sexist nonsense one might spew when you had a rich son.
I was a gold digger. A homewrecker.
Of course, I knew that wasn’t true.
The same way I knew that she was his mother, and she… cared.
She cared about him. That’s why she was so angry.
Her baby was hurt, and she came down all the way from DC to be by his bedside.
That was more than what my mother would do.
“Let her in.” I directed my comment to Noam.
Did I want to let her in? No. But it was the right thing to do.
Having a mother who cared, even if she was imperfect, was better than having a mother who clearly did not.
“Miss Guerro, I don’t think…” Brett started, staring at the crazy-eyed woman that was a walking poster of Chanel.
Even Kamilla was struck silent by my reaction. Her eyes widened, as her hand came over her heart, the designer purse dangling from her slender elbow. Her mouth opened to speak, then closed again.
“She’s his mother,” I said, with a shrug. “She should see him.”
I trudged into Griff’s room, where Sierra sat by the bed, her single brow raised, as her lips pursed to one side.
Griff was sitting up - the top of the bed elevated, as he looked at me with weary eyes.
“Firefly,” he sighed, his lips coming up in a small smile.
“Griff…” I sighed, just as his mother pushed me out of the way and went to him.
“My baby!” She reached out her long arms, grabbing him by the face and holding him to her.
“Mom…” he grunted. “Ouch.”
But she wasn’t at all assuaged.
“What happened? I will have the entire staff fired for not informing me! I had to find out from your father, and even that was like pulling teeth. I swear that man is working my last nerve. It took me everything not to divorce him right then and there! How dare he not tell me what was happening with my son —”
She went on and on. The whole time, Griff’s eyes were on me, like I was some kind of apparition, as his mother fussed and complained.
“And of course, I had to call Kristin—”
That was the first time Griff flinched away.
I didn’t flinch, per se, but I did tense at the name.
His ex-wife.
The apple of his mother’s eye. He had complained for days in the team room about his mother trying to push him and his ex together again. And that was clearly still happening.
“–And she’s worried about you too.”
“Why the fuck did you call Kristin?” Griff snapped.
“Don’t yell at your mother!” she said, clutching at the double strand of pearls around her neck. “I called her because she’s your wife–”
“Ex-wife.”
“Temporarily.” She shook her head. “She’s the one that’ll get you to the finish line when you run for President. A California family, and...”
Guess she forgot I was here. Or she didn’t care. I suspected the latter.
“I’m not running for President! Mom!” He pushed her away with a pained groan, his movements slow, and tired.
His eyes came back to me, and the anger roiling behind them frightened me. So did the sudden speed of the beeps coming from his heart monitor.
“This is why you weren’t my point of contact! This is why they didn’t call you when I got checked in here! I didn’t want you here. I sure as fuck don’t want Kristin here,” he groaned, his ears turning red with a slow, simmering rage. “And you bet your ass I’ll have words with my father about this. For a family of spies – Jesus! – we can’t keep a single fucking secret!”
“I’ve put up with a lot from your father over the years,” Kamilla lifted her nose in the air. “And when you are married for as long as we have been, you will also deal with the same. The least he can do is keep me informed about my own children.”
The door opened and a concerned nurse came in, her eyes scanning the room.
“Sir, you need to calm down…”
“Kristin is the one you need by your side,” his mom said, waving her hand. “Not… not… that.”
She pointed at me with her eyes, and I recoiled. Yikes.
“Get her out of here,” Griff commanded the nurse. “Taser her if you have to. Handcuffs.”
The heart monitor was emitting a dangerous, long, high tone.
“You need to calm down, sir.” The nurse tried to approach.
“I’ll calm down when she gets the fuck out of here!”
“Sir…” The poor nurse.
“Wifey, you need to go to him,” Sierra said behind her hand, as she pointed at Griff with her eyes.
I don’t know why it was Sierra that finally pulled me from my stupor. But it worked. I ran to him, placed my arms around his neck, and tucked my face into his throat.
I should have done that first, when I saw he was awake. But I hadn’t.
Too much stimulation didn’t frighten me. But it did make me freeze until I had a handle on a situation.
But that wasn’t going to serve me now.
He smelled… chemical. Like iodine, plastic and baby powder. His arms tightened around my waist, and the high tone stopped, replaced by the rhythmic beeps.
“I thought you were about to run,” Griff whispered into my hair.
“I won’t run when you can’t follow,” I said, pulling away just enough to put our foreheads together. “That’s the deal, right? I run, you come after me?”
“Yes, baby,” he said, bringing a finger to my cheek. “I wish I could find the guy who made these,” he tapped a bruise on my cheek. “And return it to him a hundred times over.”
“I think he’s been handled,” I whispered.
He chuckled, lightly, “Sierra told me they lit the place up.”
“It was so pretty,” I said. “Pretty, pretty, fire. Best bonfire of the year.”
“Wait until I take you to my condo, and we see the fireworks over the Potomac at New Years,” he said, a smile on his lips. “It’ll knock your cute little socks off.”
