Chapter 40
Fallon
Abanging on my apartment door yanks me out of sleep like someone is shaking me awake. My eyes snap open, and I immediately realize that I’m alone, and it’s still dark outside.
‘I’m heading to work, love,’ Rhys’s voice whispers in my memory.
Silly man. He forgot to take a key. But another round of hard, steady pounding rattles the door.
Impatient man. But I see his key is gone. He has it. Who is at my door?
Fear grips me, and I want to hide until it stops. But no one banging on a door at four a.m. goes away.
“Be strong, Fal, you got this.”
I got this. I got this.
Heart tripping, I swing my legs off the bed and pad across the floor. Tugging Rhys’s T-shirt down over my bare thighs, I ignore the ache between my legs. He takes me so hard, so rough, and I love it. Love being called his dirty elf.
Through the peephole, I see a long blonde braid, a black leather jacket, and the chiseled jawline of Raina.
She borrowed my favorite pink dress and heels a while back.
Relief rushes at me that it’s her and not someone looking to hurt me.
Or Rhys. But that comfort only lasts a breath.
I doubt she came all this way in the middle of the night to return a dress.
Something is wrong.
I fumble with the locks and don’t even need my routine of flipping them three times. I just open the door. “Hi,” I say stupidly.
Raina, the Albanian Brotherhood Princess with eyes heavy from the cold predawn, looks shaken to her bones. Her voice is even when she blurts, “Rhys is hurt.”
My whole body goes rigid. “Oh God.”
“He needs you.”
Something snaps taut inside me. No one has ever needed me before.
“I, um, okay.” I nod fast, already turning, already moving to change my clothes. Not even paying attention, I grab what I wore before I fell into bed with Rhys.
Raina gives me a kind of once-over. “Do those red and white striped leggings do it for Rhys?”
I stop short and look down, remembering his grin when he peels them off me. “You have no idea.”
“I knew I liked that man from the day I met him.” Raina smiles and marches back to the door.
I drag a coat over my disheveled appearance, my body still holding the faint warmth of Rhys’s cologne. “Me, too. I think.”
The plants in the corner rustle as I pass.
Fern whispers, speaking for the crew, ‘We hope he’s okay.’
One of Ivy’s trailing vines trembles, and she starts to cry, tiny droplets of dew beading up on her leaves.
I stop and press my palm to the soil. “He’ll be all right,” I tell her softly. “I’m going to get him. Bring him home.”
When I turn around, Raina is watching me with the faintest smile on her lips.
“It’s okay,” she says, casual as breathing. “I talk to my knives.”
Somehow, that makes me feel better.
Out on the street, a Tahoe waits, engine purring.
Raina’s guard, who she calls Nero, nods from the driver’s seat.
His massive shoulders are hunched like a linebacker made of black ionized steel.
Blade, who I’ve met in passing, idles in a Denali behind us.
There’s no sign of his partner Jett, though. But I can’t worry about them right now.
Everyone looks like a cool death squad. And I’m dressed like a candy cane. But I can’t and won’t be anyone else. Rhys loves me this way.
As soon as Raina slides in beside me, the car pulls off, tires hissing on wet pavement.
“Why aren’t we going to a hospital?” I ask as we crawl through dark, narrow streets of low brick buildings.
“Empire assassins don’t go to hospitals,” Raina says quietly. “The Quinlans use a clinic. A doctor is with Rhys right now.”
Her calm should soothe me, but it doesn’t. I grip her hand anyway, and I love how she lets me.
The Tahoe stops in front of a steel door with men I’ve never seen before standing guard.
Raina senses I’ve gone rigid and holds my hand. “Empire guards. They’re here to protect us.”
“Right.” I let her steer me out of the SUV and past that door.
Inside, I smell antiseptic and gunpowder since there are so many armed people in this room. I catch my breath. Rhys is lying shirtless on a gurney under bright lights, his bruises shadowing his ribs and blood dried along his hairline. His head is bandaged, his eyes covered in an ice mask.
The sound of the monitor beeping to reflect his heartbeat is the only thing keeping mine from coming apart. My knees go weak with relief.
A tall man with blond hair moves a stethoscope over my boyfriend. “No internal bleeding.”
Ares, all sharp Greek God angles and a stupid, perfect chin, approaches me. “You should feel very proud. This man is one of the toughest, most ruthless killers I’ve met. I’m certain he can handle anything. But he needs you.”
