Page 119 of Forged By Sacrifice

Raisa texted me from a new number that she was on her way to San Francisco. It was a burner phone. But I wondered if it really mattered. My number would lead any agency that wanted it to her new phone. Harder to trace, but not impossible. Mac’s dad had handed me my own burner when he came back to the apartment.

I thanked him, turning a thousand shades of red.

And it hit me again, for the hundredth time that weekend and with the same ferocity it had hit me in the club when I’d told Raisa to put the drugs in my bag. I had to leave. I was losing all of them.

Raisa called me once she’d gotten to San Francisco. Her burner to my burner. She told me Malik had taken Petya’s private jet and flown back to Russia, and that Petya was furious with him. Petya had had to charter a plane for Raisa. Mom was getting a rehab clinic set up for Malik, and Raisa was worried about what exactly Petya had in store for him other than rehab.

“He left us with the drugs, Raisa. He left you to get arrested.”

She was quiet. “He has been different the last few years. He has always felt entitled to more than what Father gave him. He was unhappy.”

“Don’t make excuses. He did a crappy thing, brother or not.”

“Yes. But I will forgive him. This once. You should too.”

I wasn’t sure I could. I wasn’t normally one to hold a grudge, but I also wasn’t one who kept people in my life who weren’t healthy for me. This thought made me want to laugh because my entire family was not healthy for me. But the ties that bound me to them could not easily be severed. I loved them, but I didn’t have to like them. I had a right to be angry, and so did she.

It was late on Sunday when Senator Matherton and their granddad showed up. They had a meeting in our living room about what the rest of the week was going to look like, Dani’s and his press conference scheduled for the next day, and what Mac’s role in it should be.

Mac watched me with hooded eyes as I said goodnight to everyone on Sunday and journeyed up to the loft. I knew he could read my withdrawal even though we hadn’t spoken hardly two words about any of it, but every time he’d started to corner me, there’d been someone else at the door or on the phone.

In a strange way, I was grateful—not for what had happened to Dani, but for the chaos—because it allowed me to distance myself and to start thinking about what I needed to do to move out.

? ? ?

When I came out of the bathroom Monday morning, Mac was waiting for me. He wrapped me in a hug, and I let him. I even hugged him back because he’d been through more than I had in many ways, because he’d had to deal not only with Dani’s situation but my own.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry we haven’t been able to talk. That our lives were a circus this weekend,” he said into my hair.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“It’s going to be that way all week, but I want to be here for you, too. Have you heard any more from your family?”

“No.”

He pulled back and looked into my face, a frown appearing. “What is it?”

I ran my hand along my ponytail before I could stop myself, and he read the tell for exactly what it was. Nerves.

“Talk to me, Georgie.”

“I just?”

“No,” he inserted before I could finish, and it pissed me off. I pushed away from him, grabbing my bags and hefting them onto my shoulder.

“You owe me a favor,” I told him.

His face shut down, emotion leaving it. “I do, but not this one.”

His expectation that he knew what I wanted just continued to irritate me. “As soon as I find a new place, I’m moving out. And my favor is that you let me do this without trying to stop me. That you let me do this…for you.”

My voice cracked on the last words, and I hated it. I wanted to sound as sure and strong as Dani had all weekend. As strong and beautiful as she’d sounded every time she’d repeated what had happened to her.

“How on earth can you think that it would be for me?” he asked, frustration entering his own voice.

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