Page 114 of The Wrong Mafia Bride
"I don’t care," I snap, but I lean into his support anyway because my legs feel like water. "How long until they get here?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe less. Dante called from the car ten minutes ago. They are all safe."
Twenty minutes. I can stay upright for twenty minutes.
Gabriel helps me down the stairs, one careful step at a time, his arm solid around my waist. My body still feels disconnected and floaty from whatever the doctor gave me, but my mind is crystallizing with each passing second. Erin is alive. Erin is coming home. Erin is?—
The front door bursts open.
Dante enters first, and I have never been so grateful to see anyone in my entire life. He is dirty and disheveled, his dark hair falling out of its usual slicked-back style, his shirt torn, but he is whole and breathing and here.
Behind him is Callahan, looking older than I remember, his face lined with grief and exhaustion.
And then?—
Erin.
My sister stumbles through the doorway, and the world stops.
She looks like she has been through hell. Her beautiful red hair is tangled and matted with what might be blood. Her face is bruised, one eye swollen half-shut, split lip crusted over. Her clothes—a simple dress she probably wore to Seamus's funeral—are torn and dirty. But she is alive, her hand protective over the gentle swell of her pregnant belly, and when her eyes find mine across the foyer, she makes a sound that is half-sob, half-scream.
"Rosie."
I am moving before I consciously decide to, my body operating on pure instinct. Gabriel releases me, and I practically throw myself at Erin, catching her in my arms as her knees buckle.
We collapse together onto the marble floor of the foyer, holding each other so tightly I can’t tell where I end and she begins. She is shaking—or maybe I am shaking, or maybe we both are—and the sobs that tear from her throat are the most broken sounds I have ever heard.
"I’m here," I whisper into her hair, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapped around her waist, carefully avoiding her pregnant belly. "I’m here, Erin. I’ve got you. You are safe."
"Dolan—" She chokes on his name, her fingers digging into my back hard enough to bruise. "Rosie, Dolan is—he is?—"
"I know," I say, and my own voice breaks. "I know, sweetheart. I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry."
We stay like that for I don’t know how long, two women holding each other on the floor while the men who brought us back together stand guard around us. Erin cries with the kind of grief that has no bottom, no end, just an endless well of pain that keeps spilling over. And I hold her through it, my own tears mixing with hers, my heart breaking for the man she loved and lost.
Eventually, her sobs quiet to shuddering breaths. She pulls back just enough to look at me, her blue-green eyes bloodshot and devastated.
"Patrick killed him," she whispers. "Right in front of me. Dolan tried to fight back, tried to get us both out, and Patrick just—" Her face crumples again. "He shot him, Rosie. He shot him and made me watch and I couldn’t —I couldn’t do anything?—"
"That is not your fault," I tell her fiercely, cupping her bruised face in my bandaged hands. "None of this is your fault. Patrick is a monster. You are not responsible for what monsters do."
"But the baby—" She presses both hands to her stomach, protective and desperate. "This baby will never know its father. Never hear his laugh or see his smile or feel how much he loved—" She cannot finish the sentence, just dissolves into fresh tears.
I pull her back against me, letting her cry, letting her break, because that is all I can do right now. There are no words that will fix this. No platitudes that will ease her pain. All I can do is hold her and let her know she is not alone.
"The baby will know Dolan," I promise her quietly. "I will tell your child every story I remember about him. About how he used to sneak us cigarettes behind the boathouse when we were fourteen. About how he always made terrible jokes at breakfast just to see you smile. About how he loved you so much he was willing to risk everything to be with you."
Erin's breath hitches. "He did love me."
"He absolutely did. Anyone who saw you two together could see it." I press a kiss to her temple. "And he would want you to be safe. To protect yourself and the baby. So that is what we are going to do."
She nods against my shoulder, her tears finally slowing. When she pulls back again, there is something harder in her expression—a kernel of strength fighting its way through the grief.
"Is Patrick dead?" she asks.
I glance up at Dante, who has been standing silently nearby, giving us space but ready to intervene if needed. He meets my eyes and gives a single, definitive nod.
"Luca handled it," Dante says quietly. "Patrick will not hurt anyone ever again."
