Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cavin
I wake to the smell of antiseptic and the feeling that someone's taken a sledgehammer to my fucking skull. The room tilts and rights itself, then tilts again. I sit up too quickly, and the blood rushes to my head in a sickening wave.
Jesus fucking Christ, am I in a hospital bed? My hand moves before my brain catches up, ripping at the IV in my arm, tearing the heart monitor clip from my finger. Alarms start screaming.
Good, let them fucking scream.
Wait.
This is no hospital. I'm home. I'm in my own home. It's just set up like a hospital room, with nurses on call and machines beeping, the works.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and the floor rushes up to meet me. Or maybe I'm falling into it—hard to tell when the whole damn room's doing somersaults.
Doesn't fucking matter. I know what I need to do. I may be fucked up in the head, but I know I need to pay the bastards. Before—
Erin. Jesus Christ, Erin.
The thought slams into me harder than whatever the fuck put me in here in the first place. Where is she?
“Erin!” I call as the sound of feet rushing toward me meets my ears. My brain's scrambled, confusing sounds with sights, but I use the bed rail to haul myself upright.
The room does a sickening barrel roll, and I taste bile. “Erin,” I say again. My voice comes out wrecked and rough, like I've been gargling gravel. My head feels twice its normal size, and what the hell happened to my shoulder?
The door bursts open, and two nurses rush in.
“Mr. McCarthy, you need to lie back down.”
“Mr. McCarthy—” Someone else is speaking into her phone. “He's out of bed. He's going to hurt himself.”
“Where's my wife?” I'm already moving toward them, one hand still braced on the bed because my legs feel as if they're made of jelly.
“Sir, you have a severe concussion,” one nurse says, stepping closer with her hands up like I'm a spooked horse.
“Where is she?” I bellow.
They exchange a look. That's all I need to see. She's not here, and she isn't their concern.
The first nurse reaches for my arm. I don't think… I just move, sidestepping her. I don't want to hurt a woman, but I will if I have to. The second one—a man, thank fuck—grabs me, and I move on instinct. Elbow back, sharp and fast. The crack of cartilage.
He stumbles back with a howl, hands flying to his nose, blood pouring between his fingers.
“Christ!” the woman screams. “Get security!”
The second one tries to grab me from behind, but I drop my weight, twist, and drive my shoulder into his gut. He goes down hard, and then I'm past them both, my hand on the doorframe to keep myself vertical as the hallway stretches and contracts like something out of a fever dream.
Where’s my phone? Where’s Erin? I dial her number, and it predictably goes to voicemail. I dial Declan's number next. He answers on the first ring.
“Cavin, thank Christ. You alright?”
“Where's Erin?” The words come out slurred. I lean against the wall, pressing my forehead to the cold plaster. It helps a bit.
“We don't know. We've been looking—Cavin, are you out of bed?” He pauses, hearing something in my breathing. “You're in no condition—”
“Where is she?”
Silence. Then, quieter: “Her car's at the house. Her phone's there too. But she's gone. We can't find her.”
Can't find her. “What the fuck happened while I was out?”
Declan doesn't respond right away. He knows something.
“Declan,” I say, my voice dropping to something deadly. “I'll fucking kill you. Where is she?”
“I don't know, brother. I'm telling you the truth.” He pauses.
“Did you say something to her about her da?”
“I may have mentioned it.”
I'm going to bloody kill my cousin. My vision's doubling. I close one eye, and it helps marginally. “What time is it?”
“Half eleven.”
“Cavin, listen to me—”
Holy fucking Christ. I've got thirty minutes to pay the second tribute. I can't say it out loud where he can hear me. I push off the wall and start moving down the corridor. Security's coming—heavy footsteps, the crackling of radios.
“Where are you going?” Declan demands.
“I'm not telling you a damn thing. I want you to find my wife.”
“Maybe she's betrayed you, brother. Just like her father—”
“I know my wife, Declan.” I'm running now, though it's more of a controlled stumble, one hand trailing along the wall to keep me upright. “You tell me everything you know. Now.”
Two guards round the corner. One of them is Erin's guard.
“Where the fuck were you, and why weren't you with her?” I grab him by the throat and slam him up against the wall, muscle memory kicking in, even through the haze.
“Sir, I don't know where she's gone—”
“Then you're a shite bodyguard,” I snarl. I break his nose with one swift punch. “You fucking arsehole. You were supposed to watch my wife, and now she's not here.”
I throw him at the other guard, and they both fall to the ground like dominoes. I don't slow down. The front door’s ahead… so close. The floors are undulating like the deck of a ship in a storm, but I have to keep moving.
Wife. In danger. Move.
Someone grabs at my arm, and I spin too fast. My fist connects with something soft.
“Mr. McCarthy, please—”
“Get your fucking hands off me, or I'll break every damn finger.”
I eventually crash through the door. The cold air hits me, and I stumble forward and retch. Nothing comes up but acid. Doesn't matter. I'm still moving.
The driveway is a sea of shadows. I blink hard, trying to focus. There—Seamus's Range Rover, parked nearby. Keyless entry. I know the code.
I yank the door open and haul myself into the driver's seat. The steering wheel swims in and out of focus.
