Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
DECLAN
I wake to the sound of beeping machines and the smell of antiseptic. Voices murmur in the hallway outside. I've been asleep. Is Bridget okay? Why is she back in the hospital? Was I visiting her, or—wait, no.
No, Bridget's not the patient. I am.
Bridget. Bridget!
Is she alright?
I try to open my eyes, but the lids feel too heavy, so I do a quick assessment of my body instead. I can move my fingers and toes. My mouth feels as though it’s stuffed with cotton. And my shoulder. Fuck, my shoulder feels like someone sawed it off with a rusty blade. What happened?
I have to see if she’s okay.
I manage to get one eye half open, then both. I blink against bright fluorescent lights and immediately take stock of the room. One: I’m not alone in here. There’s a recliner chair beside me that hasn’t been reset, covered in a still-rumpled blanket, as if someone kicked it off and left in a hurry.
Two: The whiteboard on the wall reads Post-Surgery Protocol.
Surgery. Why does it say surgery?
I try to sit up. There are uniformed guards outside my door, and they don’t look like McCarthys’. A nurse’s voice carries in from the hall.
“He’s been asleep. His girlfriend was with him overnight. She went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Yes, you can go in now.”
Valentina. Why did Valentina stay with me?
Then Cavin is standing in the doorway, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in a fucking week.
“You’re awake,” he says.
Bridget.
It comes back all at once, and it comes back wrong. The crack of the shot. The way she went so still against me, I thought she’d been hit. Her face when I turned her around. The blood on my hands that wasn’t mine, and the ten seconds before I knew for certain it wasn’t hers either.
I throw the blankets off.
“Bridget.” I’m already moving, already trying to get my legs over the side of the bed. “Where is she? Where the fuck is she? Is she okay, Cavin? Where—”
Cavin crosses the room in two steps, puts both hands on my chest, and shoves me back hard. My shoulder screams. I don’t care about the shoulder.
“Cavin.” I’m grabbing his arm. “Where is she? I need to know she’s—”
“She’s fine.”
“Let me go! I need to see her. I need to—”
“Declan.” His hands are still on my chest, pressing me flat. “She is fine. She is not hurt—she’s somewhere in the hospital, but not as a patient. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
I stop.
He holds me there another moment, just to be sure, and then takes his hands away slowly, like he’s not entirely convinced I won’t try again. He straightens up and gives me a long, hard look. The kind that doesn’t come with words because it doesn’t need them.
I lie back against the pillow and try to remember how to breathe.
But I don't stay down. I get about halfway up before the pain in my shoulder registers, and I go back against the pillow whether I want to or not.
“She's here. She's in the building. She's down the hall with your parents, and she's grand. Would you breathe—”
“It was a trap.” The memory is coming back in pieces, jagged and wrong, and I'm trying to sort them into order but failing.
“They were there for me, Cavin. It wasn't—she was just—she was in the way. She was only there because I—” I stop.
My hand finds his arm without meaning to.
“Tell me she's not hurt. Tell me again.”
“She's not hurt.” His voice is different when he says it. Slower. Deliberate. “You threw yourself on top of her, apparently. Like a sack of wet concrete, is how she described it.”
I press the heel of my hand against my eyes.
“She would say that,” I manage with a half smile.
“She did say that.” He pauses. “She also didn't leave. I want you to know that. We couldn't get her to leave.” He pauses. “I tried. And the lass soaked my fuckin’ shirt, crying, when we got here.”
I don't say anything to that I can't take back. We’re on thin fucking ground here.
“Aye. Thankfully, Bridget's guards didn't listen to you when you told them you could protect her because I threatened them with bodily harm if they left her. They came out immediately, and whoever went after you disappeared. No leads yet.” He pauses.
“Apparently, a girl who spent most of her childhood in hospital has some connections and knows who to talk to.
She's been at your bedside since you came out of surgery.”
I grin at that, and it pulls at something in my chest that isn't just the wound.
That's my girl.
“Got my phone?” I rasp.
“Right here.” He takes it from the bedside table and hands it over. I squint at the screen. Messages from Seamus, from Colm, from Lorcan.
“Seamus let Valentina know. She said to let her know how you were doing.” Cavin's voice is carefully neutral. He's better at that than most people give him credit for.
It's about as much as I expected. We barely know each other. Why would she care if I got shot? And yet, if she were injured, I'd be razing the city to find out who did it because that would be my duty.
“Think of anyone who might have a grievance?” Cavin says.
