Chapter 9 - Stay
The bullet entered beneath Adrian's ribs.
For four hours, Lena sat outside surgery with Emma sleeping against her chest.
Grace sat beside her.
Neither spoke much.
There were seventeen years of questions between them.
They could wait.
At 4:36 a.m., the surgeon appeared.
Lena stood.
“He's alive.”
Her knees almost failed.
The bullet had missed Adrian's heart but damaged his lung. He would recover.
Victor survived too.
Federal prosecutors charged him using evidence copied from Grace's drive, testimony from Grace herself, and records recovered from Richard's properties.
The empire of secrets collapsed within weeks.
Adrian woke the following afternoon.
Lena was asleep in the chair beside him.
Emma rested in a hospital bassinet.
He stared at them for several seconds before believing they were real.
“Lena.”
Her eyes opened instantly.
She crossed the room.
“Hey.”
“Emma?”
“Right there.”
Adrian relaxed.
Lena's eyes filled.
“You idiot.”
His mouth twitched.
“I was shot.”
“I noticed.”
“You're criticizing my behavior?”
“You jumped in front of a gun.”
“It seemed appropriate.”
“It wasn't.”
He reached for her hand.
Lena took it.
“You stayed.”
She looked at him.
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“You're very good at disappearing.”
“And you're very good at giving women reasons to.”
Fair.
He looked toward Emma.
“I missed everything.”
“No.”
“Your pregnancy.”
Lena said nothing.
“The appointments. Hearing her heartbeat. Feeling her move more than once. I missed you being scared at three in the morning. I missed buying ridiculous baby furniture. I missed all of it.”
His voice became quieter.
“And that's my fault.”
Lena shook her head.
“Not all of it.”
“I should have told you the truth.”
“And I should have asked before disappearing.”
Adrian looked at her.
“No more disappearing?”
“No more deciding what's best for me without asking?”
“That's considerably harder.”
“Adrian.”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Then yes.”
Six weeks later, Emma finally came home.
Adrian had transformed half his penthouse into a nursery.
Lena stared at it.
“You bought seventeen stuffed animals.”
“Eighteen.”
“Why?”
“I didn't know which one she'd prefer.”
“She can't focus on objects six feet away yet.”
“Then she'll grow into them.”
There were three bassinets.
Lena pointed.
“We have one baby.”
“They have different functions.”
“They're bassinets.”
Adrian looked offended.
“One is Italian.”
She laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Adrian stared.
“What?”
“I spent almost a year thinking you were terrifying.”
“I am terrifying.”
“You bought an Italian bassinet.”
“That doesn't invalidate the first statement.”
Emma began crying.
Adrian immediately went to her.
Lena watched him lift their daughter.
His movements were still careful, almost reverent.
He had learned diapers.
Bottles.
Swaddling.
He knew Emma's hungry cry from her tired cry.
And whenever she slept against his chest, Adrian stopped looking like the man Manhattan feared.
He simply looked like her father.
Grace visited regularly.
Rebuilding seventeen lost years was awkward.
Painful.
Beautiful.
Some days Lena was furious with her mother for staying hidden.
Other days she understood.
Grace had believed revealing herself would lead Victor directly to Lena.
Fear had stolen years from both of them.
They refused to let it steal more.
One evening, Lena found Adrian standing on the balcony.
“Emma asleep?”
“Finally.”
She joined him.
Manhattan glittered below.
Adrian handed her an envelope.
Lena narrowed her eyes.
“If this contains surveillance photographs, we're breaking up.”
His expression remained perfectly serious.
“Reasonable.”
She opened it.
Employment documents.
Voss International.
Executive Operations Director.
Lena blinked.
“You're offering me a job?”
“No.”
She looked up.
“The board already approved you.”
“You went behind my back?”
“I presented your qualifications.”
“Adrian.”
“Your salary is higher than mine was at your age.”
“That isn't helping.”
“You also have equity.”
She stared at him.
Then started laughing.
“What?”
“You still have absolutely no idea how normal relationships work.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“But I'm learning.”
Lena's smile faded into something softer.
Adrian touched her cheek.
“I love you.”
She went still.
He had never said it.
Not before she disappeared.
Not at the restaurant.
Not even after Emma's birth.
Adrian Voss had faced bullets more easily than those three words.
Lena understood that.
So she didn't tease him.
“I love you too.”
He kissed her.
Then Emma started crying through the monitor.
Adrian sighed against Lena's forehead.
“She has terrible timing.”
“She gets that from you.”
They went inside together.
But on Adrian's desk, beneath the employment contract, sat another small box.
Lena hadn't seen it.
Inside was a ring.
May you like
And beside it—
a handwritten question Adrian had spent three weeks trying to find the courage to ask.
