TEN
CILLIAN
After making sure Oscar was tucked in bed, I spend the next hour working on paperwork.
“Knock, knock,”
I hear my sweet wife call as she opens the door.
“You don’t have to knock, little lamb,”
I tell her, and walk over to her. I take Brayden from her arms. He immediately wraps his chubby little arms around my neck. I give him a hug and I lean down and kiss Bia’s lips. I feel Brayden’s hand on my cheek as he smacks it.
I pull away and stare at my son. “You can’t hog all of your Mam's attention.”
I tell him. He just mean mugs me.
“Cillian, be nice,”
Bia playfully scolds me.
“He needs to learn letting Daidí have alone time with Mam is very important.”
“Cillian!”
“I am not risking my favorite part of the day, plus, I want him to see how much I love his mam so when he finds his own little lamb he won’t be a dumb ass like his daidí was.”
“You can be so crass and in the next breath be sweet,”
she says, leaning up and giving my lips a quick kiss. I go for more but groan when my phone rings.
Cillian: What?
Soldier: Boss, Mrs. Erin O’Sullivan was just dumped off.
Cillian: Where was she dumped?
Soldier: Outside the gates, but she is in rough condition. She was shot.
Cillian: Call Adam or Daniel. I hang up the phone.
“I have to go,”
I tell Bia.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, little lamb.”
“Okay, anything I can do to help?”
“Can you let the family know?”
“Of course,”
she says kissing me, “Please keep me updated,”
she tells me before grabbing Brayden and leaving my office.
I grabbed my gun and ran to Oscar’s room.
OSCAR
Ugh. I feel like someone took a sledgehammer to my head.
“Oscar! Get up!”
I hear Keegan from the other side of my bedroom door.
“Fucking hold on asshole,”
I grumble as I slowly sit up. I groan, rub my head, and make my way to the door. I open the door and he pushes past me to come inside.
“Come on in Keegan.”
I say to him.
“Yeah, no time for that. Get your shit. They found Erin.”
That wakes me the fuck up.
“Where is she?”
“They are bringing her inside. I ran into Cillian and offered to get you.”
I barely hear the last part as I push past him and sprint all the way to the opposite side of the mansion. The maids shuffle against the wall or duck into a room to get out of my way. There is nothing besides a bullet between my eyes that will keep me from getting to my wife.
I burst through the doors and hear Adam’s voice barking out commands.
“MOVE!”
I look over and see him pushing the gurney toward me.
“Adam, what’s happening?”
He looks up at me. “She needs to go to the hospital.”
he says to me as he rushes out the door. I’m on his heels. The next ten minutes felt like an eternity as we load Erin into the van and Daniel speeds all the way to the hospital.
I held her hand the whole time, taking in every cut and bruise on her body and promising that whoever put those marks on her will have ten marks for each cut or bruise.
Caressing her hand, staring at each knuckle that is cracked and bloody, looking at the dirt under her fingernails.
“M'aingeal milis.
Geallaim go ndéanfaidh mé tú féin agus gach duine a leag méar ort íocfaidh mé lena saol .”(My sweet angel.
I promise I will avenge you and every person who laid a finger on you will pay with their life) I say raising her hand to my lips.
A few nurses are waiting outside the hospital with a gurney.
I hold onto Erin as they move her from the van to the gurney.
Adam starts barking information at them, “Bullet wound to the chest, severe lacerations on her back, possible broken bones, and internal bleeding. We need an OR.”
Nurses rushed her to the operating room, one nurse replaced the compress Adam had been holding to her bullet wound with a new one, and within seconds the white cloth was filled with blood.
The weight in my stomach is heavier seeing how much blood Erin has lost, and that is what we have seen.
How much did she lose before she was dumped? How close is she to death?
“Sir, you need to stay here,”
one of the nurses tells me. She tries to pry my hand off Erin’s.
“NO! I’m not leaving her side. That is my wife.”