Something moves at the back of my mind. Torin's warning. Someone already here.
I shake my head. “I had Ashland's back when he went after Crowning. Maybe that. Maybe something else.”
Cavin nods slowly. “Someone find you out in Boston?”
I shake my head. “Don’t know.”
“We'll find out who it was.”
The bitch of it all is—I can't get married to Valentina fast enough. We need what they can give us. I try to convince myself it’s true.
The door opens, and there she is—in yesterday's clothes, red eyes, with the particular look of someone who has been holding themselves together by pure stubbornness for hours. Bridget stares. I give her a smile and open my one good arm for her to come to. Fuck it all if Cavin’s here or not. She’s still my friend, isn’t she?
She crosses the room and sits on the edge of the mattress, putting her face down against the blanket near my hand, like she just needs a moment when she doesn't have to hold anything up.
“Declan. You’re awake.”
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Cavin says, rising, then his voice lowers. “Careful, brother.”
I nod, and he leaves.
“I was so scared,” she says, her voice muffled. I bring my good hand up and run it slowly through her hair.
“I'm alright. I'm too mean to let a gunshot wound keep me down.”
She lifts her head. Her eyes are red and swollen, and she looks utterly done in, yet she's the best thing I've ever seen. “Well, thank god for the guards coming out when they did.”
“Aye. First time in my life I’m glad someone didn’t listen to me. Bollocks. The most important thing is that you're alright.”
“I'm fine,” she says, but she clearly isn't, not even close. “But you—you were fucking bleeding like a stuck pig. What the fuck does that expression even mean?”
She shakes her head, a breath of a laugh escaping.
“Something about slaughtering pigs, I guess. That's a fucking horrible thing to say to an injured man.”
“Well, appropriate.” She frowns. “Not sure what Cavin makes of all this. I didn't do anything inappropriate—you were unconscious.”
“Cavin’s fine,” I say with an eye roll.
She's giggling a little now, shaking her head. “I know a couple of the nurses on this floor, from when I was here. They let me spend the night. I was falling asleep in the chair, so they gave me one of those.” She nods toward the recliner. “Folds out. Your mam came by while you were still under. Wanted to see you. Your da was here but had to go. He’ll be back again.”
“Right,” I say, nodding, my eyes heavy again.
She stands and begins adjusting the recliner, refolding the blanket with the efficient movements of a woman who grew up knowing hospital routines by heart. A nurse appears in the doorway.
“Oh, you’re awake. Let’s get you sorted. And Bridget, the doctor’s here to see you.”
“Right, yes, I'll be right out.” She looks strangely flustered. She never gets flustered. “I decided, since I was already here, I might as well follow up. I heard back from Rosenberg, and he has a colleague on staff. I can—I'll just—” She's already moving toward the door. “Be right back.”
Good, I want her to follow up. But when I watch her go, I feel as if something is off. Bridget is an open book—she always has been—all flashing eyes and quick tongue, nothing hidden for long. But just now, she looked like a woman who didn't want me asking questions.
The fuck is that all about?
Slowly, my head throbbing against the bright light, I turn back to my phone and begin working through the messages. But I keep thinking about the way she wouldn't quite meet my eyes. My girl has never been difficult to read… until now.
As I’m trying to get to my feet, Bridget comes back into the room. “Declan. You were meant to stay seated. The doctor said no strenuous exercise.”
“You're very cute when you're stern.” I smile at her. “But you're not going to get that way with me, Bridge.”
“Oh, you just wait,” she says, but she's about as terrifying as a small child, and I can hardly school my features into anything resembling gravity.
Her brow is furrowed, her chin lifted, the full performance of authority from a woman currently wearing a fitted white tee with an image of six-pack abs and a lacy bra on it.
“If you don't sit down, I'm putting you back in bed,” she says, marrying her words with a look that is meant to be withering but lands somewhere closer to adorable. “If you don’t, I'll call Cavin back.”
I’m biting the inside of my cheek.
I try to scoff, but Cavin, when he gets going, is genuinely difficult to deal with. There's a reason the man runs half of Ballyhock without raising his voice.
“And your father,” she says, laying on one threat after another, pulling them out like cards from a deck. I notice she's got her mobile in her hand. “Cormac is on my recent calls.”
When I don’t comply, she tacks on another. “And Seamus,” she finishes.
Oh, for Christ's sake. Between my father, Cavin, and Seamus, she's assembled the three men most capable of making my life a misery without breaking a sweat. I have to go back to bed.