Epilogue
The second my eyes opened, the pain started.
In my foot, my face, the side where the attacker’s arms wrapped too tightly around me to drag me up to Zeno’s apartment.
Then there was the pounding in my head, the nausea rolling in my stomach, and a dizziness I didn’t expect. I didn’t know a lot about chloroform, but I didn’t imagine inhaling it was good for you. Maybe this was a hangover from that.
Under all that, though, was a sore throat from hell.
Like I’d been gargling glass and rocks at the same time.
There was something else, though.
A too-hot feeling in my face.
When I reached up, I was clammy to the touch.
Did Char and I catch the same bug?
Did I have that to look forward to on top of everything else?
Needing something cold to drink, some meds, and to complain to a sympathetic ear, I slid off the bed and swiveled on my good foot to drop my ass into the electric wheelchair Christopher must have moved in sometime while I was passed out.
I hoped for his sake—as the only well and uninjured person in the house—that he got at least a few hours of sleep.
It took me a second to figure out the knob on the chair. I still managed to ram the foot into the doorway twice before I got through it, but I imagined this was leaps and bounds better than crutches.
“You good?” Christopher asked, turning away from the stove where he had a giant steaming stockpot situated.
That had to be the soup.
“Never driven anything in my life,” I admitted. “There’s a learning curve.”
“That there is,” he agreed, his gaze moving over me.
Mine moved around the house but found neither of the kids lounging around.
“Liam insisted on taking Tuna for his walk. Char was up for a while, but the cold meds knocked her ass right back out.”
“How are they both?”
“Liam is pretending nothing hurts. Char is doing enough moaning and groaning for the two of them.”
“Hey, Christopher?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I have a temperature?”
“Uh-oh,” he said, wincing as he moved over toward me and pressed his wrist to my forehead. “Yeah, you’re warm. Like you don’t have enough going on, huh?”
“Right?”
“I guess it’s hard to ask if you have a sore throat or body aches, huh?”
“I’m one giant body ache.”
“Meds?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Coffee?”
“Can you ice it?”
“That I can do.”
“Did you get any sleep?”
“A few hours. Enough. I’m sure we will all crash on and off all day. But I wanted to get the groceries put away and make the soup so we can all lounge around.”
“Soup sounds good.”
“Glad you think so because I have a feeling we are going to get more dropped off by the women in the family. Plus some lasagnas or pastas. The Family always comes in hard when people are hurt or sick.”
“I could always go for lasagna. But that soup sounds good.”
“It’s got another twenty minutes or so to go. Then you can have as much as you want. Here,” he said, coming back with a glass full of iced coffee and three pills. “Two ibuprofen for your fever and one of the pain pills from Salvatore. And I don’t want to hear any bitching about it; you need it.”
I wasn’t about to complain.
Once the pills were working their way through my system and I had half of the iced coffee in me, I was feeling slightly less awful.
It was then that Liam came walking in the door, still hinged to the side like his ribs hurt. There was a bulkiness under his shirt, too, like maybe he’d wrapped them up before the walk.
His bruises had set in, a smattering of navy and plum stains over his jaw, his chin, under one of his eyes, and on his forehead and temple.
On top of that, his lip looked a bit swollen from the inside where Christopher said he’d needed to get stitches.
But it could have been so, so much worse.
“You,” I said, sighing at him, “don’t you ever come to my rescue again.”
His smile was slow.
“Not making that promise.”
“Stubborn Costa men.”
“You love us.”
“When you’re right, you’re right. You feeling sick too?” I asked.
His step hesitated, like he didn’t want to get close to me.
“You’ve already been exposed,” Christopher said, shrugging. “I think we’re all doomed at this point. Best we can hope for is that one of us stays well enough to take care of the others.”
We were still just standing there when Charlotte’s little cry drifted over to us. “Mom?” she called. Then, seeming to remember herself, “Uncle Chris?”
“Want me to go?” I asked. “Or should she not see me like this?”
“Ezzy and Brio talked to her last night. And I talked to her this morning. It’s alright.”
I drove over in that direction, pausing in the doorway. “I can be with you,” I offered, “or I can get your uncle.”
“Stay,” she said, sniffling hard, sounding painfully congested.
“Scoot over.”
“I don’t want to get you sick.”
“Too late, kiddo. You and me, we’re in this together,” I told her, parking next to the bed, then hauling myself up and sitting down. “How’re you feeling?”
“Everything hurts.”
“I know the feeling,” I agreed, lying down next to her. “But it sounds like I have a lot of stuffiness to look forward to.”
