The Princess (Filthy Trilogy 2)

We exit to the hallway and Smith and Savage assume guard posts there at the entrance to the floor which is open to a waiting room. Davis, Grayson, and Mia are in that small room and immediately greet us, all wearing casual clothing and worried looks. “He’s in ICU,” Mia says. “And they won’t release further details to us. What’s going on?”

Grayson eyes me. “Get an update and then let’s talk.”

Davis and I exchange a look in which Davis tells me he can’t hold Grayson back. He tried. There is no damage control. Grayson won’t have it. I look at Grayson again. “The part where I told you to stay out of this—”

“Landed on deaf ears,” he replies. “We’re friends. You’re in this, I’m in this.”

“I didn’t do this,” I tell him. “You need to know that, but the press—”

“Check on your father,” he says. “We’ll deal with the press later, together.”

My lips thin and I eye Savage and Smith. “Protect them. Keep them the hell away from the police and the press.” I give the entire group my back, and start walking toward a nurses’ station.

Harper is by my side in a flash, her hand on my arm, her steps matching my steps and it feels right. Like she belongs b

y my side. Like she has always belonged by my side. “Stubborn man,” I bite out.

“Stubborn friend,” she whispers. “And friends are hard to find.”

“Which is why I was trying to protect him.”

“Which is why he wants to protect you,” she reminds me.

I grunt at that and flag down a nurse who turns out to be an aide who leads us toward ICU. In a few short minutes, she’s left to find us a nurse, and we’re standing outside a glass-enclosed room where my father lays in a bed and monitors track his breathing and heart rate, which is too slow. “And there he is,” Harper whispers, glancing at me. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t,” I say honestly. “Not a damn thing.”

“There you are,” a fifty-something nurse with bright red hair greets, stopping beside us. “I heard his son had arrived and wanted an update. I’m Kasey. I’m your father’s nurse. He’s stable. The police aren’t allowing me to offer more details.” Someone calls her. “Sorry. I have an emergency. We’ll tell you more when we can.” Kasey rushes away and leaves us alone again.

“That didn’t sound good,” Harper says, hushing her voice and stepping closer to me. “I think we need an attorney. A criminal attorney and a good one.”

Savage joins us before I can reply and I don’t ask how he got back here. He’s resourceful. “Interesting update,” he says. “Isaac called Gigi and told her about your father, Eric. She immediately rushed to the airport, but she didn’t get on a plane to New York City. She got on a plane to Italy. She’s running.”

Gigi.

The wicked witch herself, but wicked enough to have her own son killed?

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Harper

Gigi ran? She ran away to Europe with her son in the hospital? My hand goes to my neck, the sterile smell of the hospital suffocating me, when moments before it had not. This makes no sense. That woman loves her son. He was the king of the empire that she created. A million thoughts charge through my mind, and I can barely make sense of them. I wonder if this is how Eric feels when he’s attacked by numbers, if he reaches for one piece of reason the way I do now.

I turn to face him and focus on that one piece now. “I know you hate her. I know this makes sense to you because of that hate, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Why would she run? She didn’t order a hit on me or her son. And if she did, which I don’t believe she would, running would make her look guilty. It does make her look guilty.”

“Or afraid. She’s running for her life, Harper.”

“She thinks she’s next. She thinks everyone in the family is going down. She thinks someone is coming for them. Or us. For all of us.”

“I’m not convinced we’re involved at all. I’m still of the mindset that we were the fall guys for something this family has gotten into.”

“You think Isaac and Gigi were the ones setting us up? Not Gigi and your father?”

“My father’s in a hospital bed. That doesn’t spell guilt to me though there’s no question, he was here to protecting himself. Maybe that means he was turning on the family. As for Isaac, my first instinct is always to blame that little prick but he has limits. He’s not smart enough to plan any of this alone. And I keep going back to the night he came to your house. He warned me to leave before I burned everyone. That’s not someone who wants me to stay and take the fall. I know him. He was afraid. He was terrified I’d stir the wrong pot.”

My eyes go wide with a memory. “Gigi made a comment about you getting your brains from her.”

“Nothing about me came from that woman but the bottom line here is I do believe she knows exactly what’s going on. I believe she needed an out for the family and took it. But right now, I need to talk to Davis and get us out of here. I need your help. Talk to Mia. Make her understand how dangerous this is for Grayson. She’ll get him out of here. Just get them away from this. Even if it means you leave with them.”