“We’ve got to hurry!” I exclaim, reaching to grab Sal’s hand and pull him away from the scene. “Come on! My dad might be in trouble!”

“I’m coming,” Sal says quietly, “We’ll get there as fast as we can.”

The two of us break into a run, leaping over headstones and slipping on the icy, dewy grass in between the graves. My heart is pounding and I can hardly keep one thought straight in my head at a time, I’m so overwhelmed with emotion. On the one hand, I’m conflicted about watching my half-brother die in front of me. Should I feel sad about that? Or just relieved?

It’s over, right? I don’t have to hide anymore. Sal is a professional. He can find a way to figure out what to do in the wake of Blake’s demise. There has to be some kind of mafia protocol for covering up a murder like this. But then that reminds me that Sal is on the run, too. And killing Blake surely will put him back in the spotlight somehow. What if the mafia finds him hiding with me? Where do we go? What do we do?

And at the moment, there is an even more pressing concern: what’s happened to my father? I know the hospital would not be calling Blake in the middle of the night like this unless it was an emergency. To be honest, it fills me with rage to know that Blake is my dad’s emergency contact, considering that his own son tried to have him killed while he lay helpless in a coma. I can’t blame my father for that, really, though. I get the sense that he doesn’t have many close allies in his life. Blake was probably the extent of his affection, and even that seems to be somewhat strained.

Strained enough that Dad might try and push me to the center focus of the will and shove Blake aside. I suppose Blake must have royally screwed up handling the manufacturing business to deserve that. And people like Kirk Brighton are all about the money. Blake probably nearly ran the industry into the ground or something. I never got the sense that he was particularly responsible.

I shouldn’t think ill of the dead, I tell myself. Sure, Blake was a rude, spoiled, narcissistic, mildly sociopathic asshole who paid for someone to try and kill his own sister and father. But still, it seems morally fucked up to think so badly of him after watching him crumple to the ground in front of me. Some small part of my heart aches for the loss, but it’s overshadowed by the relief that washed over me the moment I realized he would no longer be able to hurt me or my father. Sal did what he had to do. He always promised he would protect me no matter what it cost him, and he held up his promise.

We finally make it back to the car. Sal throws it into gear and we rumble off down the road, leaving the misty, cold graveyard far behind us as we motor along to the hospital. Sal reaches over to take my hand. I’m trembling all over, and not just from the biting cold.

“Are you alright?” he asks kindly. I shrug.

“I-I don’t know yet. I think I’ll just have to see what’s going on with my father before I can tell you one way or another,” I admit.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Sal says, glancing over at me with genuinely sad eyes. I give his hand a squeeze and lift it to my lips to kiss it. I force myself to not cry.

“It’s not your fault,” I murmur.

“It is. I shot him, Eva. For that I am so sorry,” he says firmly.

“You did what you had to. You protected me, Sal. You saved my life yet again. He might have been my brother—half-brother—but it’s not like he was ever my family, really. We didn’t knew each other. And besides, I think he kind of burned that bridge when he hired Geoffrey Mink to do away with me,” I explain. “Blake was an awful man and it makes my skin crawl to think that we might have been cut from the same cloth.”

“You weren’t. Blood does not necessarily make a family. Hell, some of my associates within the mafia were much closer to me than any of my real family. I was never close to anyone related to me. We were family by happenstance. Love makes a family. Loyalty makes a family. Blake showed you neither love nor loyalty, so you should not take his passing so hard. Of course, I can’t tell you how to react to such an event. It’s not my place to say,” Sal remarks.

“I’m just so conflicted. I know I should be sad, and I suppose maybe a very small part of me is sad to see him die this way. But overall? I’m relieved. I hate that I feel this way, but I do. I’m glad he can no longer threaten me or you or my dad,” I confess, feeling guilty about celebrating Blake’s death.

I wince, thinking about my father. “And my dad… I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m so scared, Sal. I know he and I don’t have a relationship. Certainly not a father-daughter relationship. I’ve spent my whole life kind of hating him, actually. But seeing him so helpless and fragile in that hospital bed just shook me to my core. I’ve already lost my mother, who was the shining light in my life. I’ve been so alone until you found me. And now I’m about to lose my father, too. I just don’t know how to feel. I was just starting to think I could maybe forgive him and maybe we could move on and build a relationship. But now he’s probably dead and I’ll have missed my chance.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Sal comments gently. “Don’t give up hope just yet.”

“I have hope,” I reply. “But it’s dwindling. You know how my life is. Things just never seem to work out in my favor. If not for you, I would be dead.”

“Maybe that’s the secret,” he says suddenly.

I frown in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You said you have bad luck. That your whole life is just bad luck. But maybe you need me to turn your luck around,” he says, giving me a compassionate smile. I chuckle even as tears burn in my eyes.

“Maybe so,” I agree. “But Sal, I’m so scared. I don’t know where to go from here. What if my father is gone? What do we do? Blake is dead, but won’t the police come sniffing around? And what about the mafia? How are you going to lay low? What if they find you?”

