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Jack watched them until they rounded the corner in the direction of the elevator banks.

He didn’t think they’d say anything. If they did, he was toast. As he’d once informed Gina , in the federal world, providing a false statement was a five-year felony.

By lying to those cops, he’d strayed way outside acceptable boundaries.

He returned to the waiting area where a doctor in light blue scrubs was talking with the women. As he joined them, Gina winced, favoring her right foot. She’d been hurt and hadn’t said a word.

“ The bullet nicked her large intestine,” the surgeon said. “ We repaired the damage, and she’ll be okay.”

Margo put a hand to her chest. “ Thank God .”

Gina covered her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d get through this. Her friends would help her. I’ll help her. He didn’t know how, but he would. Despite the havoc she’d created in his life, he couldn’t just walk away. She was a loving, caring woman, and she needed his help.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, enfolding her in his arms. Her body shook with renewed sobs as she clung to him, slipping her hands beneath his winter coat and digging her nails into his back.

Margo and Annabelle wrapped their arms around Gina as well, leaving them standing in the waiting area in a football-like huddle. Despite what Gina thought, these women would never leave her. She just didn’t know it yet.

* * *

Two hours later, Gina , Margo , and Annabelle sat at Kinsey’s bedside. A nurse had thoughtfully procured an ice pack for Gina’s sprained ankle, which turned out not to be as bad as she’d originally thought.

Kinsey had been transferred to a private room and was awake but groggy. The paleness of her friend’s normally cheerful face and the discomfort contorting her beautiful features tore at Gina’s heart.

I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.

She didn’t know what to say. Somehow , I’m sorry I was so eaten up by revenge that I orchestrated this cockamamie scheme and you got shot didn’t cut it. So what would cut it?

The truth. It was time.

With her heart in her throat, she took Kinsey’s cool hand in hers. “ How are you doing, Kins ?”

“ Well ,” she said, reaching for the cup of ice Margo handed her, “considering I just got shot by a mobster and lived to tell about it, I’d say I’m doing all right.”

Anna snorted. “ The term is plugged . I saw it in a movie.”

Despite the humor Anna was attempting to interject into the somber mood, Gina rolled her lips inward, desperately trying not to cry.

“ Do you want us to call your parents?” Margo asked.

“ God , no.” Kinsey crunched on an ice shard. “ They’re floating somewhere off the French Riviera . Besides , how would I explain this?”

“ Good point,” Anna said.

How would any of them explain this? And what would Jack do to them?

“ Gina .” Kinsey gave her hand a light squeeze. “ I’ll be okay. Really . The doctor said so.”

“ I know but—” Seeing Kinsey this way was so much harder than she expected.

Guilt came roaring back, souring her stomach and leaving a giant lump in her throat.

“ It’s my fault you were hurt. This shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Jack warned me this was too dangerous to keep doing.

I disobeyed his orders, and you paid the price.

” She shook her head, still not quite believing that one of them had actually been shot.

“ I’m so, so sorry, Kinsey . It should be me lying in that bed, not you. ”

“ Don’t say that.” Her mouth curved up in an impish little grin. “ Look at it this way. Now I’ll have this cool scar to talk about at the beach when I wear my itty-bitty blue bikini.”

Anna snickered, and Margo made an exasperated sound.

Kinsey’s eyes widened. “ Where’s the money?”

“ Locked in the trunk of the rental,” Anna said as she tugged the thin hospital blanket higher on Kinsey’s torso.

“ Jack is letting us give it to the Center .” While they’d waited for Kinsey to be moved to her own room, he’d informed her there was no giving the money back, so it might as well do some good.

“ Jack ?” Kinsey arched a brow. “ How does he know already? Did one of you call him?”

Margo took the cup of ice Kinsey handed her. “ He heard about the shooting and tracked us down.”

“ He’s here?” This time, both Kinsey’s brows hit her hairline. “ At the hospital?”

Gina tipped her head to the door. “ He’s out in the hall on the phone.” Probably making arrangements for my jail cell. That was a conversation they still needed to have, and one she dreaded.

Her friends stared at her, the unspoken question written plainly on their faces.

Anna said it first. “ What do you think he’ll do to us?”

“ Nothing . He won’t do anything to you . I pushed things too far. I’ll take the full hit for this fiasco.” Not only did one of her best friends get seriously injured but she’d obstructed Jack’s case. Again . Only this time she’d done it knowingly and willfully.