I snap my attention away from the operating room doors to the nurse and they use that opportunity to push Erin through. I go to follow her but I am held back a set of steel arms around my chest.
“Fucking let go of me.”
I snarl and twist my body trying to loosen their grip.
“Knock it the fuck off, the nurses can't do their job with you hovering over them.”
I hear my Daidí say.
“I need to be in there.”
“No, you need to calm your ass the fuck down.” he says.
“Go ahead back with them, I will keep him in control,”
he tells the nurse who was standing by the doors watching me, ready for me to get loose.
“I can call security.” She says.
“He will be fine; he isn’t getting back there between me and his three brothers.”
“Okay. If you need help you can ask the nurse's desk. Someone will come update you as soon as we know more about her condition,”
she says as she turns and scans her ID before walking through the doors.
I slump in my father’s hold. “Condition…she has a condition?”
I hoarsely whisper.
Daidí lets go of me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Come sit down.”
I sat down in the chair and put my head in my hands. I count to ten trying to stabilize my erratic heartbeat and attempting to try and think clearly.
I look up to the men in my family. “Were they able to track down the ones who dump…dropped her off at the mansion?”
Cillian barely nods. “One survivor, the other one bled out before we could get them back to the mansion. He is acting like he can’t understand us. We will have to see how much he actually understands when we start to question him.”
“Yeah, if not, we can make them understand.”
I evilly smirk, thinking of all the different ways I am going to torture the answers out of him and even after I get the answers. He is going to be wishing for death, but I will not grant it to him. I could torture him for an eternity, and it still wouldn’t be long enough.
***
Hours later, Adam walks out looking so exhausted he looks like he could drop on his feet. I jumped up and rushed to him, my family behind me. Everyone is here with me.
“She made it through surgery.”
Thank fucking god.
“We almost lost her twice on the table. The bullet was a few inches away from hitting her heart. We have cleaned and stitched up the lacerations on her back, wrists, and ankles. She is covered in cuts and bruises, along with having six broken ribs, a busted lip, and black eyes.”
“Poor sweet girl,”
I hear Ma mutter quietly.
“Can I see her?”
He sadly shakes his head. “She is asking to be left alone right now.”
“I’m her husband,” I demand.
Adam gives me a sympathetic look, “I know, Oscar, but right now, she wants some space, and after everything she has been through. I’m going to give it to her.”
“Can you at least ask her if she wants to see Charlie?”
“I will. Why don’t you go home and get some rest? I will stay here with her all night.”
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving until she does.”
He stares at me but shakes his head when he sees that they will have to drag me out of this hospital to leave. He nods and walks back through the doors.
I slump back in my seat but keep my eyes on the door. I hear my family talking to me, but I pay them no mind the only thing that matters is getting to Erin’s side.
I feel a hand on my arm and I see Kayleigh there giving me a sad smile. I can’t even bring myself to smile back at her, so she just wraps me in a silent hug. I have to blink away my tears away. I had no idea I needed this.
“She made it through surgery, that is what matters. I know you need to talk but focus on the fact she is alive right now. You have time to fix things between you.”
“I know. I feel like such an asshole. I have treated her like shit, and she didn’t deserve anything I have done to her. I wish I could go back and fix things.”
“But you can’t. What you can do is from here on out treat her like she deserves from here on out.”
“She is going to have whatever she wants. She is my angel and is going to spoiled.”
“All Erin has wanted is for someone to care about her and that she can rely on. She has been on her own for so long that she is tired.”
“She does already, I know I haven’t showed her but that is going to change.”
“I hope so, Oscar. She is such a sweet girl, feisty but sweet. And her love for Charlie. I hope I can be half the mother she is one day.”
“One, don’t talk about you being a mother that means you need to have sex and you are dying a virgin.”
She scoffs and shakes her head, but I continue, “And two, I’m the luckiest man in the world to have her as my wife and the mother to Charlie and our future children.”
