Sergei’s eyebrows shoot up. “What do you mean, no?”
“No. Tell them to…tell them to pack up and leave the city. Go get a motel and don’t tell anybody where they are.” Before their cruise trip, but I don’t want to mention the cruise to Sergei. Anyone offering something he wants could buy information on us from this man. He’d sell his own child for cash, I’m sure of it.
I don’t want him to know Chi-chi and Dad are departing for a cruise tomorrow. There’s a reason why Declan wants my family out of the city. I understand how he thinks now.
I’m skeptical of Sergei’s presence here. While he is my emergency contact, we’re not together anymore, and he’s being oddly attentive, standing there, holding vigil over me.
Sergei can’t be trusted. If the chief of police can threaten me as they wheel my injured ass into the hospital for treatment, he could bribe Sergei, put him in the room with me to feel me out. For what purpose? They think I know Crossbow secrets. I don’t.
“How are you feeling?” Sergei asks.
See? He’s being oddly attentive. He doesn’t care about how I feel. I know this like I know how to shave my legs. “Can you please call my dad and Chi-chi and put them on speaker?”
Sergei sighs as if I’m asking him to wash my car. That’s labor intensive for this asshole. He didn’t need a wife. He needed a damn maid, which his cheap ass can now afford since he made partner at a big law firm. Who needs Dina anymore, right?
My dad’s and Chi-chi’s faces pop up on the video screen.
“Oh my God, Mom.” Chi-chi starts to cry. My dad’s driving, and Chi-chi is in the passenger seat.
My left eye is swollen. Cuts mar my face. “I’m okay, I promise. They cleaned me up, and I didn’t need surgery or intensive care. I’m in a regular hospital room.”
“We’re on our way,” my dad says from the driver’s seat. The phone is on the dash mount.
“Dad, don’t come and don’t bring Chi-chi here.”
“What?” My dad glances at the phone, then back at the road. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not staying.”
“What do you mean?” Sergei asks.
I sit up, but the IV line hooked up to the fluid bag stings my left arm when it tugs on my skin.
“Dina, hold on. Where are you going?” Sergei folds over me and reaches the fluid cord.
I freeze in place when his body touches mine. “Get away from me.”
He sneaks a hand under my body and pinches my back. Hard.
I cry out.
“Mom!”
Sergei pretends he did nothing. “Your mother is fine. Just needs some rest. Rest, Dina.”
I sit up, place my feet on the floor, and grab the metal rod to which the IV is attached. I can bring it to me and try to figure out how to stop the flow before I remove the IV from my arm.
Sergei puts his hands on my shoulders and forces me back onto the bed. “Lie back down. Are you crazy?”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Dad, calm down,” Chi-chi says.
“Back off, Sergei,” my dad snaps.
“I’m only trying to help her. She probably has a concussion. There was blood everywhere. They took hours to patch her up.” He lifts the sheet. “Look at this.”
My right thigh is wrapped from groin to knee. “The doctor said the gash is deep, and she’s lucky it didn’t touch a major artery, or she’d have bled out.”
