6. Keir #2
“What the hell happened, Keir?” she demanded, her tone nowhere near as gentle as it had been with Orin only moments ago. “Why is Molly here?”
Running a hand through my hair, I blew out a breath. “It’s a long story.”
Fallon continued to look Molly over. “She doesn’t appear to have any serious injuries. Some contusions around her neck…” She glared at me. “Did you do this?” She motioned to Molly’s throat, and my fists clenched. I wanted to kill Grady all over again.
“No. Someone else did that.”
Fallon knew enough about how the clan worked to know that someone else was probably not breathing anymore.
After a beat of stunned silence, she nodded. “Okay. It looks like she is just unconscious. There’s not much I can do now.” She rose to her feet and moved to push the jacket from my shoulders.
I stopped her but refrained from touching her. “Woah, what are you doing, lass?”
She served me with a flat stare. “You’re bleeding.” She said the words slowly, like I was an eejit. “I need to look at it before you die of exsanguination.”
Orin hammered on the door. “Fallon,” he barked.
With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, she cracked open the door to speak with her man. “He has a girl in here. It looks like she was attacked. She’s unconscious, but will be fine.”
“Who? Who’s the girl?” he demanded.
“Don’t tell him,” I barked out.
Fallon sighed again, stuck between my rank and Orin’s. “She’s someone from my world,” she said. “Now I know she’s okay, I’m going to patch up Keir.”
“Patch him up out here.”
“In the strip club? Where there are customers and girls walking around?” She posed her question firmly. Stitching me up in private was the far better option, Orin had to see that.
After a beat, he replied darkly, “Fine. But you need to check in with me every couple of minutes.”
She let out a sigh. “If I didn’t love you so much, I’d find this overbearing guard routine tiresome.”
“It’s a good thing you love me then,” he murmured. “You should know as soon as we’re done here, I’ll be taking you home, tying you up, and fucking you to multiple orgasms.”
She moved closer, shifting onto her toes to kiss him. “No complaints here.” After one final kiss, she stepped back and shut the door. Then to me, she said, “Jacket off. Are you bleeding anywhere else?”
I grinned as I said, “Got stabbed in the thigh, too.”
Fallon rolled her eyes at me. “Why do you like pushing Orin’s buttons so much?”
“Because I can,” I replied. “Plus, I outrank him. He may have gotten you, but at least I have that.”
Her expression sobered. “Keir, I?—”
I shook my head, finally shucking off my jacket. I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but the truth was the truth. At another time, maybe she would’ve been mine.
Fallon was all business once she got a good look at my arm. She inspected the wound, pressing here and there to check the depth. “It’s a clean slice. You’ll need a couple of stitches, but generally it’s okay. Let’s look at the one on your leg.”
Flicking the button on my pants, I stepped out of them and perched on the end of the couch beside Molly as Fallon crouched to get a better look.
“Fallon,” Orin called.
“Almost done,” she replied. “He needs stitches.”
There was a grumble of disapproval, then it went quiet.
Fallon’s head was bent over my thigh as she inspected the puncture wound. “You shouldn’t have removed the weapon,” she told me. “But it doesn’t look too bad. You’ll have to get checked out properly if you feel like there’s some nerve damage.”
“I climbed up and down four flights of stairs without so much as a twinge,” I lied. It had hurt like a motherfucker, but knowing Molly had been close was enough motivation for me to push through the pain.
Riffling through her bag, she pulled out a vial and syringe.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Lidocaine. It’ll numb the area before I suture.”
She waited until I nodded before drawing a dose of the clear liquid and injecting measured doses around the site of the wound.
Each little pin prick hurt, but I resisted the urge to flinch.
If I could take a dagger to the thigh without complaint, I could sure as fuck take a needle.
Fallon worked efficiently, but I was waiting for the barrage of questions about Molly.
I could practically see them sitting on the tip of her tongue.
When she finished with my thigh and moved to my arm, I said, “Ask me again.”
She blinked her pretty blue eyes at me. “Why is Molly here?” Her voice was softer now, like she’d been turning over the possible reasons in her head.
“Molly left a bullet in my Rover. A bullet with Finnan’s name on it.”
She frowned. “Why was she in your Rov—Actually, I don’t want to know. What was she doing with the bullet?”
“That’s what Finnan wants to know. I’ve been trying to track her down, but she’s slippery.” My gaze settled on Molly, who still lay unconscious on the couch.
“Molly’s my friend,” she whispered. “What’s going to happen to her?”
“That is up to her. So far, she’s been … uncooperative.”
Fallon set down her needle and pressed back into her heels. “I know she’s not always had the easiest life.”
“She told you that?” I asked, suddenly greedy for information.
What had she told the people closest to her? Did they know she only moved to Galway a few years ago? That she had a whole other life before then?
“She’s hinted,” Fallon said, picking up a non-stick bandage and unwrapping it. “She’s told me that her mam made the wrong choices when it came to men, and she had to get away.”
“Any mention of a sister?”
A frown appeared between her brows. “A sister? No, she’s never mentioned one to me before.”
Fallon had just confirmed what I’d suspected about Molly. She had more secrets than anyone would ever know, and I would be the one to drag out each and every one of them—by force, if necessary.