We climbed in silently—Jackson first into the front passenger seat, wincing as he got in, then me in the back, my legs trembling beneath my dressing gown. Ivy slid in beside me, her hand brushing mine. A reminder that we were together, that we'd survived.
"Safe at last, I hope," Ivy muttered as she closed the door. I let out a breath as Roman pulled away, tires crunching on gravel.
"What happened?" Roman asked, eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror.
Jackson exhaled slowly, his voice low and relieved as he began recounting everything. The ambush at my apartment, his gunshot wound, the Malatesta death, our kidnapping, and then Alfeo's death. He didn't mention that I was the one who'd pulled the trigger. I wondered if that was to protect me or if he simply didn't want to complicate things further.
"His body was gone by morning. Probably dragged off by wildlife." Jackson finished up the recount.
"Where were you staying?" Roman asked, his eyes meeting mine briefly in the mirror before darting away.
"Up the road," Jackson replied, gesturing vaguely. "On the left, there's a long dirt drive to a seemingly abandoned house. Still has water and power."
Roman nodded. "I'll let the Malatestas know. They'll want to find out if it was a safehouse or just somewhere only Alfeo knew about."
Had they kept that information to themselves? No one had come, so I wanted to believe they'd truly not known about it.
"They've been looking for you," Roman continued, tapping a finger on the steering wheel. "The Malatestas came forward after Alfeo went off rails and shot his own blood. Some young kid hadinformation apparently. They gave us locations to check. We've had teams everywhere."
So the kid hadn't stayed quiet. Good. Although if Alfeo wasn't dead somewhere, mauled or torn apart after I'd shot him, then maybe it wasn't so good.
Thankfully, he was animal food now.
"Let's hope it wasn't a calculated oversight and was indeed one only Alfeo knew of," Jackson muttered as he shifted in his seat, a grimace flashing across his face.
"You need medical attention," Roman added, glancing at Jackson's bandaged thigh. "I need to get back to the hospital anyway."
Jackson turned to him, frowning. "Why? What happened?"
Roman hesitated. Just for a second. The pause was so brief I almost missed it, but it was enough to make my stomach drop. "Meredith's been admitted."
The air in the car changed instantly. Ivy shot me a look as my stomach somersaulted. Jackson went completely still, his body rigid with tension. My pulse kicked up again, this time for someone I barely knew but couldn't stop thinking about.
"Why?" Jackson asked, voice tight with concern. "Did something happen?"
Was he feeling guilty for not being there with her, protecting her like he was tasked to do?
Roman's jaw flexed as he kept his eyes on the road. "She's pregnant. But there's been complications."
I didn't know Meredith well—had only spoken to her in our brief interaction at work—but my heart lurched for her. Pregnant? With complications? Was she miscarrying? What was going on?
"Will she be okay?" I asked.
"I don't know, we need to wait." Roman glanced in the mirror at me for only a moment. I knew he didn't want to share muchwith Ivy and me present. Understandably. We were no one to them.
Silence settled over us as we all processed this information. I stared out the window, watching the landscape blur past, trying to reconcile the woman I'd built up in my mind with this new reality. She wasn't just the privileged daughter who'd had everything I didn't. She was a person with her own struggles, her own life, her own future growing inside her.
"What's the deal with this Alfeo guy anyway?" Ivy asked, her leg bouncing in the backseat. She'd never been one for tense silences. It was a part of where her wit and snark had formed. She'd always broken the quiet it since we were kids, normally with sarcasm and jokes, although now was not the time. "And what's the history between these families?"
Roman's eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, and I knew he was trying to figure just who the hell she even was. "Malatesta and Donati businesses occasionally overlap. Alfeo was unstable. That's all you need to know."
Ivy opened her mouth to press further, but Jackson shook his head slightly, and she leaned back with a sigh, shooting me a look of frustration.
"So, Elena, I take it she's your roommate?" Roman asked.
"Yes."
"She got taken with us," Jackson added.
