“Did you get a picture of the cake? Make sure you get a picture of the cake. I spent a lot of time on that cake, I want to make sure it’s properly appreciated. Oh, and did you get a picture of the rest of the decorations? And of Hadley? Don’t forget to take a lot of pictures of Hadley. This is her baby shower, you want to make sure that every moment is remembered. Oh, and did you – “

 I set my camera down on an empty table with a deep breath and turned to look at my mother. She was staring at me expectantly, eyes wide – like I hadn’t heard a single thing she’d just said.

“Mom.” I gripped her shoulders, holding her at an arm’s length. “I know how to take photos. It is my job.”

She scowled, mouth turned down.

“Don’t be rude, Archer. I just want this to be properly documented, okay? This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, your first baby.”

 I looked over to Hadley settled on the couch, cupcake in hand, laughing at something she was talking about with Mia, Georgiana, and Acacia. She had that expression on her face that never failed to remind me of the significance of this, of just how much she wanted it, just how much I owed her.

 I made a big show of grabbing my camera and taking a picture of the three girls to appease Mom.

 “Oh, stop it,” she snapped, smacking me upside the head. “Just humor me on this one, all right?”

 It was pointless to try and reason with her – it was always like that – so I just started snapping pictures again to appease her.

 She bustled off with a sigh, and for another a moment I was free of being pestered before zia Sophia wandered over to my side as I shot a couple of photos of the decorated coffee house.

“Been doing well then, caro?” she asked conversationally.

I squeezed my eyes shut and gnawed on my lip to keep from sighing. It would be like asking for immediate death, telling one of my relatives to go away and leave me alone.

 “Just fine,” I answered stiffly.

Sophia’s eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. “Fine?”

“Well, you know.” I shrugged, messing with the settings on my camera. “A bit nervous. The weeks are winding down.”

 As if anybody needed a reminder of that, though.

Sophia laughed, squeezing my shoulder. “Oh, you’ll be just fine, Archer, don’t you worry. I’m not going to lie and say it’ll be a walk in the park, but…well, you’ve got a strong head on your shoulders. Hadley certainly does. You’ll be fine.”

 The back of my neck started burning and I felt uncomfortable pinpricks all over my skin.

She shouldn’t have said that. It just kicked up a whole slew of unnecessary worries that I so did not need to be thinking about right now.

 Focus on Hadley, I reminded myself. She asked for one day, and it’s the least she deserves.

“Thanks, zia,” I said. “That…means a lot.”

And it did mean something – it showed my family cared.

 Sophia gave me a fond smile and patted my cheek, then wondered off again to bury herself in conversation with Mom.

 I busied myself with taking shots of all the guests – more than just a few of Hadley – and the magnificent spread of food the women had prepared for the occasion had nearly been picked through when Mia stood and shouted for attention.

 “All right, everybody! It’s time for games!”

I quickly moved to the back of the coffee house, away from the women, as fast as my feet would carry me.

Taking pictures of my wife’s baby shower I could handle. Baby shower games? Not so much.

 I felt like I was seconds away from being forced to hand in my Man Card. Or had I already lost it?

I did, however, take pictures of the games that soon transpired, not wanting my mother or Hadley to berate me for not capturing every single moment.

 The first game Georgiana introduced was called “Baby Mine,” where different songs were played on a CD player all with the word “baby” in the title. The person who guessed the name of the most songs correctly won a gift card to Barnes and Noble.

 Mia won this game, not surprisingly, as she had always constantly been glued to her iPod.

The next game was called “The Great Crave Game.” Hadley was required to describe all of the foods she had been craving while pregnant without actually naming the item. The person who guessed the most foods won a Whole Foods gift card.

 I would have won this game, had I been playing, since I was the one who had the honor of preparing the dish Hadley had been craving most – pickles and rice, for whatever unknown reason.

 When they moved onto a game where each guest cut pieces of string to guess how big Hadley’s stomach was, I decided I had taken enough pictures and quietly slipped away, into the kitchen, doubting anybody would notice I was gone.