This is a bloody terrible idea.
I press the start button. The engine roars to life, and I'm moving—down the driveway and onto the street. The headlights blur and streak. I blink hard, gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles go white.
My phone rings. I answer without looking.
“Turn around, you mad fuckin’ bastard.” Seamus. “You're concussed to shite. You'll kill yourself.”
“Then I'll die on the way to her.” My voice doesn't sound like mine. “I'm not stopping. She's my wife, Seamus. My fucking wife. And if any cunt has her, if they've fucking—” I can't finish. Can't breathe.
The road tilts, and I overcorrect. The Range Rover swerves.
“Who, brother? Where the fuck are you? Where are you going?” Seamus sounds strained.
“I have somewhere to be.”
“What are you not fucking telling me?”
“I need answers, Seamus.”
I hang up, then call Declan. He answers on the first ring.
“What the bloody hell are you up to?”
“You listen to me,” I growl. “I don't care what the fuck you think you have on Erin. You listening?”
“Aye,” he says. “Brother, what the hell—”
“I have something to do, and I need to tell you.
I've held it back because Malachy told me if I told any of you, this would all go to shite. War. But guess what?” I sniff.
Am I crying? Am I bloody fucking crying?
“It's already gone to shite. I've got a damn tribute to pay, Declan.
If I don't pay it, Bronwyn's gone. That's why they took her before.
I have to do it. We need to put our heads together.
But you can't tell anybody except immediate family. Do you hear me?”
“What the hell are you talking about, brother? Listen, you have a head injury, you’re not right in the head just now.”
“No. Listen to me,” I say, each word deliberate. “Get Bronwyn. Get her now. Have her brought to the safe house. Do you understand me?”
Someone on the inside.
“Yes, I do. What are you doing, brother?”
“I'm going to rescue my wife. Meet me at the warehouse east of the safe house.”
I disconnect and toss the phone into the passenger seat. The warehouse district rises up ahead, all crumbling brick and rusted chain link. I know these streets. I grew up running in them, fighting in them, bleeding in them.
Tonight, I might die in them.
But my wife fucking won't.
The thought is weirdly calming.
This is where I pay the tribute tonight. I know that’s where she’s gone to.
I pull up outside the warehouse I’ve been instructed to come to, and kill the engine. Tonight, I don't have the damn tribute.
Tonight, the tribute is me.
I sit for a second, trying to breathe through the nausea, trying to steady the way the world keeps lurching sideways. The door opens.
“What are you doing here?” Declan's there, stepping out of the shadows. “I don't know what you and Erin are up to, but—”
“I need to find her.”
“You look like death, brother.”
“Feel worse.” I try to stand, but my legs nearly give out. Declan catches my elbow.
“You shouldn't be—”
“Don't.” I shake him off and plant my feet. The ground's rolling, but I stay upright through sheer bloody-mindedness. I grab him by the front of his shirt. “You'll fucking get it when it's you. Where is she?”
“Don’t bloody know,” he says. “We tracked her movements. Ciarán says she left her phone at the house. She went back to your house, got something out of the safe.”
Fucking hell. She got the money, likely her money from the investments. She's giving it all to them.
“Is she in there?”
“Don’t bloody know.”
Cars pull up—no lights, no sound. And then I see them. A handful of our best lads, all armed and ready: Seamus, Daire, Ashland, and Colm. Even Da’s come. Our best men, tooled up and ready for war.
And there, on the ground at the warehouse entrance, I see a quilted bag. Erin's bag.
I walk over, nearly fall twice, but I make it. I crouch down, and when I do, the world spins faster. Bad fucking idea. I unzip the bag—it’s empty.
“Cavin,” Seamus says carefully, like he's talking to a man on a ledge. “What's this about?”
I can’t hold it back anymore. I need my family to help.
“When Malachy died, he told me I had a tribute to pay,” I say, my eyes closed, trying to stop the world from spinning. It doesn't work. “I'm supposed to pay this money every month. I've been paying it. Malachy swore me to secrecy—said if I told you, they’d find out, and we’d have war.”
I turn to face the rest of them. “Looks like she's taken her money to pay it—she's the only one I told about it. Malachy said if I told you lads, I'd be fucked. That we all would.” I shake my head. “But we are now anyway. If I don't pay it, we’re fucked. You see?”
“When do you have to pay it?” Seamus grits out.
“And who are we paying?” Da asks.
“Good fucking question,” I tell him. “That's exactly what I've been trying to find out. And while I haven't told you lads before, it's time. It's time for me to bring my family in.”
Declan frowns as I turn to the warehouse. “I'm going in.” I take a step toward the warehouse and stagger. Declan catches me this time, holding me steady.
“Are you sure you're bloody up for this, brother? Jesus—”
I think about Erin. About how she looked when I kissed her the last time—soft and warm and mine. The way her eyes met mine in the darkness, full of trust.
“I've had worse,” I say. “Worse than a knock on the head, you gobshite.” I straighten and push him off me, then check my gun. “Let's go get my wife.”
The warehouse looms ahead, dark and waiting. Someone's dying tonight.
And it sure as hell won't be my wife.