“I suppose I can’t blame you for looking at it that way, Zari. I’m sorry you had to go through this. But take my advice and arrange for private protection when you go outside alone, Zari. I know it’s our duty to protect and serve but we can’t be there watching out for you all the time, and unfortunately, you are a target now.”
Zari nodded, avoiding Detective Cortez’s eyes.
“Don’t feel guilty. It’s not your fault. Nobody really thinks things like this could possibly happen to them until they do, and then it’s too late. It’s not too late for you, though. You’ve found your baby. You have her back, safe and sound.”
“Thanks to you, Detective Cortez. We won’t forget what you did for us.”
Zari let East do the talking because no matter what the detective had said, there was no way she could banish the guilt.
She’d been wrong and bullheaded to go against East so much. No matter what problems they’d had, no matter how messed up the family situation had gotten, it should never have ended in something that put the babies at risk.
She would never forgive herself for that. She knew she wouldn’t.
“Thank you, Detective Cortez,” she managed to say when it was over and she got up.
“I’ll walk you out.”
Zari barely noticed when Cole smoothly volunteered to walk the detective out, even tearing himself away from Angie to do it. She looked at East and took a deep breath.
She had to say it, of course. There was no way out.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not—”
“Don’t say it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault that those idiots decided that my baby’s health and well-being and our peace of mind weren’t worth anything. But it is my fault that they got the opportunity to do it. If I had listened to you and used the security you offered, this wouldn’t have happened. If I’d taken the risks seriously, this wouldn’t have happened. And now… Of course this is going to hit the news, isn’t it? Angie will grow up knowing that she was the baby who was kidnapped. This is all my fault, East. I know it is.”
“Zari, stop. Please, just stop. You’re exhausted and drained, and no wonder. But it’s fine now. Everything is fine now. Maybe I should have… The last time we had a risk of any kind, I made sure that you were protected. So should I blame myself for this? What about how I made you feel? You felt isolated enough to leave.”
“I… I needed space. I needed to feel like I belonged to me.”
“Does that mean that you don’t belong to me, Zari?”
Zari looked at East, anguished.
“I love you. I love you so much. But you don’t trust me, not completely.”
East sighed, but he didn’t try to look away, and he didn’t deny it.
“You don’t trust me completely, either. We’re both very independent people. I think we’ll have to learn how to depend on each other. Because we can depend on each other, Zari.”
Zari leaned against East again, and it was easy how his arm came up to hold her.
It was easy to lean on him.
“I did depend on you. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. We would all have fallen apart without you. You did everything you needed to do.”
“I did what I had to do to protect my family. You’re my family.”
“I know. I know you did.”
They sat together, exhausted, needing to recover, needing each other, suddenly unsure of how to reach out to each other.
“Julia…”
“She’s fine. I called the hospital. She’ll be released today.”
“We can’t fire her,” said Zari firmly.
“I know. I didn’t even think of it. From what the detective told me when you weren’t listening, Julia tried to get up and get to Angie even after she was knocked on the head, even when she was passing out. None of this is her fault, either.”
“I know. I… East, I’m so exhausted. I just want to draw myself a long bath and keep the twins within my sight for the rest of my life.”
East chuckled.
“I’m not sure if we can do that forever, but we can definitely make sure that they’re absolutely safe. Why don’t we check on Angie, get her and Jeremy down to sleep, and then take that bath? We can hop in the hot tub and let ourselves relax.”
Oh, that sounded absolutely divine.
“As long as we can get out of it every few minutes and check on the babies.”
“About that—I got Alex to bring something. He’s fitting it in the nursery right now.”
“What?”
“A better, bigger, clearer baby monitor. So that we can keep an eye on them when they’re sleeping, too. And Dr. Colton said we should be careful not to smother Angie and Jeremy now and give them attachment issues. Neither of them will have any trauma from this. We’re the ones who’ve been traumatized.”
Zari chuckled.
She sure felt traumatized.
She was lightheaded with relief and exhaustion, but she had to hold Angie again, sing to her again, feed her again. When Angie fell asleep, it was difficult to put her down in her crib, but she had to remind herself that it was necessary. It was what was best for Angie.
So she did it, and hovered at the door, anxious. Too anxious to let them out of her sight.
She couldn’t process it. She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that she’d nearly lost them. She’d nearly lost Angie.
“Here.”
Zari looked down and saw that it was the monitor—a portable monitor much bigger than the small one she’d been used to. She could see the babies breathing on that screen.
“Oh.”
“Now, come. I’ve got the tub filled.”
“Already?”
“I need it as much as you do.”
Zari grinned.
Cole walked in at just that moment, a very smug grin on his face, masses of food in his hands.
“What’s that?”
Deon, drawn by food as he always was, got close immediately.
“Breakfast. I took Detective Cortez out for breakfast and decided to bring us all back something. We need to eat. Sustenance.”