Page 62 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

“Do you think you can scrounge something up from the vending machine? I think there’s one somewhere down the hall. I’m pretty hungry.”

“There is no way in hell I’m letting you out of my sight,” I bluntly reply.

“Nathan—”

I cut her off. “Don’t ever try to push me away again.”

Cassius and River walk into the room. Right on time, too. “Pushusaway, that is,” I add the correction.

To my surprise, Teagan is with them.

“Christa,” she gasps and rushes to her side. “What happened?”

Christa looks at her with a shade of confusion. “Teagan, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I heard about what happened earlier this morning and what happened tonight,” she says. “Are you okay?”

“Physically, yes; I’m fine.”

“Good. You need to be okay,” my sister says, gently placing a hand on Christa’s shoulder.

“I will be okay.”

Cassius comes forward. “It’s time for us to have a conversation about what’s going on.”

Christa turns and gives Teagan a pained smile. “I hope you’ll forgive me someday. I never meant to hurt you.”

Despite her sometimes-volatile nature, I’m proud to see my sister finding the clarity she needs to assess this situation. Instead of pushing and prodding, she simply gives Christa a soft hug and takes a couple of steps back.

“I think the four of you need to talk, first and foremost,” she says. “Christa, I’d like to catch up with you over coffee. Maybe tomorrow or the day after? How does that sound?”

“It sounds great. I’d love that,” Christa sighs deeply. “Thank you, Tee.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she adds, then turns to look at us. “You three had better keep her safe from now on, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I give her a wink.

Once Teagan is out of the room, looking visibly relieved, we return our focus to Christa. Her expression reminds me of the time I caught her and my sister trying to sneak a bottle of booze out of the Hawthorne mansion for Teagan’s eighteenth birthday. The same wide eyes and sweet, quivering lip. This time, however, I also see an underlying fear that has nothing to do with us.

We never gave her any reason to fear us.

Cassius clears his throat and sits next to Christa on the edge of the bed. “I think it’s time you open up to us,” he tells her. “You’rethe one who reached out after you ran off. Again.”

“Cass, I didn’t run off. I just wanted to go for a drive to clear my head.”

“That didn’t turn out well, did it?” River mutters, arms crossed.

“What happened to your car tonight?” I ask her. “I saw the damage. Were you hit?”

Christa nods slowly. “It was another message from the Mancinis.”

“The Mancinis?” Cassius replies, though I can tell he’s already making the connections in his head. “You mean the Mancini crime family?”

“The mobsters out of Los Angeles, yes.”

“Okay, start from the top,” River says. “Perry-Sage. What happened there? We know whatever upper management was still alive went to prison along with a handful of Mancini people. There’s a connection here. Help us see it.”

Taking a deep breath, she closes her eyes for a moment as if to rewind her past.

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