Chapter 34 Kingston
KINGSTON
The bullet hits Livvie and time, as well as my heart, fucking stops.
The gunshot echoes across the pier like a clap of thunder, and all I see is my wife crumpling to the concrete, blood soaking into the fabric of her hoodie.
"Livvie!" I yell.
I’m running before her body hits the ground, but Bronx is faster. His rifle cracks twice, and the masked fucker's head explodes like a watermelon. Blood and brain matter spray across the concrete, painting it red.
The other bastard still has his arm around Livvie's neck, using her limp body as a shield. Blood pours from her shoulder, so much fucking blood, and her eyes roll back in her head.
"Drop your weapons or she bleeds out," he shouts, pressing his gun to her temple.
Wrong fucking move.
Reign appears behind him. The guy doesn't even see the blade until it's sliding between his ribs, punching through his lung and into his heart. He drops the gun, gurgling blood, then collapses in a heap on the ground.
I drop to my knees next to Livvie, my hands shaking as I press them against the wound. The bullet hit high on her shoulder, close to her collarbone. Too close to major arteries. Too much blood pooling beneath her, soaking into the concrete.
"Stay with me, princess," I growl, carefully taking her into my arms. "Don't you fucking dare leave me."
Her eyes flutter open, unfocused and glassy. "Kingston…"
"I'm here. I've got you."
But even as I say it, I can feel her slipping away. Her skin loses more and more color by the second, now white as paper, lips turning blue. And the blood won't stop flowing, no matter how hard I press.
"Can't… can't feel my arm," she rasps, her voice barely audible.
My stomach drops like a concrete block. Nerve damage. Maybe worse.
"Ambulance," I bark at Bronx. "Now."
"Already called. It’s two minutes out."
Two minutes feels like two fucking hours. I strip off my shirt, pressing it against the wound, but the fabric soaks through in seconds. This isn't just muscle damage. The bullet hit something important, something that's making her fade right in front of me.
"Kingston," she breathes, her eyes struggling to focus. "I'm scared."
"Don't be scared, princess. I won’t let anything happen to you. You hear me? You're gonna be fucking fine."
But my voice cracks. And I'm terrified. More terrified than I've ever been in my life. I've seen men die from hits like this. I've put men in the ground with bullets to the shoulder because they’re deadly when they hit the right spot.
Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer and closer as my throat constricts. The ambulance finally arrives, paramedics jumping out before it fully stops. They take one look at Livvie and start working fast to check her vitals.
"GSW to the upper torso," one of them says into his radio. "Possible subclavian artery damage. We need trauma surgery standing by."
They load her onto a gurney and start an IV as they run her toward the ambulance. I try to climb into the back, but one of the paramedics blocks me.
"Sorry, sir. Family only."
"I'm her husband."
He looks at my blood-soaked hands, my bare chest, the guns my brothers are still holding. "Are you injured?"
I grit my teeth and back away. "No. Just get her to the fucking hospital."
"We’re taking her to Mount Sinai. We'll meet you there."
The ambulance pulls away, sirens screaming, and I'm left standing on the pier with my brothers and two dead bodies. Livvie's blood is still on my hands, under my fingernails, soaked into my skin.
"They’re going to Mount Sinai," I say as I run toward our SUV.
"K, the scene—"
"Fuck the scene. Clean it up later."
Bronx tosses me a spare shirt from the trunk. I rip off my vest and shrug it on, but I can still smell her blood. Still see her face going white as life drained out of her.
The drive to Mount Sinai takes twenty minutes in traffic and I am climbing out of my skin as Bronx maneuvers in and out of lanes.
"She's gonna be fine," Reign says from the back seat. "Livvie's tough."
I don't answer. Can't answer. Because tough doesn't mean shit when a bullet tears through the wrong artery. Tough doesn't save you when your nerves get severed.
Bronx barely comes to a stop outside the emergency room before I push open the door and jump onto the pavement. My heart explodes against my ribs, panic flooding my insides as I tear through the waiting room and stop in front of the reception desk.
“Livvie Viacava.” The name explodes out of my lips when a nurse with furrowed brows looks up at me. “She was just brought in with a gunshot wound.”
The nurse’s lips pull into a tight line. “And you are?”
“Her husband,” I choke out. “Where is she?”
“She’s been taken into surgery. I will have the doctor come out and talk to you as soon as he can.” She nods toward the rows of chairs around the perimeter of the room. As if I can sit. As if I can keep my shit together enough to calmly wait for answers… answers I might not want to hear.
