Chapter 7 - The Man From Singapore
Ryan reached the hospital at 2:10 a.m., smelling of airplane coffee and the stale clothes he'd worn through three airports.
He stopped inside the doorway when he saw me.
My face was bruised where I'd hit the cabinet.
The monitor beside my bed flickered with numbers neither of us had ever wanted to learn.
“Em,” he whispered.
I had imagined slapping him for every time he'd told me to ignore his sister.
Instead, I let him sit beside me and cry.
We had both lost something, and neither of us yet knew how to name it.
“I should have been here,” he said.
“You couldn't have stopped someone you didn't know was coming.”
“I knew Brianna wanted money.”
That stopped me.
“How much did you know?”
“She asked for a loan. Fifty thousand first, then a hundred. Mom said it was urgent.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I said no. I thought that was the end.”
The old Ryan would have added a joke or asked me to see his sister's side.
This Ryan stared at the floor.
“I taught her that no wasn't final,” he said quietly. “That's on me.”
At the NICU, he had to scrub his hands twice because they shook so much.
Sophie looked like a bird under her blankets.
Lucas lifted one finger as if objecting to our worried faces.
Ryan laughed once, then covered his mouth.
“I'm their dad,” he told them. “And I'm sorry I'm late.”
On the walk back, he showed me his camera app.
The live feed displayed a black square and a notice that the recording hub was offline.
Beneath it sat a thumbnail stamped with the date of the assault.
A single frozen frame showed Brianna standing by our island, her cream sleeve raised.
“Can you open it?” I asked.
He tapped the picture.
A loading wheel spun, then disappeared.
Instead of a video, a warning appeared.
FILE REMOVED BY ACCOUNT ADMINISTRATOR.
May you like
Ryan stared at the screen.
“I never deleted anything,” he said.
