Half Empty (First Wives #2)

“Water,” she sputtered.

Trina was there with a cup and a straw. Since the bed was already elevated, Avery didn’t attempt to sit up more. The first sip hurt, but the second sip soothed. Trina pulled it away. “The nurse said only a few sips to start. We have to do everything we can to keep you from coughing or getting sick to your stomach.”

She imagined the pain with either task would equal walking barefoot on broken glass. Avery’s face was covered in bandages once again and it felt as if someone had a party in her nose and had invited the entire state of New York.

Trina came into focus, the concern in her eyes making Avery want to blow off her pain.

“How do you feel?”

“Ready to party.” Avery closed her eyes.

“There’s a button for the pain medication.”

Yeah, but the medication would just knock her out, and she wanted a few minutes of cognition before falling back asleep.

“How do I look?”

“Ready to party,” Trina repeated her words with a small laugh.

She opened her eyes again. “No, really?”

Trina made a point to look everywhere but in Avery’s eyes, as if studying her face. “There’s more swelling, and a few new colors have been introduced to your complexion. I’d hold off on any new selfies for your Tinder profile.”

Avery smiled and felt the packing in her nose even more.

“I’m so sorry any of this happened, Avery.”

She held open the palm in her good hand, and Trina slipped hers in. “Not your fault.”

“But if you weren’t in the city for me—”

Avery tried to squeeze Trina’s hand. “Still not your fault.” She used only her eyes to look around the new room. It was a private room that looked less like a hospital room and more like a hotel. The darker color on the walls soothed her senses more than the stark white of the ICU. There were flowers. Two bouquets sat on a shelf across from her bed and brightened the space. “What time is it?”

“Two thirty. Are you hungry?”

“No. Where is everyone?”

“Lori, Shannon, and Reed are grabbing a bite in the cafeteria. I told your parents I’d call once you’re awake. Your mother doesn’t like hospitals, apparently.”

“Yeah, did she tell you why?”

Trina shook her head.

“Because they remind her of two days of labor with me . . . her greatest disappointment.”

Trina looked at her as if she were joking.

“Fine, don’t believe me. But if you ask why she has an aversion to hospitals, she’ll tell you because of the time she’s spent in them. Then ask my father when my mother was in a hospital the last time.”

“I’m sure that’s not it.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m telling you the facts. Whatever, she stresses me out anyway. Now that I’m out of the ICU, I’m pretty sure I can get her to go home.”

Trina patted her hand. “Bernie sent the flowers.”

“That’s nice. Do I still have a guard at the door?”

“Yup. Rick is right outside.”

“That’s good.” And it was. There was comfort in the fact that no one could come in and finish the job. The pain in Avery’s body was proof she was lucky to be alive. “Where is Wade?”

“Dealing with a few PR issues while I’m here with you. The police are coming by this afternoon.”

She closed her eyes and tried to remember something, anything about that day. All that came to her was a fuzzy memory of walking by Central Park, and then she was waking up and feeling like she’d been run over by a bus. “I don’t remember anything about what happened.”

“The investigators of the assault asked us to call them if you have anything new to tell. The police I’m talking about are the ones dealing with the break-in at the house.”

Avery blinked through swollen eyes. “What break-in?”

Trina opened her mouth and then closed it.

“Trina?”

“Someone broke into Fedor’s office and completely trashed the place, after wiping it clean of every fingerprint, on the day you were attacked.”

“Robbery?”

“We don’t know if they took anything.”

“They were too late. I took the pens to Mr. Levin.” Even as she said the name, the memory unfolded in her head. “Braum Auctions. I remember that now.”

Trina sat forward.

“He has the pens.” It felt good to get that piece of memory back. She closed her eyes and searched for more. “The watches. I remember being happy to have them out of my purse. God, where did I take them?” Why couldn’t she remember?

“Christie’s?” Trina suggested.

“Yes! Oh, right. They were snotty but so excited about an auction and wanted to know if we had more.” The hair on Avery’s skin tingled. “I remember that now.”

“Anything else? Do you remember anything else?”

She saw the garage when she closed her eyes. Only she was leaving the car . . . “I had a mom purse. I think it was one of yours. I needed a big one to put everything in.”

“Yes.” Trina seemed excited. “The black one.”

“I remember leaving the garage. I don’t remember going back in. That’s where they found me, right?” She seemed to remember someone telling her that when she was in the ICU.

“Yes.”

Avery shook her head slowly. “I don’t remember anything else.”

Trina smiled. “Well, it’s more than yesterday, so there is progress. The doctors will be excited to hear that.”

Her head started to throb, and instead of denying herself relief, she opened her palm. “Where is that button of fun?”

Trina reached over the bed and put the thing in her hand.

Avery pushed it and sighed long before the medication circulated in her veins.



Ruslan Petrov was a patient man with one impatient moment in his past. That moment changed everything. He was a man who had more plates spinning in the air than a circus performer, and one was slipping off his finger, and he’d be damned if he dropped anything now.

Across from him, Zakhar delivered unwelcome news. “Ms. Grant had already delivered the items to the auction houses.”

“Did your man at least steal her wallet?”

“No.”

Ruslan clenched his fist. “He didn’t finish the job.”

“He said he was interrupted.”

“Let me see if I understand this correctly. I said to make it look like burglary, and now it simply looks like a vendetta. And she’s alive to identify him.”

Zakhar matched Ruslan’s stare. “I have already taken care of the situation. Nothing will be tied to you.”

That had Ruslan releasing the hold he had on his own fingers and rubbing the tension away.

“What about the other collateral damage?”

“She is scrubbed. No trace.”

“I expect nothing was messy.”

Zakhar smiled, a white line of a scar he earned in a street fight distorting his face, making his grin look like a threat. It was one of the many things Ruslan liked about the man. “Car accident.”

It would be so much easier if he could just scrub the woman who destroyed everything. But that would only result in the wrong people looking his way. Instead of losing a fortune, he’d lose his freedom.

He used a remote control to reveal a monitor behind a picture on the wall. When the image flicked into focus, a map of the world emerged. With another button, the map focused on the state of New York. Several dots blinked, each a different color.

Katrina’s bitch lawyer and their friend blipped in the same place. He knew without looking that they were at the Manhattan hospital where he’d put their friend. The redneck blipped a few blocks away, and it appeared Trina was by herself downtown. Which didn’t sound right, considering she’d been flanked by security since he’d started his cover-up. A cover-up he had thought he’d taken care of the year before.

Ruslan pointed at the map. “Where is this?”

Zakhar moved behind the desk and clicked into the program tracking the players.

“Looks residential.”

“Have our man on the ground find out. What about the house?”

“Police activity has pulled out. They didn’t find anything.”

At least that worked as he’d planned.

“I do have some positive news,” Zakhar said.