I nod, sniffling as tears roll down my face.
“Lark and I are on our way, and I’ve gotten in touch with Laz. He'll get there quicker.”
“Okay,” I choke.
“Lena?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yeah?”
“Can you do me a favor? Tell whoever got my daughter to Greenwich at the speed of light that they have my eternal gratitude for saving her life. I fucking mean that.”
Fresh tears stream down my face.
“We’ll see you soon, Lena.”
When I hear him hang up, whatever control I was still clinging to vanishes. I drop to my knees, my phone clattering to the tile floor of the waiting room as I come apart.
Suddenly, big, warm, powerful arms go around me.
Achilles kneels on the floor in front of me and holds me.
Tells me quietly that it’s going to be okay.
That he’s there.
That I’m safe.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting with my friends, all of us silent and stunned. Achilles is little ways down the hall, talking quietly on his phone. He looks up, and when he catches my eye, I can’t help but smile just a bit.
I know how wrong I was about tonight now. I know that hiscousin, Eva, called him in a panic while drunk at that party, needing him to come rescue her.
I know how fucking stupid I was getting jealous of that. And Ireallyknow, seeing the fury in Achilles’ eyes when it came up, how dumb I was to allow Kirill to take that stupid picture of me.
Not because Achilles was mad atme. It was Kirill he wanted to dismember.
But because now that I think about it, Kirill was clearly up to something when he wanted me to sit on his lap and kiss him.
There was aplotsomewhere under that, a Jude-level Machiavellian scheme.
In any case, Achilles and I are past it.
I think.
“Hey, kiddos.”
My head whips around, and I grin when I see a familiar face smiling at me.
“Laz!”
Lucia, Galina, and I all jump out of our seats and crash into him, hugging him tightly. He chuckles, wrapping his strong arms around us and squeezing hard.
When we pull back, we all fill him in on what’s going on. A little while later, Ari and Galina are dozing in the waiting room chairs, and Achilles and Lucia have gone off in search of coffee for everyone.
Laz sighs heavily as he sits back in his chair. He, like my dad, really has aged like fine wine.
Ridiculouslyfine wine.
His dark hair has a few flecks of silver at the temples now, and there are a few more lines on his face. But they’re the kind of age lines that men get that society has decided makes them look wiser and hotter.