Chapter nine

The room was still dark when Dani woke up. A glance at the alarm clock told her it was only 5.15, yet she felt completely alert and awake. She was lying on her side, Nico spooning her. She could feel his bare skin against her own, so he must have gotten up at some point during the last few hours, finally taking off his clothes. Smiling, she closed her eyes again, not wanting to leave his embrace although she knew that sleep would elude her for the rest of the night. Her mind had gone into overdrive the minute she'd woken up, and that didn't surprise her after everything that had happened last night. First and foremost in the thoughts running through her head was of course Lindsay. Despite the doctor saying it could have been a lot worse, Dani hadn't yet been able to shake the feeling that she'd come very close to losing her daughter last night. Her stomach clenched when she remembered Lindsay lying in the hospital bed, and the fear she'd felt right before that, when the doctor had come walking towards her, giving her the kind of grave look that usually did not accompany good news.
When Nico stirred a little, flexing his arm and pulling her closer to him, she was immediately reminded of how he'd done the same thing in the hospital, first at the nurses station and then when the doctor had come out. He'd literally had her back the entire evening. Tell me what you need, he'd said, but he'd already known. Unlike any of the other men she'd had in her life, he always knew. She squinted when that thought made her remember Ray and the way he'd reacted when she'd called him to give him the news about Lindsay. He'd sounded annoyed when he answered the phone, after letting it go to voicemail three times in a row. Apparently he'd been in the middle of something – someone, she corrected herself, remembering the breathless sounding voice in the background asking 'Ray-baby' who was on the phone – and wasn't happy that she was interrupting him. But then, when he heard the reason why she called, he had the balls to start yelling at her for not calling her as soon as she'd found out about Lindsay herself. She had put the phone down on the couch beside her, waiting for him to finish, had then picked it up again and politely told him to call the hospital for further information because she was done listening to him ranting. Then she'd simply hung up on him and put the phone underneath one of the throw pillows on the couch so she wouldn't be tempted to pick it up if and when he called back to rant some more.
Come to think of it, she should actually get up and go find the darn thing, before she missed any important phonecalls. Like the hospital. Or Ray Jay, informing her what flight he was going to arrive on. Her son had insisted on coming home, even though she'd tried to reassure him that it wasn't necessary, since Lindsay was gonna be just fine. But he hadn't wanted to hear it. And, to be honest, she hadn't resisted his idea to get on the next flight into New York all that much either. If Lindsay's accident hadn't been the reason, she would actually have been thrilled that her baby was finally coming home again, albeit probably just temporary.
Dani carefully lifted Nico's arm and slid out of bed. With a groan he rolled onto his back, mumbling something unintelligible. She slipped on her robe and went downstairs to go grab her phone, thinking she might get herself an early cup of tea too.

Dani had just put on the kettle and picked up the cups of now cold tea that were still sitting on her coffee table from the night before when she heard Nico's voice coming from the bedroom. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but he sounded… angry? Frowning, she put the teacups on the counter and went upstairs again. When she entered the bedroom, she found him thrashing around in the bed, muttering in a language she didn't understand. Or maybe it wasn't even a real language, just the garbled-up speech that most people used when talking in their sleep. As Dani quietly approached the bed, he seemed to calm down again. She walked over to his side of the bed and stood looking down at him for a moment in the light that came from the hallway, trying to decide if she should wake him up. Just when she thought he was sleeping peacefully again, he resumed his muttering. Instead of anger though, there was now an anxiety in his voice that she'd never heard from him before and that chilled her to the bone as his face was contorted in pain and fear. She reacted instinctively by putting a hand on his shoulder, the back of her mind registering the fact that his skin was covered in sweat, and softly called his name. When he didn't react, she shook him a little more forcefully. He just kept right on muttering and started violently rolling his head from side to side. She tried a third time, now with her hands on both his shoulders and repeating his name in a louder voice. She was completely unprepared when he suddenly roared and bolted upright, bringing his hands up to shove her away. Dani lost her balance and stumbled backwards before landing on her butt on the floor. She let out a surprised gasp, followed by a grunt when her left wrist came in painful contact with the nightstand, sending the lamp and the knick-knacks sitting there crashing into each other.
For a few moments, the only sound in the room was Nico's erratic breathing as Dani saw him forcefully shake his head as if trying to clear it. Then he seemed to realize where he was, and she saw him flinch when his gaze landed on her.