Okay, maybe I don’t hate him so much.
“Fallon? Is she here?” Rhys sounds so weak.
Raina nudges me forward and whispers, “It’s okay.”
I step forward to hold his hand. “I’m here, Rhys.”
“Fal, love. I’m okay,” he says weakly, dry lips moving.
He does not look okay!
I hold it together as best I can, but seeing my mountain of strength, the man who protects me crumpled on a gurney, challenges the strength of my stomach to hold down food.
Tears welling, I ask the men in the room, “What’s wrong with him?”
“He got hit in the head, and they kicked him in the ribs when he went down,” a man I recognize as his brother Trace says gently, coming abreast of me at Rhys’s side. “Dr. O’Rourke is a surgeon. He’s my brother-in-law and best friend. He’ll take care of Rhys.”
I step back as the doctor removes the eye mask to check Rhys’s pupils, the side of his skull, and his chest.
“Cormac also teaches at Hamilton Medical College,” Raina whispers his Ivy-League medical school cred to me.
Her husband Connor leans against the wall, arms crossed, sneering like he’s ready to end the world for whoever did this.
“What are we looking at, Cormac?” Trace says, looking stressed.
“Just give me some pain meds and let me go home,” Rhys grounds out.
“After I do some X-rays. But either way, I recommend strict bed rest for several days.” Cormac drapes the stethoscope around his neck.
“I’ll bring him back to my place,” Trace says. “Shea and I will take care of him.”
Panic claws through me. “No!” I blurt.
They all stop and turn toward me. Their dark eyes, Irish mob bosses staring at me, weaken my knees.
“It’s Christmas in a few days,” I say with a shaky voice. “He promised to spend the weekend with my family.”
The room goes still at my outburst. This is too much. I am juggling too many demands. If I don’t show up for Christmas, my father will send one of his men for me and stick me somewhere he has more control over me. If I show up without Rhys, he might keep me there until Kosta makes parole.
“She’s just shaken up,” Trace says, meaning me. But not to me. Over me. Around me. “Given her calming meds, Cormac, do we need to worry about a reaction? She’s been on SSRIs, beta-blockers, and a mood stabilizer,” Trace reports.
My vision narrows, faded at the edges. “How do you know what medication I’m on?”
Trace glances up, startled. “I, uh, looked up your medical history.”
“My medical history?” My voice cracks, and the room tilts. “You all know about my… My struggles and the meds I am being forced to take?”
“You goddamn wankers.” Rhys pushes up on one elbow, wincing. “Fallon, love—”
“Don’t you love me.” I glare at him, my throat burning. “How could you tell them?”
He swallows hard, color draining from his face. “It was years ago. You were just starting to act—”
“Crazy?” I say, sounding a little, yeah, crazy. And paranoid.
“No. You started telling people I was your boyfriend. I didn’t care, but I had to be sure you were okay.”
“Okay?” I snap. “So you had me checked out like a criminal?”
“Fallon, baby,” Rhys says on a strangled breath.
“Did you all discuss my diagnosis behind my back?” I whisper, looking at these powerful men. “See all meds I’m on and think, oh, she must be a liability. Her brain is surely broken?”
I don’t realize it, but I’m mimicking my father’s voice. Tears start to spill out from my eyes.
Raina moves closer, voice soft. “Fallon—”
“Don’t.” I back away. “You all think I’m some fragile thing, don’t you? A freak you have to manage. That’s why I’m here, right? To have your doctor here make sure the Quinlans aren’t tied to someone unstable?”
“I’m not qualified to—”
“Shut up, Cormac,” Rhys snaps, struggling to sit up. His hand grips the edge of the gurney, white-knuckled. “Baby, please. That’s not true. Come here. You’re upset. Come hold my hand. You’re strong.”
“Stop saying that. I’m not always strong, Rhys.”
“I didn’t ask to have you checked out because I thought you were unstable. But when I saw the meds, I needed to know why you’re taking them. I want to help you. If you ever have an episode—”
“There!” I choke out. “That word. Episode. You make it sound like I’m a ticking bomb.”
He flinches.
Connor shifts uncomfortably, eyes darting toward Trace, signaling to fix this.
Trace just exhales, “Let’s let them talk.”
