9. Emma #4
“Kiki!”
He drops down beside her.
“Back up and give me room,” Sofia orders without breaking rhythm.
He obeys immediately, his hands shaking above the tile.
“Kiki. Come on.”
The hotel employee returns with a red first-aid case and an AED.
Before Sofia can reach for it, Kiki coughs.
The sound is wet and thin, but air enters her lungs.
Sofia stops compressions and rolls her carefully onto her side.
“Keep her there. Don’t give her anything.”
The dark-haired man drops beside her head and keeps saying her name, over and over, as though the sound of it might keep her with him.
The paramedics rush in with a gurney, and Sofia moves back just enough to give them room.
“Convulsions first. Then she became unresponsive and stopped breathing. I started compressions. She coughed on her own after that.”
Her voice stays clear as she gives them everything in order.
I look at Sofia in awe.
Clearly, all those years of Luis, and probably Ana, drilling first aid into the family had not gone to waste. Sofia had paid attention.
They fit an oxygen mask over Kiki’s face, secure her to the gurney and wheel her away. The dark-haired man follows the paramedics out without looking back.
Sofia makes it three steps toward the sinks before veering into a stall. A second later, she vomits.
Danny follows her, stopping outside the stall. He pulls the door almost closed behind her, leaving just enough space to stay nearby without crowding her.
Water runs somewhere near the sinks. A heel scrapes against the tile.
Across the room, Finn is still pressed to the wall. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, her red hair looks almost too bright against her pale skin.
She has not moved since the paramedics came in.
A blond man pushes through the doorway.
“Finny?”
She does not react.
He crosses the room and takes her by the shoulders, giving her a careful shake.
“Finn. It’s Sean.”
She blinks twice before her eyes find his.
“Sean.”
“What happened?”
“She apologized.”
His brow draws together. “What?”
“Kiki.” Finn swallows. “Kiki—Kiriyaki Drakos. She apologized and then... one minute she was talking to me, and the next she was on the floor convulsing.”
Sean looks toward the empty doorway where the paramedics disappeared.
“Let’s go home.”
He takes Finn’s hand.
She allows him to lead her away.
“Are you okay?” Alex’s voice takes several seconds to reach me.
I turn on him.
“Am I okay? That poor woman stopped breathing. What is going to happen to her?”
The stall door opens, and Sofia steps out looking pale enough to make me worry all over again. She rinses her mouth at the sink, dabs it with a paper towel, then catches me staring at her in the mirror.
“For once in your life, worry about yourself,” she says. “You look white as a sheet.”
“I should be asking you that. Did I hear you throwing up everything you ate?”
“Not a big deal.” She shrugs as though her hands were not just keeping someone alive. “The smell of drugs does that to me sometimes.”
“Drugs?”
“Definitely cocaine.” She washes her hands. “Not even good cocaine. Apparently the expensive kind doesn’t smell.”
I stare at her. “How do you know that?”
“It is depressingly popular in my community.”
“Since when do you discuss cocaine this casually?”
“I’m an artist in New York. Drugs are everywhere, galleries, private shows, after-parties. You learn to recognize things you never wanted to know.”
Alex looks toward Danny, his eyebrows lifting.
Danny answers with a long-suffering sigh that tells me this is not the first time Sofia has delivered that particular lecture.
When Sofia finishes drying her hands, Danny holds out a folded handkerchief.
She wipes her mouth, then slaps it back against his chest.
He catches it and slips it into his pocket without comment.
“I’m getting you a room here tonight,” he says. “I know I promised to fly you home, but you’re not getting on a plane after this.”
Normally, Sofia would argue on principle the second someone told her what she was or was not doing.
This time, she only nods.
“I think that’s best.”
Danny stares at her. “No argument?”
“Don’t get used to it.” She turns to me. “Besides, I want time with my Emma. We keep missing each other like ships passing through different ports.”
“Brunch tomorrow,” Danny says. “You need to rest. Nothing tonight.”
Then he looks at Alex, who does not seem any more interested in making plans tonight than Danny is.
Alex nods once.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Are the two of you arranging our morning over our heads?”
“Yes,” Sofia answers. “Let them. It makes them feel useful.”
She hugs me, smelling of champagne and mint mouthwash. She leans enough of her weight into me that I have to brace us both.
“Tomorrow,” she says against my hair. “You’re telling me everything.”
“You first.”
“Fine. We’ll both spill over pancakes.”
I smile despite the sour taste lingering at the back of my throat.
“Tomorrow.”
She leaves with Danny.
Alex is still watching me when my smile fades.
Then Dante’s words come back.
Rotating shifts.
Alex had people watching Liam before I ever begged him to help. Before I stood in his kitchen and offered him anything.
I turn and walk away without a word.
I do not say a word to him on the way back to the hotel.
True to his promise, there are no photographers waiting at the exits. His men close around us and get us through without anyone coming near.
I should feel guilty for hurting him. For all the things he has spent ten years blaming himself for.
I try.
But the guilt will not stay.
All I can hold on to is the anger, and the sick desperation of knowing we have somehow ended up trapped in a corner with no clean way out.
When we reach the suite, I do not spare him a glance. I storm past him and head straight for my room. The door to my bedroom slams hard enough to shake the frame.
Alex does not follow me.
For several seconds, I stand with my back pressed against the wood, trying to slow my breathing.
The night refuses to settle.
The Art foundation. Finn’s tissue. Dante’s apology. Sofia in that dress. Danny calling her baby. Preston’s face. Mark’s debts in Alex’s mouth. Kiriyaki convulsing on white tile while Sofia counted above her.
Beneath all of it sits one fact I cannot push aside.
Alex already had men protecting Liam.
He had been protecting both of us since Pinehaven. He strengthened the security after I was hurt outside the town hall, long before I came to Dallas and stood in his kitchen believing I had nothing left to offer except myself.
He knew Liam was safe and he still let me beg.
He watched me promise anything in return for the protection he had already given.
My throat feels bare without the locket. It is on the other side of this door with him, another piece of myself placed in his hands.
A narrow strip of light shows beneath the door.
Then a shadow blocks it.
He is standing outside.
No knock. No demand that I open the door. He simply remains there, close enough that only a few inches of wood separate us.
I place my palm against the door where his chest would be.
The hope Dante gave me is still there, cruel and impossible to ignore.
The Alex I loved is still in there. He protected Liam when no one was watching and expected nothing in return.
Then he looked me in the eye and let me sell myself for something he had already done.
Both men are real.
The one who protects me and the one who uses my fear against me.
My fingers curl against the painted wood.
I want to open the door and claw every answer out of him the way he has spent weeks clawing at me.
Instead, I leave my palm where it is and let him stand in the hallway.
Tonight, rage wins.