“You think on it,” he says to me. “Then come find me.”

Most of Riona’s family comes to the hospital that night. Imogen arrives shortly after her husband. They stay several hours in the hopes that Riona might wake up. Dante and Callum come at 3:00 in the morning, delayed by the necessity of disposing of Oran’s body first.

“Can’t have the other lawyers finding him in morning,” Dante mutters to me.

“Did you take the carpet out, too?” I say, remembering the bloodstain.

“Of course. That’s how we carried the body out. Cal shut off the cameras, and told Carl to take a smoke break.”

“Where’s the body now?”

“Buried on the South Shore property,” Cal says to me. “He can rot on the land he used to defraud us.”

Cal seems to have no compunction about burying his uncle’s body. None of the Griffins have shed a tear for Oran. Riona would have. But the fool tried to kill the only person who actually loved him.

Early in the morning, right as the sun is coming up, a slim, pretty girl with light-brown hair and a smattering of freckles comes into Riona’s room. I’ve never met her before, but I know immediately this is Riona’s little sister Nessa. The way she moves and stands gives her away as a dancer. Plus she’s carrying a huge bouquet of peonies, which I know are Riona’s favorite.

“Oh!” Nessa cries, her green eyes filling with tears at the sight of the bruise on Riona’s cheek. “Dad said she wasn’t hurt . . . ”

“She’s okay,” I tell her. “Just sleeping.”

Nessa grabs Riona’s hand and squeezes it. She’s dropped the peonies on the nightstand, totally forgotten in her anxiousness over her sister.

She’s truly crying now, tears running down both cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just . . . Riona seems so invincible. It’s hard to see her like this.”

“I know,” I say, shaking my head. “She’ll be alright, though. I promise.”

Nessa looks over at me, really seeing me for the first time. “You’re her bodyguard,” she says. “Raylan?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Nessa.”

“I know,” I say. “Riona talks about you a lot.”

“She does?” Nessa says, her eyes bright with pleasure.

“Yeah,” I say. “A lot more than Callum. She barely likes him at all.”

Nessa laughs. Her laugh is higher than Riona’s, but the cadence is the same.

“You’re funny,” she says. “That makes sense.”

“What does?”

“Riona pretends to be so serious. But she likes to laugh . . . you just kinda have to make her.”

“I figured that out over time,” I say. “She doesn’t like to do anything the easy way.”

“Better not say that too loud,” Nessa smiles. “In case she can hear us.”

“I wouldn’t dare say anything behind her back that I wouldn’t say right to her face.”

Nessa looks at her sleeping sister, her face full of affection. Then she bites her lip, her expression troubled again.