When Nico saw Dani looking up at him from the floor while gingerly massaging her wrist, his stomach sank and he metally cursed himself. He hadn't had any nightmares for weeks, but he should have seen this one coming a mile away. The nightmares always got worse when tension or emotions were running high. And last night had been an emotional roller coaster. Why the hell hadn't he moved his ass over to the guestroom as soon as Dani had fallen asleep? Now look at what he'd done…

"Nico? Are you alright?" Her soft voice startled him, and he couldn't hold back a snort of disbelief. She was the one who got hurt and she was asking him if he was okay?

"Fine." He couldn't keep the resentment he felt for himself out of his tone, and her eyebrows rose when she heard it. Bile rose in his throat and suddenly he had to get out of this room, away from her questioning look. He threw back the covers and bolted from the bed, almost tripping over his own feet on his way to the relative safety of the adjoining bathroom. As he locked the door behind him and leaned heavily against it, with his eyes closed and his jaw clenched tight, he heard her call out his name in a worried voice. He startled when she rattled the doorknob.
"Nico? Open the door… please." He cursed under his breath and pushed himself away from the door, entering the shower cabin and closing that door behind him too. Feeling effectively locked in, he turned on the shower and started to fight the darkness that had been relased by his nightmare back into submission.

Dani stood there for minutes that felt like hours. When she heard the shower turn on, a heavy sigh escaped her. Apparently he needed some time to get himself back under control. She could give him that. But eventually they would need to talk about what just happened, and she knew he wouldn't want to. Her heart ached for him when she remembered the anger in his voice. She realized, of course, that he was angry with himself rather than with her. The first thing she meant to do when he got out of that bathroom, was make him see that she was fine. A bruise had started forming on her wrist, and it actually did kind of hurt, but it wasn't like she hadn't ever had bruises before. More important, she would make Nico see that it wasn't his fault that she'd fallen. She should have known better than to try and wake him up when he was in the middle of a nightmare. He had merely reacted on instinct, trying to defend himself against whoever or whatever had been terrorizing him in his dream. Trying to come up with a way to make him understand that, she walked downstairs again and resumed making herself tea.
When she walked into the family room, she remembered her phone and lifted the pillow she'd left it under. Unlocking the phone, she saw a couple of missed calls from Ray, one from Ray Jay and one from a blocked number. Her heart picked up speed as she realized that the call from the blocked number could be from the hospital. She put her teacup down, her hands trembling, and dialed voicemail. The computer informed her that she had six new messages. The first four were from Ray doing some more ranting and whining, and she erased each of those messages before they'd played in their entirety. The next message was from Ray Jay, telling her that he'd be arriving at JFK tonight around seven. She saved that message, then anxiously waited for the last message. "Good morning, Doctor," a man's voice said in a loud whisper. His next words chilled her to the bone. "I heard your daughter had an accident… Don't you wish that you would have listened to my advice about your new employer now?" There was a pause, and then the voice continued, "If I were you, I would stay out of my way, or next time it won't end so well…"
Dani replayed the message three times, then carefully put the phone down on the coffee table and just stared at it. She was still staring when Nico came down the stairs ten minutes later.

The man with the grey eyes knew he had taken a risk by calling the good doctor, but he'd wanted to make completely sure that she understood the risk she herself would be taking by showing up at SBG today. His time was running out, with the trial date being only two weeks away and Chernikov's lapdog breathing down his neck. There simply wasn't enough time for him to be worrying about the doctor and her pittbull of a boyfriend on top of everything else he had to deal with. Which reminded him, he should check on the girl. He had instructed her captor that he was to leave her completely unharmed and intact, and to take good care of her while also making sure she wouldn't escape from the abandoned house where they held her. But the man was still nothing more than hired muscle, and therefore not the brightest intellect around. There was no harm in making absolutely sure that the guy followed his orders to the letter. The man with the grey eyes was not above using whatever means necessary to get what he wanted, but he was no monster. After all, a monster would have had the Santino girl killed, instead of merely hospitalizing her with a few broken bones.

Having regained at least some of his self control, Nico got dressed quickly and went downstairs. Dani wasn't in the kitchen, so he walked straight on to the family room, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw her rigidly sitting on the couch, glaring at her phone on the coffee table. Whoa. She looks pissed… At me? He opened his mouth to say her name, then closed it again when she glanced up. There was a glint of steel in her eyes that only softened slightly when she saw him. "It was no accident, Nico." He heard the same steel in her voice. Before he could ask her what she meant Dani stood up, picking up her phone, and walked over to where he was standing. She handed him the device. "Listen to my voicemail. I'm gonna get dressed. Then we're going to the hospital." She stepped past him before he could stop her, walking briskly through the kitchen and up the stairs.
Stunned, Nico selected voicemail from her recent call list. He brought the phone to his ear and listened, immediately understanding Dani's anger. When the message ended he replayed it, pacing through the kitchen as he tried to focus on the voice rather than the content of the message. He had the feeling that there was something familiar about the whispering voice, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Yet.