“My face is tight.”
I reached out, feeling her face. “At least the fever is down. You had us freaked out last night.”
“Are you okay?” she asked, her gaze moving over my face.
“I am. And we don’t have to worry about anything bad happening anymore.” To that, her face fell. “What’s the matter?”
“Are you leaving then?” she asked, her lip trembling. She was clearly feeling too shitty to hide her feelings.
“No, of course not.”
“When you’re better?” she asked.
“Nope. I was kind of hoping I could stay here with you guys. If that’s okay with you. If it’s not, you can tell me.”
“I want you to stay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I really like it here.”
“Do you love my uncle?”
“I do,” I said. “And your brother. And you.”
“Yeah?” she asked, eyes round, hopeful, maybe a little scared.
“Yep.”
“I, um, I love you too.”
My heart felt like it grew a size at that, at the shy, careful way she said it.
“Good. Because you’re stuck with me now.”
“Ice pop delivery,” Christopher said, appearing in the doorway with a cup full of several of them.
“I don’t like grape,” Charlotte complained.
“That’s okay. I do. You can have the pink. Whatever flavor that is.”
“Pretty sure all the flavors are just ‘sugar,’” Christopher said. “How are my girls doing?”
“Wallowing,” I told him. “But together. Like a family.”
“Got room for me?” he asked, making his way toward the bed.
He scooted in behind me, sliding me between his legs. And I saw the smile Charlotte tried to hide.
“What? I don’t get an invite?” Liam asked from the doorway, Tuna at his feet.
He made his way toward the bed, taking up the spot at the foot, Tuna curled in at his side.
Sure, two of us were beaten and bruised.
And two of us were sick.
But curled up with them was the best I’d felt in a long time.
Judging by the look on the kids’ faces, they felt the same way.
Christopher’s lips pressed to my temple, and his arms wrapped around me.
I knew he felt it too.
Christopher - 1 week
The girls were on the mend.
Charlotte had a lingering stuffy nose but was mostly back to normal and was going back to school after the weekend.
Alara was still sleeping a lot, but it was impossible to tell if that was the flu, the aftereffects of the attack, or what.
Liam, on the other hand, was in the throes of body aches, fevers, and congestion.
So far, I’d somehow been lucky.
I figured if I got through the next day or two, I was going to avoid it completely.
Even with all the sickness and injuries, fuck, it was probably the best week of my life.
No more hiding what was going on.
I was in bed with Alara every night, sleeping with her on my chest, in my arms. Waking with her still there with me.
And getting to watch the kids fall all the more in love with her now that they knew she had no intentions of leaving.
There was a knock at the door as I slid one of the frozen lasagnas that had been dropped off into the oven.
“I got it,” I said when Charlotte and Alara looked up from their positions in the living room—Char on the couch, Alara beside it in her chair.
“Oh, hey,” I said when I saw Brio.
“Can I talk to you and Alara out here?” he asked, waving to the hall.
“Everything alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Alara, got a sec?” I asked.
Her posture stiffened, but she rolled over to the door and out of it, only managing to hit the jamb once.
“When Zeno was digging into Robin’s case, he found out that Robin left something kinda important behind,” Brio said.
“Seems like she’d been hopeful about the future.
She’d just adopted a kitten,” Brio told us.
“When she was killed, they brought it to the shelter. But they’re overrun.
And it’s a kill shelter. And he’s… not the most desirable kind—a black cat with yellow eyes. ”
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Alara asked, nodding toward the box sitting against the wall.
“I figured I’d give you guys the option to decide if you want to give him a home or not. He’s vetted, fixed, and dog tested. Know your girl liked our cats.”
Alara looked at me, eyes just the tiniest bit round.
“It’s your decision,” she said, even though her answer was all over her face.
“That’s not how this works,” I said, shaking my head.
“But it’s your apartment.”
“Figured it was our apartment.”
“Yeah, well, important shit to discuss. But I got places to be. So, here, you take this,” he said, grabbing the box and putting it down on Alara’s lap. “And you two talk it over. Let me know what you decide.”
“Brio,” I called as he turned to walk away.
But he was already ducking into the elevator.
Alara looked over at me, brows raised.
“Maybe we say we are fostering,” I suggested. “That way, if we decide cats aren’t for us, it’s not gonna rip out Char’s heart.”
“That feels like a solid plan,” she agreed, pushing the edge of the box inward to get a look at the kitten. “Hi, buddy. I’m sorry you lost your mom. And had to go to the stinky shelter. But you’re about to be very loved on.”