 I rummaged around in one of the double-wide fridges and found a stack of cold-cut sandwiches on the shelf, already prepared for tomorrow. I grabbed one, unwrapped it and took a bite, almost groaning. I hadn’t been allowed to have any of the food cooked up for the baby shower, because technically I wasn’t a “guest.”

I was halfway through the ham, mustard, tomato, lettuce on wheat sandwich when I heard a piercing scream echo through the place.

 Oh, shit. Not now. Not today.

I was sprinting from the kitchen, tossing myself over the front counter in my haste to find the source of the scream, what had caused it.

 My eyes instantly sought out Hadley and I sagged with visible relief when I saw that she was perfectly all right. She hadn’t gone into early labor or anything like that, thank God.

 “Hadley, what’s…”

My voice broke off when I saw the horrified expression on her face, her eyes wide with tears, hands covering her mouth. She hadn’t noticed me.

I quickly surveyed the other girls – Mia, Georgiana, Acacia, zia Sophia, Mom – and on each of their faces were equal looks of terror and shock. Zia Karin was shaking with silent tears.

 I slowly turned in the direction they were staring at, fixated on the front door. I felt my heart immediately constrict in my chest.

No wonder zia Karin was sobbing.

 I gently pushed my way through the women up to the front of the crowd, anger and hurt coursing through me so rapidly I was having difficulty keeping my head clear.

 “Lauren?” My voice cracked when I forced myself to speak. “What the hell happened?”

Lauren let out a shaky breath, swaying on the spot as she looked around at us all. I was surprised she was even still standing. “Sorry I’m late…Traffic was…a bit…bad.”

 She let out a short laugh, stumbling forward to grasp at the back of one of the chairs.

I walked forward, taking in the fresh red marks across the side of her face, her cut and bleeding lips, the purple, almost black bruises decorating her forearms. I wanted to grab the closest chair in my reach to chuck out the window when I zeroed in on the long finger impressions against her neck. I would not be able to handle discovering the rest of the injuries she had that weren’t visible.

“What happened to you?” I demanded.

 Lauren’s head was tilted to the side, her eyes narrowed curiously as I approached her.

“Archer. My favorite cousin Archer.” She reached out and tapped my forehead with two fingers. “Always so serious, scowling all the time. Look at you, you’re frowning right now.”

 “Lauren.” I gently gripped her wrists to keep her back when she made to clutch at the front of my shirt. “Tell me what happened. Lauren, sweetheart, I need you to tell me what happened to you.”

 It took a moment for my question to register with her.

Her face slipped into an expression so heartbreaking I could barely stand to keep my eyes on her. Tears began to drip down her cheeks swiftly and silently, dampening the bruises dotted all over her cheeks and mouth.

 Her voice caught and released with a broken sob when she spoke.

 “Archer. I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”

“Lauren, what’re you talking about?”

Karin let out another shriek when Lauren’s eyes suddenly rolled back in her head and she toppled over backwards in a dead faint.

Somehow I managed to lunge forward and catch her before she could hit the floor. I awkwardly hoisted her up into my arms and struggled to my feet. Her head lolled against my shoulder, her tears still wet on her cheeks.

 No one spoke for several tense moments. I wasn’t quite sure if anybody knew what to say. I sure as hell didn’t.

 “She needs to be taken to a hospital,” Mom finally said. She had her arms around zia Karin, comforting as best she could. “Go on, Archer.”

 I didn’t need to be told twice.

“Right. Bellevue is closest, I’ll take her there,” I said. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”

“Wait, Archer – I’m going with you.” Karin pulled away from Mom, following after me. “I need to be with her.”

 I carried Lauren around the front counter and through the kitchen, swiping the SUV keys off the hook in the back room. Out in the alleyway, Karin snatched the keys from me and slid into the driver’s side. I barely had enough time to get into the passenger seat, situate Lauren in my lap, before Karin turned over the engine and peeled out in her haste to get onto the street.