Bronx and Reign run in minutes later. I pace a row of windows, fisting my hair as fear knots in the back of my throat.
“She can’t die,” I mutter, more to myself than to them. “I fucking love her. I can’t lose her. Not now.”
I catch the look Bronx and Reign exchange, and my heart sinks into my stomach.
I know what it means.
But fuck that. I won’t accept it. She has to live and I’ll do anything, pay whatever it takes to make that happen.
A doctor walks out of the double doors, a surgical mask covering the bottom half of his face. But his eyes freeze the blood in my veins. He speaks quietly to the nurse at the desk and looks over at me and my brothers. His shoulders square and he walks over to us, pulling down his mask.
"Mr. Viacava? I'm Dr. Chen, one of the trauma surgeons.” He pauses for a long second. “Your wife is in critical condition."
"How critical?"
"The bullet damaged her subclavian artery and brachial plexus. We're working to repair the vessel, but there may be permanent nerve damage to her left arm."
The words hit me with the force of a machete to the chest. Permanent damage. To her violin arm. The arm that makes music, that makes her who she is.
"Is she going to live?"
"We're doing everything we can. The next few hours will tell us more. The rest of the surgery could take anywhere from four to eight hours, depending on what else we find."
He turns and walks back through the double doors, leaving me in a waiting room that stinks of disinfectant and fucking death.
I pace the floor, blood still caked under my fingernails, while Bronx handles the administrative bullshit at reception and Reign barks orders to our cleanup team from his phone.
"We have it all taken care of," Bronx says a little while later, joining me. "Private room, best surgeons. Whatever she needs. It’s sorted. She’ll be treated like a queen, K."
I nod but don't stop pacing. Eight hours. She could die in eight hours. Or wake up and never play violin again, which might be worse for her.
An hour later, my parents appear with a bunch of security guys surrounding them. Dad in his expensive Italian suit, Mom clutching her Birkin purse like hospitals are beneath her.
Bronx said they were out at some benefit function when he got through to them. Dad takes one look at me and his expression hardens to stone.
"What the hell happened?" he bites out.
"Not now."
"Kingston, we need to discuss—"
"I said not now." My voice comes out as a snarl that makes him recoil. "My wife is in surgery. Everything else can wait."
Mom takes a step toward me, her eyes flicking over my stained clothes before they focus on mine. "How is she?"
"Could go either way."
She nods, gives my arm a squeeze, and sits down without another word. At least one of my parents has sense.
Dad starts to say something else, but Mom grabs his arm. "Sit down, my love. We need to wait for the surgeon to give us an outcome."
My head spins, and I’m one fucking second away from losing my shit when the O'Callaghans show up next. I guess Bronx called them, too. Or maybe the hospital personnel did.
Who the fuck knows. Either way, they’re here now and I'm surrounded by family.
Cormac storms through the doors like he owns the hospital, and his wife, Fiona, hurries behind him with two younger women I recognize from the wedding as Livvie's sisters.
I move to a seat near the window, not in the mood to talk. My mind is too fogged up with horrific images of Livvie at that pier to give a damn about anything else.
"Where is she?" Cormac demands, coming up behind me.
"Surgery." I don't get up from my chair. Don't look at him.
"This is your fault," he spits. "If you hadn't screwed with the Tribunal—"
I'm on my feet and in his face before he can finish the sentence. "Finish that thought and I'll put you through that window."
"Cormac," Fiona says sharply. "Not here. Not now."
Cormac backs down, but his eyes promise that the conversation isn't over. Fine by me. I have plenty to say to the bastard who let his daughter get dragged into this mess.
Livvie's sisters hover near their mother, whispering back and forth, their red eyes wet with tears. Livvie didn’t really talk much about them. Since the wedding, it’s been the two of us, like the rest of our lives kind of fizzled to white noise around us.
No family dinners or parties. It’s just been the two of us in our marital bubble. And I fucking like it better that way.
The younger sister, Siobhan, or whatever, keeps staring at me like I'm some kind of monster. Maybe I am. Maybe monsters are the only thing that can protect the people they love.
"How long has she been in surgery?" Fiona asks me when Cormac prowls away to make a phone call.
"Three hours."
"And the doctors said what, exactly?"
I repeat what Dr. Chen told me, watching her face go pale when I mention the nerve damage. She knows what that means for Livvie. Knows what music means to her daughter.
"She'll adapt," Fiona says, but her voice wavers. "She's strong."