Chapter 23

Serena's POV After four days in the hospital, I finally got to leave that sterile hell. The doctors had cleared me, saying my concussion was healing well, though I still needed to take it easy. Not that I had much choice with Maya hovering around me like an overprotective mother hen. "Easy does it," she warned as I slipped my feet into my flats. "No rushing." "I'm fine," I insisted, though the dull throb in my head suggested otherwise. The hospital discharge papers felt heavy in my hands—almost as heavy as the news I'd received yesterday. My lawyer had called with the update I'd been dreading: we couldn't proceed with charges against Ivy. "All the security footage from that section of the restaurant has mysteriously disappeared," he'd explained, frustration evident in his voice. "And without witnesses willing to come forward..." I knew exactly who was behind the vanishing evidence. Simon Graves, Ryan's ever-loyal assistant, would have moved heaven and earth to protect the Blackwood nam