Her friends shook their heads at the same time.

Margo was the first to speak. “ No , Gina . When we signed on for this, we knew there were risks. Those risks always included the possibility we’d be caught one day, either by the people we were stealing from or the law.

We’ve had this conversation before. Whatever happens, it happens to all of us. ”

Kinsey reached for Gina’s hand. Margo and Anna leaned in to rest theirs on top of Kinsey’s . The gesture was so unbelievably supportive, so painfully poignant, her heart swelled.

“ When we have our day in court,” Margo continued, “we’ll tell the absolute truth. We did this for the Center .”

“ Exactly ,” Anna added. “ We’ll tell the judge and jury everything and let the chips fall wherever chips fall.”

“ Our motives were pure,” Kinsey said. “ That has to count for something.”

Their motives were pure. Hers weren’t. At least not entirely.

Tell them .

A lump bigger than a baseball lodged solidly in her throat.

Even if by some miracle she didn’t wind up in jail for the next ten to twenty, after what she was about to confess, they would hate her.

They’d never want to see her again, and she would be totally alone in the world.

That would be the worst of her punishment.

“ I have to tell you something,” she choked out. “ I haven’t exactly been honest with you.”

“ About what?” Anna narrowed her eyes.

“ About my motives for stealing money for the shelter. You already know my mother was a victim of domestic violence. But there’s more.”

Margo canted her head. “ We all know someone close to us who was victimized. That’s why we agreed to this in the first place. Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

“ For you, yes. For me, there was something else.” She looked at her friends. Here goes. “ There’s a reason we’ve stolen only from the Falzones .”

Anna’s brows scrunched. “ You told us you happened to know someone on the inside, an informant who fed you information on when and where we could grab some cash.”

“ That’s true.” She nodded. “ But I didn’t tell you everything.

Like how and why I had that informant.” She took another fortifying breath.

“ My father was a mob bookie. He ran numbers for Franco Falzone and—” A shot of renewed hatred punched her in the gut, and she clenched her hands. “ Franco murdered my father.”

Anna gasped. Margo pursed her lips. Only Kinsey’s expression was neutral, probably due to residual effects of the anesthesia.

“ When did this happen?” Kinsey asked.

“ Fifteen years ago.” Sometimes , it seemed like only yesterday.

“ He got caught up in an FBI sting. To avoid going to prison, he agreed to wear a wire to get incriminating statements from Franco . Franco found the wire and shot him in the head.” She’d never seen her father’s body, but that’s what she overheard her mother repeating over the phone.

“ My god.” Margo’s expression turned sympathetic, which only made Gina more determined to get it all out. “ No wonder you’ve been keeping Jack at a distance.”

Exactly . No matter how much the man insinuated himself into her thoughts, a real and lasting relationship with him wasn’t possible. Maybe it was time to tell him everything too. Given his own quest for revenge, wouldn’t he understand her motives?

Anna and Kinsey’s expressions were similarly sympathetic. She didn’t deserve their sympathy. Because there was more to tell.

“ My name isn’t really Gina Perot ,” she continued.

“ It’s Angelina Perotti . I had my name legally changed after my mother died.

The media did such a bang-up job of plastering my father’s murder in the newspapers and on TV , I couldn’t go anywhere without people talking about me behind my back.

I went away to college and, before coming back to New York City , I changed my name, so I could start fresh. ”

“ Wow ,” Anna said. “ Virtually , a blank slate.”

Not quite. No matter how much she wished it, changing her name could never change the past.

She clasped her hands tightly to keep them from shaking.

“ Do you remember when we all met at that fundraiser a couple of years ago?” They nodded.

“ We overheard Linda Hernandez saying they hadn’t taken in as much money that night as she’d hoped for.

One of you brought up that news story about oodles of cash the FBI had just seized from some mobsters after a big raid in Chicago . ”

“ And ,” Margo interjected, “how that money would probably go to waste in some government bank account when it could be spent on something far more worthy.”

“ Like the shelter,” Kinsey piped in, although her eyes were slowly closing.

“ There’s more.” Gina uttered a bitter laugh. “ Two nights after that fundraiser, we were drinking martinis at my place while watching Robin Hood when I jokingly said we should steal that money from the mob and give it away. Like Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor.”