“Whoa, whoa. Those are questions for later on, Eva. Don’t worry about that stuff right now. We have other things to worry about for the moment. Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself, I promise. I’ve been in hotter situations than this before—I can work it out,” he assures me. I’m not totally convinced, but at the moment, I have to trust him.

When we arrive at the hospital, the sun is just starting to peek over the horizon. The sky is gray and lilac, the air is cold and still. The snow has stopped falling and is now caked on the icy ground, making the world slippery. Sal and I are both pretty experienced with walking on ice, and still we have to move maddeningly slowly across the parking lot. It’s infuriating, because I’m so impatient to just get into the hospital and go find my father.

Finally, we reach the entrance, and I take off down the hallway with Sal following close behind me. A nurse comes after us, shouting, “Stop! Where are you going? Security!”

Sal swivels around and gives her a venomous stare and she falls silent. We bolt for the elevator and take it up. I tap my foot impatiently the whole way up, and as soon as the doors part open I’m running again. I push past a nurse holding a stack of files and paperwork, causing her to lose her grip on the pile. Papers go flying everywhere and I wince, feeling terrible about it, but I can’t stop moving now. I’m so close to my father’s suite.

I look back over my shoulder and call out, “I’m so sorry!”

Sal is hot on my heels when I get to the hospital room door. It’s locked.

“Sal, it’s locked. It’s locked. What do we do? I have to get in there!” I murmur frantically.

He looks around wildly, then makes a break for the nurses’ station. He looks down at the young nurse at the desk and demands, “This young woman needs to see her father. He’s gravely ill and we received word that he’s in bad shape. Please let her in. Now.”

The nurse looks taken aback by his request, frowning at him. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sal’s losing patience, I can tell. He points at me.

“This woman right here! Kirk Brighton is her father and he is in that hospital bed right now. Eva needs to see him before he… before he slips away. Do you understand?”

The nurse looks positively terrified of Sal, but she quickly hops up and grabs a set of keys from the desk, walking briskly over to the door where I’m waiting. My heart is racing and I can hardly breathe, terrified of what I might see when we get inside.

The nurse looks at me with utter confusion and says, “Your father is not dying, Miss. He’s waking up.” I blink a few times, not quite registering what she’s said.

“He’s… what?” Sal asks, stepping forward. The nurse takes a step back, clearly afraid of Sal. To be fair, he is pretty intimidating.

“Yes. Mr. Brighton stirred from his coma about an hour ago. He’s still not quite all there at the moment, but his vitals are good and he’s been mumbling a name. ‘Eva.’ Still, you must be cautious and realistic in your expectations. Are you really his daughter?” she asks, biting her lip.

I nod. “Yes. I know I’m not his emergency contact, but I’m his daughter. I’m Eva.”

She gives me a soft smile, tilting her head to one side slightly. “I can tell. You have his nose. I just never knew he even had a daughter.”

“Nobody really does,” I sigh. “Can I please go in and see him? I’ll be gentle and patient, I swear. I just need to see him.”

The nurse looks back and forth between Sal and me, sizing us up. Between my heartfelt plea and Sal’s intimidating stare, she gives in. “Fine. But don’t get him all riled up. He is definitely improving, but we don’t want anything to knock him off-kilter.”

“Got it,” I say. “I promise.”

“Okay,” says the nurse. She unlocks the door and we burst inside. I walk up to my father’s hospital cot, parting the curtain. At the sound of the curtains rustling, he finally opens his eyes. At first, he only squints at me in confusion.

“R-Rosemary?” he mumbles. My heart jolts at the sound of my mother’s name.

I shake my head. “No, Dad. It’s me, Eva. Your daughter.”

His eyes go wide and a smile crosses his face. He struggles to lift a hand, beckoning me to come closer and sit down next to him. I walk up and sit on the stool, taking his cold hand in mine. My father stares at me, his eyes charting my every feature as though he’s trying to memorize my face.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he mumbles in disbelief.

“Of course, I’m here,” I tell him. “I had to see you.”

“I hate that you have to see me this way,” he says, a tear in his eye.

“It’s not your fault. You’re sick. It happens,” I assure him.

“You are so kind,” he says, staring at me. “I saw you in a dream, you know. While I was out. You were kind then, too.”

“A dream?” I repeat.

“Yes. I dreamed that you came to see me. You told me that you wanted to forgive me,” he adds. “A kindness I could never expect from you.”

“That wasn’t a dream,” I tell him, my heart thumping. “I really did come to see you.”

“How wonderful,” he murmurs, smiling.

“Dad, a lot has happened while you were sleeping,” I begin nervously. Sal steps forward from behind the curtain, and my father’s eyes go wide. He looks between us, confused.

“Who is this young man?” he asks. I squeeze his hand reassuringly.

I brace myself, knowing that this next conversation is going to be a little rough. I have to tell him about Sal. And even worse, I have to tell him about Blake. But I just have to trust that my father can handle it. So I decide to just jump right in.

“I know this may not be the best time, but there’s a lot I need to tell you.”