Page 175 of Ruthless Claim

I hang up.

Suddenly, there’s a paramedic in front of me, picking glass out of my shoulder with tweezers. “You doing okay, sir?”

Am I doing okay?

I look at him in irritation and he looks down again to focus on my shoulder. Am I okay?

I got fucking outplayed. Me, the con artist got outsmarted and I still don’t even know who the fuck she is.

She’s certainly not the Claire Murphy I remember.

Rage bubbles under the surface. It’s been there since the window blew in, since Claire and Finn disappeared.

It doesn’t do anything except simmer. I’m liable to explode at any second if I get any more bad news.

Valentina sits on the curb a few feet away, one of my men standing nearby, protecting her. She’s got her arms wrapped around herself like she’s cold. She catches me looking and holds my gaze for a second.

“I’m fine,” she says, before I can ask. She narrows her gaze at the paramedic near me. “I don’t need him.”

The only reason I don’t argue is because when the paramedics arrived, I bellowed that my wife is pregnant and they immediately checked on her, much to her chagrin.

She got a clean bill of health, even though they strongly encouraged her to go to the hospital.

I wave off the paramedic irritably and awkwardly shrug off my jacket, wincing at the discomfort. I walk toward her, my guy stepping back.

“Move,” I tell him, jerking my chin. He scuttles away, giving Valentina and I some privacy.

I sit down next to her on the curb and drape my jacket around her shoulders before I pull her into me. Her head rests against my jaw and I wrap my arm around her.

She lets out a long and slow breath and sags against me. She smells like her perfume underneath the dust and cold air, and it’s comforting.

I press my cheek to the top of her head and close my eyes for one moment, letting myself pretend I’m anywhere but here.

“I’ve got glass in my hair,” she says but she doesn’t move.

I chuckle dryly. “I know. Me too.”

Valentina goes silent.

Somewhere down the block someone is still crying.

My men are moving and talking, doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Police officers are taking statements.

“Cillian?”

“Yeah?” I don’t open my eyes still.

“She’s really gone, isn’t she?”

I don’t answer right away, tightening my arm around her instead. She doesn’t pull back but instead presses a little closer. I think about how easily this could have gone differently.

“Yeah,” I murmur, opening my eyes and staring at the street, as if willing myself to see where Claire and Finn went. “She’s gone.”

On the ride home Valentina is tucked against my side, her head on my good shoulder, my arm around her. She hasn’t said much since we got in the car, but then again neither have I. The city slides past the window, and I keep turning the events of the coffee shop over and over again, examining them.

“She stalled us,” I say finally, my heart sinking as everything finally makes sense.

Valentina shifts slightly. “Huh?”