Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Cavin
Everything's fuckin' sideways. Voices drift in and out, familiar but distorted, like I'm drowning underwater. Hands on me—too many hands. I try to shove them off, but my body won't cooperate.
One arm's dead weight and useless, and the other swings wild, connecting with something solid.
“Easy, Cav, fuck off!”
“Where's Erin?” I try to talk, but the words come out wrong and thick and mangled.
“She's fine, lad. Knock it off.”
And then Seamus's voice, authoritative and angry. “Stop fuckin' fighting us.”
“Hold him down,” says somebody else.
No. Nobody's holding me down. Never again.
Somebody grabs my arm, and I thrash harder. Pain explodes through my fuckin' skull like a bullet—white-hot and blinding. I might scream. I can't tell.
Then her voice cuts through the chaos. “Cavin? Cavin, it's alright. You're home. You're safe.”
I feel her tiny hand slide into mine. “No,” she says to somebody, not me. “Don't hold me back. He won't hurt me.”
“Erin?” I force an eye open. Everything's blurry and doubled.
Faces lean over me—Seamus, Declan, Daire—too close, too many.
“Where's Erin?”
“I'm here, love.” My tongue feels too big for my mouth.
“I'm here.” Her small hands are on my face now, gentle and warm. “I'm right here. Please, do what you're told for once in your fuckin' life, will you?”
Somebody laughs behind her, but she's serious. Her hair's a mess, and she's streaked with blood.
“Oh my god, are you alright?” My vision swims.
“I'm fine,” she says quickly. “It's your blood on me, love. Please.”
When she blinks, a fat tear rolls down her cheek. She's crying.
I blink hard, trying to focus. She's pale as death, her clothes covered in my blood. But she's standing. Breathing. Thank Christ.
I can't remember what happened, but I remember her.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” I ask, the words scraped out of me.
“No, I'm the one who’s fine. You're hurt, Cavin,” she says, and then she's crying freely now.
“You're a liar.” I see the cuts on her feet, the shake in her hands. “You're—”
“Cavin, stop,” she says, her voice sharp and commanding. “You need to settle. The medic's here. I promise, I'm fine. Somebody tell him I'm fuckin' fine.”
“She's fine, lad,” Seamus says, his firm hand on my shoulder. “Lie down. You want to be here to see tomorrow, don't you?”
I blink at him. There are two Seamuses floating in front of me.
Then I remember. The fight. The kid from Cork. Mackey.
Something wrong. Somebody behind me.
Fuck. Who was it?
I try to sit up, but hands push me back down. Probably Seamus, the big bastard.
“Get the fuck off—”
“Easy, brother. You're grand. Just stay down.”
“Did you get him?” I growl. “The big fucker with the—” Another wave of pain crashes through my skull, and I lose the words… lose everything for a second. The world swims in front of me.
Erin starts crying harder.
“Stop it,” she says firmly. She pushes Seamus off and takes my hand, gripping it tight. She lets me squeeze. “Let me handle him. I'm the only one he listens to.” She bends her face to mine again. “Cavin. Lie down. This is what happened. You fought the Cork lad, Mackey. Do you remember that?”
I nod, just barely.
“During the fight, somebody ambushed you with a pipe. Cracked you over the skull.” She swallows hard. “Tried to get you a second time, but I stopped him.”
“That she did with Ciarán’s gun.”
“You’ve got to teach me how to fuckin' shoot when you're better,” she says under her breath. “I would have shot him if I could have, but I wasn’t sure I wouldn't hurt somebody accidentally in the crowd.”
I let out a breath. “Right. We'll talk about that later, I promise.”
“Right. But we got the pipe. Declan, you still have it?” she says over her shoulder.
“Aye,” he says, brandishing it.
Erin winces when she sees blood dripping down the side. “Take it. Scan it for prints. Find out who the fuck he is.”
And then Seamus is barking out orders to Declan and Lorcan. “We have to go see if there's any footage in the club.”
“You know there's no fuckin' footage in the ring,” they say.
But Erin ushers them out.
And then I blink and see the doc leaning over me. Where’s Erin?
“Concussion,” he's saying. “Could be worse. Of all things, the little knit cap took some of the impact.”
The cap? But there it is—Erin's holding it.
“A little knit cap like that. Who'd have known?”
“Maybe I knew,” she says with a wink. But of course she didn’t. She's just taking the mickey out of me, trying to lighten the mood.
Then she’s gone again, and it’s dark outside.
“Erin. Erin, where are you?”
“I'm right here, love,” she says. “Please, Cavin. Just let them take care of you, will you? For me. Do it for me.”
She's beside me now, her hand in mine.
The memory surfaces, jagged and surreal. The crack of the shot. The crowd scattering.
“We need to know,” I force out. “Who sent them. The big bastard with the fucking pipe.”
“Of course we need to know. What do you think we’re doing?” Declan says from somewhere distant. “We're working on it. We'll find him.”
“What is it?” I turn to Erin. “You've got that look.”
“Shh. Don't worry about that now,” she says too quickly.
I can't say anything about the fuckin' tribute in front of my family, but I'm worried. There's something there—something scratching at the edges of my consciousness. The text that came before the fight. The one that made me see red. The one I haven't told her about.
“I need to talk to Declan.”
“You will,” she says. “Right now, we're taking a look at you. Okay?”
First, the tribute. Somebody thinking they can squeeze me. Her da, not trusted. And now this—the ambush, the attack.
Has to be connected.
“How long—” I start, but the medic sticks something in my arm—painkiller, probably—and the world starts to blur.
I try to fight. I can't pass out. I need to stay awake. I need to protect Erin. I need to—
“Let it take you,” Doc Sullivan says. “Relax.”
“Please, Cavin. Just for a little bit,” Erin says. “I'll be right here.”
Her voice follows me down into the dark. “I promise.”
The dream comes in fragments—distorted and wrong.
I'm in a warehouse, one that Da used to use for storage. But it's different now. Darker. Colder.
Is it a warehouse or a cell? It's a cell in a fuckin' warehouse.
Bronwyn’s supposed to be here. That's what the note said. But it's not Bronwyn tied to the chair in the center of the room.
It's—
No.
Erin.
Her head's down, blonde hair falling over her face. And there's blood. Blood on her dress. So much fuckin' blood.
My feet won't move. I'm rooted to the spot, watching as a figure emerges from the shadows.
The big bastard with the bandana, the same one from the ring. And he's got a fuckin' pipe in his hand.
“No.” I'm running now, but as I run, the warehouse stretches impossibly long. Every step takes me nowhere.
“Get the fuck away from her, you fuckin'—”
The pipe rises.
“Erin!”
It comes down.
I wake gasping, pain lancing through my skull. For a second, I don't know if I got hit or she did. If I'm awake or asleep.
The room's wrong. Dark. Quiet.
But it all comes crashing back. The fight a few days ago. The attack. Home.
Erin.
The tribute.
Betrayal.
I try to sit up, and my body screams in protest. Everything fuckin' hurts. But I force myself upright anyway, breathing hard, sweat soaking through the tee that somebody put on me.
There's light coming from under the door, voices low and urgent.
What time is it?
I find my phone plugged in on the nightstand. It’s nearly midnight.
And there's a text waiting… from an unknown number.
Twenty-four hours. You know what happens if you don't pay.
The tribute’s due tomorrow night, and I still don't know who the fuck's demanding it.
But I know one thing: Whoever sent that big bastard with the pipe made the biggest mistake of their fuckin' life—because Cavin McCarthy doesn't play.
And I'm done fuckin' paying tribute.
I'm ready to collect it.