Chapter 27 #2
Behind him, Varina makes a sound. I look past his shoulder and find her still near the bench, crying openly now, one hand pressed to her mouth with Ash’s gun to her temple. Nearly everyone else is dead or close to it, though none of them are my concern.
Varina takes one step toward me. “Oisín, I’m so sorry.”
Saint chuckles, the look he gives her is worse than any shouted threat. “Don’t.”
Her face crumples. “I didn’t know it would—”
“You stayed,” I whisper. “You told me I should have just given in. I don’t care if you didn’t touch me. You. Stayed.”
I close my eyes because I can’t carry her apology right now.
It’s too late, too heavy, too full of everything she should’ve done before the first hit landed.
Some part of me knows those tears are only for show, anyway, that she’s not actually apologizing.
She’s just trying to save her skin. Saint shifts me carefully in his arms, a tremor running through him when my body goes limp against his chest.
“We’re leaving,” he states, daring Varina to fight that. She has to know she’s lost everything, that there’s no coming back from all of this.
When her gaze dips to Rook a little too long, I wonder if there had been something more between them. Not that it matters now. The men she thought she knew, trusted, and stood beside are gone.
Saint hums against my temple as he carries me outside, the shudder that runs through me due to the night air making Saint tighten his grip on me.
He loosens it in the next second as we make it to the car, Bricks strolling up to meet us.
He’s dripping in blood, gun in one hand, his chest heaving, and the light in his eyes gone.
If he wasn’t on our side, I’d be terrified.
Bricks holds out a phone with his other hand, a grim smile spreading across his face. “Someone wants to speak with you.”
I frown, confused when Sol’s voice comes through the speaker. “Did you get what you came for?”
Saint snorts. “I took back my husband, the man they stole from me. Yes and we’re coming home.”
“The bloodshed you no doubt caused was unnecessary. Moth mentioned that the run this evening…”
Saint adjusts his hold on me with care that doesn’t match the violence in his voice.
“If you ever fought for Mom, maybe you’d understand.
” Saint’s breathing is rough against my temple, and I can feel the blood from his side soaking warm into my shirt where he holds me.
“But you’ve never loved anything,” Saint says. “I’m not even sure you love Obsidian.”
The voice on the other line goes silent before Sol clears his throat. “Love is weakness.”
Saint laughs once, though there’s no humor in it. “No. Weakness is calling from the fucking clubhouse or wherever you are while I rescued what was most important to me and still thinking the lesson matters more than the life.”
Sol clears his throat again. “That boy is the reason—”
“That man is my husband.” Saint’s voice cracks on the word. “And if you finish that sentence, I’ll put you in the ground beside Canon and let the club decide which of you disgusts them more.”
“You… you killed him?”
“I would have done fucking worse if Sín wasn’t fucking there watching me.”
Bricks ends the call, raising an eyebrow as Varina steps out of the building. His gaze flicks to me and then to Saint before his smile turns into something demonic. “Am I handling her?”
Saint shakes his head. “Not yet. Give her a warning. She can meet us in a few days. I’m getting Sín home.”
Saint moves past him and lowers me into the back seat with a care that terrifies me more than roughness would. He keeps one hand behind my head, the other under my knees, shifting me slowly as if he can negotiate with pain by being patient enough. I still cry out when my ribs move wrong.
“I know,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “I know. I’m sorry, Sín.”
Demo climbs in beside me after a panicked glance at Saint, one hand hovering like he wants to help and doesn’t know where he can touch without hurting me.
Ash stays behind, both him and Bricks approaching my sister.
I almost want to stay and watch what happens.
The other part of me just wants to go home.
Saint slams the driver’s door hard enough to make the SUV shudder and tears out of the lot before everyone is fully braced.
The drive back is a blur of headlights, pain, and Saint’s voice. He talks the whole way, pushing orders into the phone and threats at anyone who doesn’t answer fast enough.
“Get Doc to the clubhouse now.” “No, not in ten minutes, now.” “Tell Tally to clear the back room.” “Moth, I have him.” There’s a pause after that one, rough enough that I feel it even half-conscious. “Yes, he’s alive but he’s hurt bad.” Another pause. “I don’t know. Just be ready.”
Every time I make a sound, his eyes flick to the rearview mirror.
Every time the SUV hits a rough patch and pain rips through me, his hand tightens on the wheel until I think he might break it.
Demo murmurs useless, frantic things beside me, telling me to breathe, telling me we’re almost there, telling me I did good like he’s trying to patch my body with the only words he has.
I want to tell him it’s okay but I can’t make my mouth work around anything other than shallow breaths.
My lids start to drift close, just as I recognize the buildings in Obsidian territory.
“Sín! Baby, fuck, you have to stay awake,” Saint yells, his gaze meeting mine through the rearview mirror. The tires swerve through the gravel, my whole body jolting forward.
I try to obey him as he gathers me up into his arms again, everyone seemingly waiting for our arrival.
“Doctor!” Saint roars as the conversation dies in the main room. He stalks down the hall to a back room, Tally gesturing us in.
The table there has been stripped and covered with clean sheets, a lean, scarred man I’ve never seen before standing at the side, sleeves rolled up, nearly blond hair cut close to his head, one side of his face marked by an old burn scar that pulls at the corner of his mouth.
His eyes go over me quickly, and then to Saint.
“Lay him down.”
Saint doesn’t move.
The doctor’s voice sharpens. “Saint. Lay him down or I can’t see what’s wrong.”
That gets through to him as Saint lowers me onto the table, and even with all his care, the shift hurts so badly the ceiling goes black around the edges. I hear myself cry out. Saint’s hand catches mine immediately, fingers closing around the ring and blood and all.
“Fix him,” Saint says.
The doctor is already cutting my shirt open. “I need room.”
“Fix him.”
“I heard you, VP.” The doctor presses careful fingers along my ribs, and I choke on the pain.
“Possible cracked ribs, facial trauma, blood loss from shallow cuts, dehydration, concussion risk. If anything’s broken internally or he starts crashing, he’ll need a hospital.
You’ll need to construct some kind of story so they don’t start asking questions. ”
“I don’t care,” Saint says. “Fix him.”
The doctor looks up. “You will care if he needs surgery.”
Saint leans over him, the whole room shrinking around his voice. “If he dies, it’s your head.”
The doctor doesn’t flinch. “If you keep threatening the man trying to keep him alive, you’re going to slow me down.”
For one second, I think Saint might actually kill the doctor for speaking to him like that. Then my hand twitches in his, and his attention drops back to me so fast it hurts to watch. “Sín,” he murmurs. His hand cups the side of my head, careful around the swelling. “I’m here.”
Pain and exhaustion have turned the room watery, the lights above me keep stretching into long white lines.
The doctor shines something in my good eye and tells me to stay with him.
Saint’s voice comes closer, repeating it like he can make the order matter more if it comes from him. “Stay with me, Sín.”
There’s so much more fear in his words now, naked enough that even the pain can’t hide it from me.
Saint sounds like a man standing at the edge of something he can’t command, can’t shoot, can’t threaten into obedience.
His thumb strokes once over my ring, and when I manage to turn my fingers weakly against his, his breath breaks.
“I had no choice,” I whisper again, because some wound deeper than the cuts still needs the answer.
Saint bends until his forehead nearly touches mine. “I know. I know, baby. I know.”
“You’re not just useful. You hear me? You’re not. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and I’m going to learn how to say it right if you wake up and give me the chance.”
I want to tell him I hear him. I want to tell him he already did. But my body is done, and the dark closes before I can make the words leave my mouth.