Nico got out his own cellphone and called Stanzi Palmer. "You have something for me?" he said without preamble.

"Everything you asked for, in fact. Personnel files, client files, financial records, the whole shebang. Told you it would be a piece of cake, dude! Boy, these guys really need to update their security – there was a gap in their firewall as big as…" Nico hung up on the hacker. He didn't have time to chat.

Just when Nico had ended his phonecall he heard Dani coming down the stairs again. She walked into the kitchen and picked up her purse from the bar. "Can I have my phone back?" Nico handed it to her. "Okay, let's go." She turned around to head for the front door, but Nico stopped her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"How's the wrist?" he asked when she turned back to him.

For a moment, she didn't seem to know what he was talking about. Then she lifted her left hand, flexed her fingers and rolled her hand. "Just fine. See? Can we go now? I want, no, I need to see my daughter."

When Nico pulled out of her driveway, Dani glanced at him from the passenger seat. His jaw was clenched and he was looking straight ahead. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," she said.

"I'm sorry I hurt you." His voice was flat as he said it.

"Nico, you have nothing to apologize for." He snorted at that. "Really, my wrist is fine, and it's not like you meant to hurt me. You acted on instinct, so what? Everyone does that when they're woken from a nightmare. When Ray Jay was little, he once punched me in the eye when I woke him." She gave him a reassuring smile.

"I'm not a little boy, doctor. I could have done a lot more damage." Dani winced a little when she heard him use her title in that distant tone. But she wouldn't let him distance himself from her this time, not after last night. She put her hand on his arm to let him know that.

"But you didn't. That's what matters, right?"

"Sure." Nico abruptly took his hand off the wheel to shift gears, forcing her to pull her own hand back and pretending not to notice. Dani sighed. Apparently he wasn't ready to talk about it yet. And it was only because they were coming up on the hospital that she decided to let him off the hook for now.

An hour later, Dani was practically fuming with rage again. Lindsay, who had obviously been in a lot of pain, had told them how she'd heard the car coming and how she had gotten as far out of it's way as possible, thinking the driver maybe hadn't seen her because it was dark. Only to look over her shoulder and see that bastard coming right at her. Dani was going to make him pay for that. Now, all she had to do was find him. As she walked out of the hospital, Nico following her, she took out her phone. It just so happened that she knew exactly who to call to get answers.

"Who are you calling?" Nico asked, coming up to walk beside her.

"Abby Bruce." Dani pushed Send and waited.

"Dani…" She held up her hand to cut Nico off when Abby answered the phone.

"Abby, this is Dani Santino. Would you mind telling me why someone is trying to keep me away from SBG?" she said into the phone.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Abby asked, after a second of silence.

"Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean. And if not, I suggest you start thinking about it right now. Because I'm on my way over, and you better have answers for me by the time I get there." Dani shoved her phone back into her purse and walked around Nico's car. She opened the door and got in, fastened her seatbelt and crossed her arms. Nico got in too, but he didn't start the engine. Instead, he just looked at her with his eyebrow raised in question. Dani sighed. "I need to talk to Abby, Nico."

"No, Dani. You need to let the police handle this."

"And I will. After I talk to Abby. Now drive, please." When he still didn't start the car, she unfastened her seatbelt again. "Fine. I'll just take a cab then." She opened the door, but before she could get out, he grabbed her by the wrist to stop her. His grip wasn't strong, but it was her left wrist and Dani hissed in pain before she could stop herself. Nico pulled back his hand as if he'd burned it. For a second, they both froze. Then Dani slowly turned her head to look at Nico, her stomach dropping when she saw the horror in his eyes. "Nico…" she reached out to him but he pulled away, turning his head forward and starting the car. She dropped her hand, trying to figure out how to make this right, coming up empty.

"Close the door. I'll drive you." Nico's voice sounded completely flat as he kept staring straight ahead, waiting for her to close the door.

A/N: Okay, so this wasn't where I had expected this chapter to end, and I'm sorry to leave you hanging like this… (*author once again ducks for cover*) Next update will probably be saturday or sunday. Please don't hesitate to tell me what you think of this chapter, and thank you for reviewing the previous chapters!