Page 114 of Midnight Sanctuary

“Get out of my way,” I hiss as I charge for the door.

Grigory has the forethought to spring out of my line of fire, but his eyes skewer me just before I leave. “Uri… she’s in a delicate stage of her pregnancy. Confronting her now might not be the best idea.”

Confronting her? Is that what I’m about to do?

I shove Grigory aside and leave the room. Yeah, that’sexactlywhat I’m about to fucking do. She may be in a delicate situation—but she’s one who put herself there. And now, she’s going to deal with the consequences.

She’s going to face me.

The little thief is going to give me some answers.

51

ALYSSA

I may be seven months pregnant with twins.

I may feel bloated and tired and entirely too heavy.

But in this dress, I also feel like a bride.

Nice as this private hospital room is, there’s no full-length mirror, so there’s a chance I’m just deluding myself. But I dofeelgood. This is the first time in weeks that I’ve actually felt somewhat like myself.

But that might also have something to do with the phone call I made to my parents a few minutes ago.

The conversation lasted twenty-seven minutes and thirty-three seconds, according to my call log. I’d started with an apology and segued into an explanation. I told them that I was pregnant and that I was getting married.

They were shocked. Then hurt. Then baffled. But they did their best to be understanding. And in their acceptance of all my mistakes, I suppose I found the courage and the grace to be accepting of theirs.

“I just never understood why you didn’t fight her harder. Everyone just sort of accepted the fact that she was going to quit treatment. It felt like you gave up on her.”

Mom’s voice had gone wobbly as she replied, “Oh, honey, we didn’t give up on her. We just realized that fighting her would have robbed us of what little time we did have with her. We decided it was more important to make her happy in her final days than to make ourselves feel better about the situation.”

Then Dad had taken the phone and turned the camera on himself. “She did go back to treatment because you asked her to. Because she loved you that much. And in the end…”

“I know. She died anyway. And she died the way she was trying to avoid—in a hospital room, hooked to a bunch of monitors, drugged up, and completely out of it.” I cried for a bit after that and when I’d finally stopped, I managed to say, “That was my fault. I did that to her.”

“You loved her,” Mom whispered.

“We loved her, too,” Dad said. “We just loved her differently. Sometimes, it felt like you punished us for that.”

He wasn’t completely right. But he wasn’t completely wrong, either. When I apologized, they did, too. They apologized for not being there for me the way they should have been right after Ziva’s death.

“You wanted space,” Mom said. “But we should never have given it to you. I guess I figured you’d come back to us eventually on your own. But that never happened.”

“Until now,” Dad added.

They were on a cruise ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. But they promised that once they were back in a couple of weeks, they’d come and see me. I didn’t tell them about the risk of the pregnancy, though. I just told them that I’d be happy to see them when they were home.

When we finally hung up, I cried some more while Elle held me and Polly hovered around, offering me tissues every minute.

“Are you okay?” Elle had asked when I’d finally quieted down.

“Y-yes, I think so.”

“I wish I could say the same for your makeup,” Polly sighed.

I laughed and that just turned into more crying. Polly grabbed my hand in the end and asked if she could get Uri. “Maybe talking to him will help?”

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