“Who wears socks inside the house?”
“Perverts, obviously.” His smile faded, for just an instant, when he added, “And pretty fireflies who get cold feet.”
I laughed, then he laughed. And he traced the bruises on my face with feather-light fingers. The pain in my bruises seeming to drain away.
“Well,” s His mother’s voice broke in, and we both turned our heads to look at her. “It seems everything is well in hand here.”
Her face looked like she’d bitten on a lemon and smelled a fart at the same time.
But then she looked at the monitors, then back at me. I might have imagined it, but she seemed to soften.
“I expect to see you at the Gala,” she said, her nose so high that it was practically at the ceiling.
“I’ll be there with a guest,” Griff said. “I’ll be bringing my… my…”
He looked at me with desperation in his eyes. I knew him so well, that I understood his stumble. He wanted to announce it – to announce us . The little hamster in his head was trying to figure out if he should scream our engagement to the world, or keep it hidden.
I brought my hand to my cheek - the one with the ring.
He understood the assignment.
“I’m bringing my fiancée,” he finally said.
His mother looked at me, scanning me from head to toe, and she despised me. I knew I looked like a fright. I looked like something a cat dragged in after it batted it around for a while. I was covered in iodine and blood, bandaged, and in clothes at least a couple days old.
But she showed great fortitude, when she straightened and said, “Fine.”
“Uh! Excuse me?” Sierra said, raising her hand, her finger to the sky. “He’ll be bringing two guests.”
Griff and I looked at Sierra. I admired her cajones.
Sierra shamelessly said, “I need an excuse to wear my scarlet Vera Wang, and Wifey there will need someone to help her prepare.” She looked back to Kamilla Griffith and smiled, “He’ll bring two guests.”
This was how I ended up in a room with Sierra as she fussed and gesticulated with a curling iron. The yacht didn’t bob with the waves. It was far too large for that. The steady vibration of the engine beneath our feet lulled me into a feel of almost drowsy relaxation as Sierra fussed about my hair.
“You’re going to look like Audrey Hepburn, but without that ridiculous accent,” Sierra said, floating around in a slinky red dress that made her look like a live action Jessica Rabbit. “Except in silver and white - almost bridal, but not quite. Make that Kristin sit up and look at her replacement… her upgrade .”
“You have our day all planned out,” I chuckled.
“Oh, I have your whole life planned. First, with your wedding, next year in October. You’ll wear Bohemian chic. Real lace, not like a doily, but like…” she placed a finger to her lips. “An effortless royal bride.”
I smiled, not daring to interrupt her as she laid it all out for me.
“Red barn, with gossamer white drapes interspersed with fairy lights that look like fireflies.” Then she stopped, holding out two high healed black stilettos towards me. “And both your parents will be there.”
“Fat chance,” I scoffed.
“That’s why it’s next year, and not next month,” Sierra said, as I took the high heels from her hands, and put them on. “You both need to reconcile with your family. Or you’ll end up miserable.”
I stared down at the shoes, instead of looking at Sierra whose piercing blue eyes could melt a lesser person into confessing crimes they hadn’t committed.
“I have no family; did he tell you that?” Sierra’s quiet voice stunned me.
“No. No he didn’t.”
“My moth–… sister and I were in Eastern Ukraine. Ten years ago, we had to leave our home, and we got separated.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t even know where she died.”
“You know she’s dead?” I asked, unsure how she came to that conclusion, and also wanting to kick myself for not being more sensitive.
“If she was alive, she would have found me,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “And there’s no sign of her anywhere.” She shrugged. “I’m very good at finding people. If there was a trace of her, I’d know. So I am orphaned and alone.”
“Oh, Sierra…”
“Will you call me Daria? I know Kai will always call me by my call sign, but I’d like you to call me Daria, if that’s okay.”
“Daria,” I repeated.
She smiled, and something sweet flashed through her expression. Something heartwarming, and different from her usual sharp edges, and flashy grin.
Then she coughed, and the sweetness disappeared.
“Those shoes are weaponized,” she said, her eyes going down to my feet, then back to me. “Given lethal force, the plastic will break off, leaving a slim, sharp blade, with a fine point.”
“Jesus!” I said looking down at my shoes and lifting one up to look at the sharpened stiletto. “Why would you even have that lying around?”
She let out a crystal laugh, as she slinked to the door.
“You think I wear these shoes because they’re comfortable?” she laughed. “I can’t strap a knife or gun on me and keep these sexy lines, so I keep the blades in my shoes.”
She placed her hand on the doorknob and looked back at me.
“Take it from a poor girl from Donbas,” she said, as if it was an afterthought, “The way to fit in with the people we’re about to confront is to know, without a doubt, that you are better than them.”
Her smile was contagious as she lifted one graceful shoulder, and gave me a wink.
“You are worth so much more than gold.”
“I prefer silver,” I jangled my bracelet in the air.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Daria shook her head. “That’s not silver. It’s platinum. Thirty times more rare than gold.”