Page 70 of Entangled

“I’ll grab the last bit of stuff and put it in the truck.”

“Thank you.” Cara turned back to Celeste and Crystal, the last two guests she had yet to say goodbye to. Everyone else had already gone and the staff had mostly cleaned the place. Cara had managed to sneak a few keepsakes to put in her baby’s memory box of the day. “Time to get home and sleep, I do have to put in hours tomorrow at the shelter. It was very nice to meet you, Crystal. Thank you for coming, again. Really.”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe we’ll do something again soon, Cara. It just all depends.”

Cara didn’t ask what their future meetings would depend on, because she already knew. Privacy. Public opinion. Gian’s wife. She didn’t need the verbal reminders. Her mind never let her forget, now.

“Okay, let her go,” Celeste ordered. “And I want one more of those pretty blue drinks before we go, too.”

One more hug later and Cara headed out of the restaurant behind Gilles, whose arms were filled with his fifth round of baby shower gift bags, filled with too many items to count.

“Do babies really need all of this?” Gilles asked.

Cara helped to open the back of the truck, since her enforcer’s arms were otherwise occupied. “I don’t think they need all of it, but it certainly is cute.”

And Cara swore everybody oohed and awed over every little outfit, pair of shoes, and tiny rattle she pulled from the gift bags.

“But look at it. Look at all of it.”

She did.

The truck bed was filled.

It was a lot.

“I’m grateful,” Cara said, laughing.

“But it’s too much for a baby, right? Since when do newborns care how many outfits they have, or if they have a swing thing that bounces? Does the baby really need twenty pairs of socks, or bibs that look like bandanas?”

“He’ll use it all, eventually.”

Gilles shook his head. “It’s crazy. Women go nuts over this stuff, and I just don’t understand why.”

“I take it you don’t have kids, then.”

The man looked horrified.

“Jesus, no,” he muttered, glancing up to the sky at the same time he made the sign of the cross over his chest.

“I’m not sure God will help to keep the babies away, Gilles. They’re not demons or evil spirits.”

He stared at her with wide eyes. “That depends on who you ask.”

Well, she would give him that.

“To the penthouse?” Cara asked.

Gilles nodded, urging her around to his side of the truck. “The penthouse; boss’s orders.”

The backseat was also filled, as was the front passenger side, so apparently, she would be sitting directly behind him in the back.

Cara turned to thank Gilles as he opened the back door to help her climb in the lifted truck, but she didn’t get the words out. The last things she saw were dimmed car lights, before the vehicle turned sharply off the road, and headed directly for them. She felt the strong hands of the enforcer shove her into the truck at the very last second, but it was all black after that.

She could still hear the sound of metal crushing against metal when she woke up in the hospital screaming.

Gian.

She screamed for him.