“No. No need for privacy now. You all know everything,” I seethe. “Did you tell them I was raped, too?”
“Fucking what?” Connor grinds out.
“Fallon, no,” Rhys says, holding back a sob. “I didn’t tell them. That’s no one’s business.”
I glance around the room and focus on Raina. All buttoned up and under control. Good with a gun and knives. She’s an asset to the family.
I’m a burden.
I take a shaky breath. “Now that your family knows about the pills, they’ll make you leave me, because I’m broken,” I say quietly.
Rhys’s jaw flexes. I catch the hesitation. See that flicker of calculation behind his eyes. “No, they won’t. I’m the broken one! Please, I need you. I need to hold you.”
“I can’t.” My eyes sting. “It hurts too much.”
“Fallon. Stop. You’re spiraling. Let me hold you.” He’s trying to find the right words to calm me down, to make me compliant.
To be a…a good girl.
I’m tired of being good.
“No. I can’t do this.” The words come out shredded, a sob trapped in my throat. “I can’t be your weakness.”
Rhys makes a growling noise, sits up, and starts to untangle himself from the tubes to climb out of the gurney. I ignore all the faces and disappointment in their eyes and bolt for the door.
I hear Rhys calling my name, but I don’t stop. I was supposed to rise to the occasion. Be strong. Instead, I’m spiraling and falling apart.
That’s what crazy girls do. We are weak and wild all at once.
Rhys calls me again, but I’m already erasing the sound from my memory bank. Nothing. I hear nothing. I feel nothing.
Okay, that’s not true. I’m dying inside.
“Goodbye,” the words scrape from my throat like glass, and I can’t breathe.
Raina, seeing me holding it together and losing, pushes the door open for me. “Come on,” she says softly. “I’ll take you home.”
She steers me out of the exam room, and flashing lights from a medical transport van blind me.
“Nero, take us back to Rhys’s building,” Raina says, holding me by the shoulders.
I get inside and clutch at my middle. I feel the panic rising again. I want to disappear.
No one understands me. No one but Rhys. And he’s been brutally honest with me. It’s the idea that they might have been laughing at me that makes me sick. And the man I’ve loved for years joining in? I can’t handle it.
The Tahoe roars to life and pulls away from the building.
“We overheard that you were in Rhys’s apartment when a man broke in,” Raina says calmly. “You saw him kill the guy, right?”
“Yeah.” I box breathe, counting the slow pull of air into my lungs, then hold, then release in four beats each until my pulse settles.
“This incident tonight has brought the fight to another level,” Raina informs me. “Rhys needs to know how to protect you.”
“By going behind my back? No, thank you. I know what’s best for me,” I say in the strongest voice ever.
The silence stretches for a few blocks as the Tahoe navigates the empty city streets.
Raina doesn’t ask about my assault. My terrible confession. She lets it pass untouched and unsaid. She’s not pitying me and not prying. Somehow, that makes me feel less exposed. She’s giving me back a piece of myself. Something I thought I’d lost in that room full of men.
“Do you love him?” Raina asks, because perhaps that is something she can relate to. Being in love.
“I do,” I say, not looking at her. “He told me he loved me, too.”
“Fuck,” Raina says, shaking her head. “This is more serious than we thought.”
I keep staring out the window while Raina talks softly.
“Men screw up. Some men really screw up. Others just stumble through the hard parts.” Raina is kind, in a lethal way. “Rhys does love you. That’s clear.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “I’ll try to cool off and see if I want to give him a chance to explain.”
“I hope you do.” Raina squeezes my hand.
The sun is making its climb over the horizon when the Tahoe stops in front of my building.
“Rhys will need you after this,” Raina pleads one more time, her voice a strong warning like she cares about him. “You have the strength to be there for him. I’ve seen it.”
“Thank you,” I whisper around the lump in my throat and get out of the SUV.
Swiping my eyes, I watch as the Tahoe glides away, sunlight glinting off the shiny dark blue topcoat.
I stand there for a long moment, staring up at the brick facade of the place I’ve called home for years. I’ve never had a problem going inside, whether or not Rhys was home.
I can’t go inside. Not yet.
I tighten the belt on my coat, shove my hands deep in my pockets, and walk. Walk off the heartbreak. Walk off the betrayal. Walk off the voices in my head.
Walk until they are quiet enough, and I can hear the real world again.