“No, no, not the doctor! Don’t let them take me. They’ll cut me open again. I’ll die this time.” Pippa starts fighting to get out of the car.
“Jules, what the fuck is going on?” Hudson asks quietly. He has her in his arms, trying to contain her, as she wails about not having another surgery.
“Hudson is here, Pippa. Let him hold you, okay. We are going to Enzo’s, okay?”
Pippa begins to take deep breaths as Hudson whispers in her ear. She mumbles about being confused before she starts to pass out.
I distinctly hear her say “Maribel Island” a final time.Jesus Christ.Is she saying what I think she’s saying? I make eye contact with Hudson—he’s clocking the same thing.
“We’re almost there,” I say. “Let’s get her to the clinic. Then, Jules, Luna, we’re going to talk about Maribel Island and Magnus Troy.”
TWENTY-TWO
avowal
Pippa
Sunday Evening, Day 32
Water beats down over my shoulders, hot enough to sting, but I barely register the pain. I brace my hands against the tile and close my eyes, letting the steam fill my lungs. I can’t seem to convince my body that I’m safe.
Last night I was anything but safe.
I didn’t mean to put myself in such a dangerous situation—not again.
I hope Jules and Luna believe me. They seemed to. Doc finding Rohypnol in my system validated what I told them, at least.
I went to U Street to go clubbing, to get out of my head. I wanted loud music and flashing lights—anything to help me forget the strong arms and warm eyes of the two men I couldn’thave.
Two men who found their way to each other and away from me.
I barely remember making it from the club to the biker bar. I must have been drugged at the club.How could I have been so dumb? So careless?That thought keeps looping through my brain, no matter how many times I remind myself I’m here now. Alive. Clean. Wrapped in borrowed comfort inside the Luciano mansion of all places.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I see flashes of last night when I close my eyes. Hands that weren’t mine, the sour taste at the back of my throat, the way time fractured. I remember thinking, dimly, distantly, that maybe this was it—that I’d made one mistake too many.
And then there were voices. Familiar ones. Arms around me. Hudson. Jules. Luna.
Even Enzo.
They came for me.
The water runs as gratitude crashes over me all over again, sharp enough to hurt.
They found me. They pulled me back to safety, back to myself. I don’t know how to reconcile that kind of loyalty with the danger that very loyalty keeps dragging them into.
Or the fact that Enzo made it very clear he doesn’t want me around anymore only few days ago.
I shut off the water and step out of the shower, wrapping myself in a thick towel. My hands tremble as I dress. Not with fear, not exactly—anticipation, dread.
They’re waiting for me downstairs.
All of them.
Jules and Luna told me what I had said in the van while I was drugged. Things I didn’t mean to give voice to, didn’t intend to expose. I put myself and my sisters at risk.
I guess Enzo and Hudson have tried to get Luna and Jules totell them more today, to explain why I was talking about Maribel Island, about Troy, and about doctors I didn’t want to see again.