She was muttering under her breath as she drove, half in Italian, half in English, gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were bone white. Her fist came down on the horn with a loud curse when the light at an intersection flashed red.

 “Goddammit!” She covered her eyes with a hand, breathing shakily as she fought back a fresh wave of tears. “Who would do something like this? Who would do something like this to my baby?”

 I snapped my mouth shut to keep from blurting out the answer to her question.

This was what I had been waiting for ever since Christmas, the climax of this horrendous situation we had unwillingly been thrown into.

 This was my fault.

I had known that nothing good would come of Lauren’s interaction with Havoc. The man was intelligent and charming and knew more than anybody else had a right to – the man was not human.

 I’d thought I had done everything that I could to protect her without calling attention to myself, but clearly I had been sadly mistaken. If I had just told Lauren the truth, however farfetched it might have seemed, then maybe she would have gotten out before this happened.

 Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What good had “facing my fears” done when this had just happened? Would Havoc have done this regardless of my efforts?

Karin paid little attention to traffic laws once the lights changed and sped off down the street, narrowly avoiding swiping off a parked car’s side mirror. It felt like a century had passed with each minute that ticked by. It was unbearable. When we finally reached Bellevue Karin wasted no time parking haphazardly on the sidewalk outside the ER entrance, cutting the engine.

I shifted Lauren around as gently as possible to open the door and slide out onto the sidewalk.

 I’d barely taken two steps forward before a blonde nurse in scrubs was jogging over to us, followed by a round of medics and a gurney.

 “Good Lord,” the blonde nurse remarked as I carefully laid Lauren down on the gurney. “What happened here?”

 “Yeah, well, we’re still trying to figure that one out,” Karin snapped.

The medics crowded around Lauren, checking her vitals, hooking her up to an IV. Somehow Karin and I were shoved to the back, down the sidewalk, as the swarm around Lauren converged on the ER entrance. This did not bode well with Karin.

 “Excuse me, ma’am, you can’t go back here,” one of the nurses said, throwing out an arm to stop Karin as she rushed to follow after them into the back. “Once we’ve – “

 I quickly took a step back at the look that came over Karin’s face.

“Excuse me?” Karin’s voice was as sharp as steel as she crossed her arms, staring down the nurse with narrowing eyes. “You’ve got another thing coming to you if you think for one second that I will let you simply waltz off with my daughter and not tell me what’s going on with her. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

 The nurse quickly nodded, now pale-faced and rather sickly looking. “Right you are, ma’am.”

“Go on,” I said when Karin looked back to me. “Let me know how she is as soon as you can, okay?”

 Karin nodded, her mouth pressed into a tight line. “I will.” She started walking again after the group of nurses and Lauren, made it a few steps and then abruptly turned around to face me again. “Archer. You don’t think…"

 “Just go, zia,” I said. “We can worry about it later."

Karin disappeared through the doors after Lauren, leaving me behind in the almost-empty waiting room.

 I immediately pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, quickly dialing in a number, putting the phone up to my ear.

It rang three times before the line picked up.

“Hello?”

 “Carlo. Get your ass down to Bellevue. Now.”

“Wait, what? Archer? What’s going on?”

“Just get here, okay? It’s Lauren.”

I dropped a couple of quarters into the coffee machine in the waiting area and watched the Styrofoam cup fill with the murky liquid they had the audacity to call coffee.

At this point I was beyond being able to care. I just needed the caffeine. I’d take whatever coffee I could get my hands on.

It was a little after one in the morning and I had been at Bellevue for the latter half of six or seven hours.

The longest wait had been the few hours it took for Karin to return to the waiting area, where most of the whole family had been holed up, to tell us exactly what had happened to Lauren.

 And what had happened to Lauren was not nice.

In total, Lauren had sustained three broken ribs, a partially fractured skull and ended up needing seventeen stitches for the various cuts across her skin. This was not including the numerous black-and-purple bruises that seemed to cover every inch of her body.