“Before you start planning for future children, you need to show her how much you care for her.”
“I’m going to show her how much I love her. She won’t be able to doubt how much I love her.”
We are interrupted by Adam coming back out. “Sorry, Osar. She is adamant that she doesn’t want to see anyone.”
Disappointed, I nod my head.
He says, “I can move you to the waiting room near her room.”
“Okay.”
I stand and hug my family before following Adam. They tell me they will take care of Charlie, and someone will be by in the morning for me with food and a bag of clothes for both of us. I didn’t realize it was in the middle of the night and that we had been at the hospital for over eight hours.
Adam brings me to a few chairs along the wall. “Either Daniel or I will be the doctors monitoring her until she is healthy enough to go home. I will be honest with you; she is worrying me. It seems she has given up, and not even Charlie brings any happiness to her eyes. She keeps saying how she thinks he will be better off without her.”
“D…Do you think she might try attempt suicide?”
“It’s a possibility, that is why I have a camera on her and have you sitting here. She is in there, give her space, but you are close. She is a flight risk also. She has already begged us to let her go. Don’t hover by her room.”
“I won’t.”
“I will bring you some extra clothes I keep in my locker here,”
he says before walking off, he brings me back a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt and a hoodie which actually helps me hide my face.
For hours I watch her door, but my leg keeps bouncing from being so restless. After another four hours, I can no longer sit still. That is why I’m sneaking into her room to see her. I need to see her, to hold her.
I thought seeing her bloodied and on the verge of the death was hard but seeing her looking so tiny and fragile in the hospital bed with an IV in her arm might just be just as hard if not harder. I wish I was the one laying in that bed not her.
“Erin,”
I whisper her name as I quietly walk up to her bed, grabbing her hand and gently kissing her knuckles.
“I’m so sorry, baby. You have no idea how sorry I am for hurting you and being so fucking stupid. You didn’t hide Charlie to be vicious, you thought you were protecting him. Maybe you were right to hide him from me, look at what happened to you.”
I say, giving her palm a lingering kiss.
“I promise-.”
“Mhm.”
“Erin?”
I gently call her name when she starts to groan.
“Aingeal can you open your eyes for me?”
I stared at her face, waiting to see those eyes that stole my heart. She opens her eyes and it takes a moment for her to recognize me. She immediately tries to pull her hand away from me.
“Easy, Erin, you are safe.”
“No, go away.”
“Erin.”
“NO!”
She starts to scream and move away and I lunge at her before she falls out of bed.
“Let go of me!”
she screams so loudly that it makes my ears ring while she thrashes in my arms trying to get out of my grip.
“I got you, Erin. I promise you are safe,”
I tell her in a soothing voice.
“NO!”
I hear the door slam open, and then I hear Daniel’s voice.
“Fucking hell, Oscar, Adam told you to give her space.”
He walks up to Erin, saying. “Erin you are okay.”
“No! Let me go.”
“Erin! Calm down, you are in the hospital. I promise you are safe,”
I beg her to settle down, but it only causes her to continue to thrash in my arms.
“Oscar, hold her still. I need to sedate her before she reinjuries herself.”
I nod and I watch as Daniel sticks the needle in her arm. Within a minute Erin stops fighting me and slumps in my arms. I watch her until Daniel’s voice breaks the trance I am in.
“I thought Adam told you to give her space.”
“I needed to see her.”
“Yeah, and how did that work out for you.”
“Watch it, Daniel. We can easily get a doctor to replace you,”
I tell him, pointing my gun at him.
“No. Right now, I’m protecting her. She has been through hell and deserves to have space if she wants it.”
I sigh, putting my gun away. “I know, okay? I hate feeling this useless. I wish it was me laying in that bed and not her.”
He pats me on the shoulder. “I know you do, but if she needs time then you give it to her. All you can do is give her time and keep her safe.”
I nod and give her one last kiss on her forehead before following him out the door.