Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN WHO ALWAYS LEFT
“No.”
Claire blinked.
I pushed myself upright and immediately regretted it.
Pain tore through my side.
Ava jumped up.
“Dad!”
“I’m fine.”
“You have twenty-two stitches.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Claire gave me a look.
“That line sounds ridiculous when you say it too.”
“Then stop stealing it.”
Harper woke.
Emma sat up.
Within thirty seconds, I had an audience.
Wonderful.
I looked at Claire.
“You’re not leaving.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You don’t decide that.”
“I employ you.”
“Not anymore.”
I stared.
“What?”
She pulled a folded envelope from her sweater pocket.
My blood pressure probably became medically concerning.
“You’re resigning?”
“Yes.”
Emma gasped as if Claire had announced she was joining a traveling circus.
“No.”
Claire looked at her.
“Sweetheart—”
“No!”
Emma jumped from the bed.
“You promised.”
The room went quiet.
Claire’s face broke.
“I promised I wouldn’t leave you during the danger.”
“You said you weren’t going anywhere.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
Claire knelt despite her injured leg.
“Emma, sometimes people—”
“Leave?”
The word was devastating.
Claire stopped.
Emma’s mother had left because she was murdered.
Her grandfather had left because he thought disappearing was protection.
Marcus had been family until betrayal took him away.
And now Claire thought leaving before anyone could choose her was somehow kinder.
I recognized the instinct.
I had spent three years doing the emotional version of the same thing.
Claire hugged Emma.
“I’m scared.”
Emma pulled back.
“Of Daddy?”
Harper snorted.
Ava covered her mouth.
I glared at both of them.
Claire actually laughed through tears.
“No. Not of your daddy.”
“Then what?”
Claire looked at me.
“Staying.”
Emma considered that.
Then she said, “That’s dumb.”
I had never loved my youngest more.
Claire closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Emma nodded.
“Okay.”
Then she hugged her again.
Ava spoke carefully.
“Claire, could we maybe let Dad talk to you alone before he bursts a blood vessel?”
“I am perfectly calm.”
All three daughters looked at me.
No one believed that.
Twenty minutes later, Claire and I were alone.
She stood near the window.
I remained trapped in the hospital bed because the universe enjoyed humiliating me.
“Why are you really leaving?”
“I told you.”
“No. You gave Emma the version you thought she could handle.”
Claire crossed her arms.
“Fine.”
She stared at the city.
“Everyone I love gets hurt.”
I said nothing.
“My parents died when I was twenty-one. Daniel was murdered because of me. Rachel died. I spent eight years moving every time someone got too close.”
“Daniel wasn’t murdered because of you.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“No. It’s true.”
“I saved Vane.”
“You saved a patient.”
“I brought him back.”
“And Vane chose what he did afterward.”
She turned.
“Roman—”
“You don’t get to carry responsibility for every evil decision made by a man you treated on an operating table.”
Her eyes filled.
I continued.
“And leaving my daughters won’t protect them.”
“They’ll survive.”
“That’s not the point.”
I lowered my voice.
“They love you.”
Claire looked away.
“And I love them.”
“Then stay.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t.”
I paused.
“I love you too.”
She froze.
Apparently I had found the one thing that could silence Claire Whitman.
“Roman.”
“I’m not asking you to answer.”
“You’re recovering from anesthesia.”
“I know what I’m saying.”
“You lost blood.”
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since you ordered me to put my gun away in my own kitchen.”
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
I smiled.
“That was a memorable evening.”
She walked toward the bed.
“You are impossible.”
“I have references.”
“Your references are criminals.”
“Former criminals, apparently. The federal government has several opinions about my business practices.”
She almost smiled.
Then her expression softened.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you run toward injured children while bullets are flying.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know you hate mushrooms.”
Her brows lifted.
“You noticed?”
“I know you read medical journals at breakfast. You drink coffee after midnight even though it makes you complain you can’t sleep. You pretend you aren’t afraid of thunder.”
Her face changed.
“I know Emma sleeps through the night when you’re nearby.”
I reached for her hand.
“I know Ava trusts you enough to cry in front of you. Harper asks you questions she stopped asking me after Isabella died.”
Claire’s fingers trembled in mine.
“And I know when you walked toward that hospital with me, you were more terrified than I was, and you went anyway.”
She whispered, “Roman.”
“I know enough.”
She looked down at our joined hands.
“What happens when life becomes normal?”
“I have no idea what normal looks like.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“We can invent it.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Claire leaned down and kissed me.
Soft.
Careful.
Far too brief.
When she pulled away, I said, “That was terrible.”
Her eyes widened.
“You—”
“We should try again.”
She laughed.
The sound filled the hospital room.
I kissed her properly.
A loud knock came from the door.
Ava called, “Are you done being emotionally repressed?”
Claire buried her face against my shoulder.
I shouted, “Go away.”
Harper yelled, “That means no.”
Emma yelled something about wedding cake.
Claire stared at me in horror.
I smiled.
“My daughters move quickly.”
“You’re not helping.”
Two weeks later, we returned to Chicago.
Malcolm Vane’s organization collapsed almost overnight.
Isabella’s evidence exposed judges, officers, corporate executives, three aldermen, and a federal investigator who had spent twelve years protecting Vane.
My father accepted immunity on several old charges in exchange for testimony.
I still hadn’t forgiven him.
Maybe someday.
For now, he rented a small house outside Chicago and visited my daughters under supervision.
Emma made him work harder for forgiveness than any judge could have.
Good.
Claire did not return to maid work.
Instead, Dr. Everett Shaw offered her a position at a trauma clinic funded through a foundation I created in Isabella’s name.
Claire argued for three days that I was interfering.
Then she accepted.
Ava recovered.
Harper returned to school.
Emma spoke more each week.
Not constantly.
But enough.
Then one morning, six weeks after Detroit, I walked into the kitchen and saw Claire staring at an envelope.
Her face was pale.
“What happened?”
She handed it to me.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph.
Claire walking from the clinic.
Taken yesterday.
On the back, someone had written:
VANE WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
Claire looked at me.
“I thought it was over.”
I stared at the photograph.
So had I.
Then I noticed something in the lower corner.
A reflection in a car window.
A man holding the camera.
I knew that face.
So did Claire.
Her breath caught.
“Daniel.”
May you like
The fiancé she had watched die eight years ago.
Alive.