 In a way, this was far, far worse than what that bastard had done to Hadley. Gunning someone down with a car was horrendous, but putting your hands on a person to inflict pain, break bones, bruise skin? That made everything all the more personal. As if it wasn't completely personal to begin with. 

 Dr. Reed, the on-call physician, told us all that Lauren would make a full recovery, but that was only a small relief. Just because she was physically healthy didn’t mean that she wouldn’t relive the trauma of what had happened to her every day.

It was a message, that much was obvious. A message for me. A message that said don’t get too cozy. This isn’t over yet.

 “Archer?”

I jumped when a hand descended on my shoulder and turned to look at John, Lauren’s father and my uncle.

 His dark hair was a mess and his eyes were bloodshot, his clothes disheveled, just how I imagined a distraught father would look like.

 “How is Lauren?” I asked anxiously. It had been almost two hours since our last update. “Is she awake yet?”

John ignored my questions.

“Go home, Archer. You’ve been here long enough. I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

 “I’m not leaving.”

John sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. “It might be a while.”

 “I don’t care.”

I would stay here as long as I needed to.

He clapped me on the shoulder and disappeared back down the hallway towards Lauren’s room. At the present no one but Karin and John were allowed to see her. It was downright agony for the rest of us loitering around in the waiting area, anxious to hear any scrap of news about Lauren.

 Earlier we had all been here – the women from the baby shower, accompanied shortly after by Vito and Anna, everyone except Marc and William, back in Albany.

 The first to arrive had been Carlo, barely fifteen minutes after I’d called him. He’d stormed in through the doors in a rage and had nearly tackled one of the male nurses that told him he wasn’t allowed to go see Lauren. He would have gotten thrown out by security had I not dragged him off, forced him into a chair and told him as calmly as I could manage that getting chucked out would solve nothing. He had to be there for Lauren.

Now Carlo, Georgiana and I were the only ones left in the waiting area. Mom had taken the girls home hours ago and shortly after the rest had followed, all ordering that we keep them updated on Lauren’s condition.

 Hadley had been adamant that she would stay until Lauren woke up, but when she’d started nodding off against my shoulder I’d coerced her into going home with Mom and the girls, telling her that I would call her as soon as I found anything out.

 Mama Rosa’s was closer to Bellevue than our apartment was, and I wasn’t too fond of the idea of Hadley being alone. There was no point in running herself down when there was nothing we could do for Lauren but wait. 

 I added creamer and sugar to my pathetic cup of coffee and walked back to my seat beside Carlo and Georgiana.

 Brother and sister were both staring straight ahead, their elbows propped up on their knees with their head in their hands. Their eyes had long since glazed over, their minds on Lauren rather than the present.

It wasn’t something I wanted to see, Carlo and Georgiana’s quiet, shared grief over their sister. Lauren was my family, but she wasn’t my sister. I felt as if I were intruding on the moment, no matter how close we all were.

I finished off my coffee in a few gulps and chucked the Styrofoam cup across the waiting area into the bin beside the vending machines, then crossed my arms and leaned my head back against the wall.

 My eyes had barely slid shut when my phone vibrated loudly in my pocket.

I pulled it out and checked the new text message I’d just received.

 Any news?

From Hadley.

I quickly tapped out a reply.

 None.

Then:

 Shouldn’t you be sleeping?

Her reply came within a few seconds.

 I can’t. Too worried.

Her and me both.

 Try to get some rest. I’ll call you if anything changes.

Fat chance of that happening, but thank you. Love you. <3

 Love you, too.

“That Hadley?”

 I looked over at Carlo in surprise as I slid my phone back into my pocket. Those had been the first words he’d spoken since zia Karin had joined us in the waiting area to tell us the extent of Lauren’s injuries.

 “Yeah,” I said. “She wanted an update on Lauren.”

Carlo scoffed, cracking his knuckles as he leaned back in his chair. “Wouldn’t we all.”

This was going to be one very long night.

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