Sunlight. Lacey hates it. Not because it means she’s awake, means she’s alive, but it means she should be at work right now and she isn’t. Instead, she’s stuck in a dreary hospital bed, battered and bruised, hooked up to a tangle of cords and wearing a scratchy hospital gown that doesn’t do a thing for her figure. She’s already called Prentiss, who gave her the tongue-lashing of the century. Too embarrassed to fess up to the mugging, she lied, saying she had the flu. Nothing puts Prentiss off more than stomach issues. In return, Prentiss grudgingly granted her one day off. One day and then she has to be back in tip-top shape. It’s bad enough he sent Autumn to fix her fuckup and save face with Colin.
Ugh. Bested by a cupcake. She’ll never live it down.
Lacey lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling numb. Numb about everything. About the cops, answering their stupid questions, listening to their stupid lecture about why she should have been more on guard in downtown LA. About the doctors who said she was a lucky girl, but she doesn’t feel lucky. All she feels is stabbed.
The door cracks.
A sharp-eyed nurse blows into the room. She does her job fast, checking Lacey’s vitals and changing her bandage. Then she props a hand on her round hip. Gives Lacey a no-nonsense look. “You’re ready to be discharged, but you need a ride home.”
“I’ll call an Uber.” Lacey wets her lips, forces a smile. “I promise.”
The nurse laughs, loud and ball-busting. “Honey, if we ran on promises, I’d be out of a job.” She wags a finger. “Find a ride.”
Scowling, Lacey points at the cup of water just out of reach on the hospital tray. Her gaze drifts reluctantly to the nurse. Asking for help isn’t in her vocabulary. “Can I have—”
But the nurse exits before she can voice her request.
With a deep sigh, Lacey rolls her head across the pillow. Beyond the window, the afternoon sky is grayer than gray, choked by smog and cotton-ball clouds.
This is pathetic.
She’s pathetic. Stuck in this hospital bed with no one to call.
Lacey doesn’t have close friends. She has acquaintances. And the thought of calling Autumn has her bristling. She’d rather swim in shark-infested waters.
Lacey blows out a breath. She can handle this. All on her own. She doesn’t need anyone.
At least she has her cell phone. The mugger left her with one scrap of her dignity intact. She shifts in bed, wincing at the pain radiating through her body as she fumbles beneath the pillow for her phone.
She stares at the screen, lit up by frantic messages from Sal.
She should call her sister, but she can’t. Can’t bring herself to make Sal worry. Maybe the hospital bed will take Lacey, suck her down into the void and let the drugs dissolve her memory. Because that’s all she wants to do—forget. Voicing what happened to her aloud will make it real, and all she wants to do is force last night down into a small box, duct tape it shut, stomp on it with a stiletto, and bury it six feet deep.
She was so stupid. Putting herself in that situation. Not paying attention. Freezing up like some dumb deer in the headlights.
Lacey puts a hand to her throat, her lower lip trembling at the absence of the gold lavaliere.
He took her necklace.
The only thing she had left of her mother.
Hot tears hit her, sharp and quick. She squeezes her eyes shut as agonizing memories of last night resurface. The mugger, his hands on her hips, across her throat, his hiss of bitch in her ear, the stench of cologne and motor oil, this twist of the knife in her—
Lacey gasps and slaps a trembling hand over her mouth.
Don’t freak out. You absolutely cannot freak out right now.
But she absolutely is.
And worse, there isn’t a thing she can do about any of it.
Seth stalks down the hall of Good Samaritan, looking for room 434, scrambled as all hell. The plane ride was a bitch, the traffic in Los Angeles a nightmare, and now he’s in his own worst torment. Because if there’s one thing Seth hates, it’s a hospital.
They take him to the darkest place of his memories.
The hospital he checked into after his OD, before the Brothers Kincaid were big, back when they could keep it out of the papers. Luke after the plane crash, the bar fight. Finding Sal in Florida after her abduction from Roy Williams, when she had no memory of her life with Luke.
His entire fucking family’s been in one and now Lacey.