Chapter 21 Roxy
Everything after the gunshot happened in fragments, disjointed and too bright, like a film reel someone had cut apart and spliced back together wrong.
Liam lunging in front of me. The deafening crack of the gun, so much louder than I'd ever imagined.
Liam's body jerking, a sound tearing out of him that I’d hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
Declan's face, pale and wild-eyed in the dome light, snatching the folder from where it had fallen and bolting into the dark tree line before anyone could stop him.
And then Liam, sliding down against the side of the truck, blood already blooming dark through his shirt at the right shoulder, his face gone the color of ash.
"Liam!" I dropped to my knees beside him, hands hovering uselessly over the wound, terrified to press down and terrified not to. "Liam, look at me, stay with me—"
"I'm okay," he gritted out, which was such an obvious, absurd lie that I might have laughed if I hadn't been half a second from screaming. "I'm okay, baby, it's just my shoulder—"
The house emptied out behind us. I heard it before I saw it, a wave of footsteps and raised voices spilling out into the yard, Niall's command cutting through the panic, Mary's scream when she saw the blood, someone shouting for towels, someone else shouting for their aunt.
Aunt Colleen arrived at a dead run, still in her apron, dropping to her knees on Liam's right side, immediately going into nurse-mode. Her hands moved fast and sure, tearing his shirt open at the shoulder, pressing a wadded-up handkerchief against the wound.
"Through and through, looks like, but there's still fragment in there," she said, her voice clipped and professional even as her face stayed tight with worry. "He needs that bullet out, and he needs it out soon, or infection's gonna be the least of our problems."
"Hospital," I said immediately. "We need to get him to a hospital—"
"No hospital." Niall's voice cut through the yard, absolute, the kind of tone that ended arguments before they started.
He was crouched now too, one weathered hand resting briefly on his son's good shoulder, his face carved from something harder than human.
"Gunshot wound walks through those doors, they call the police in five minutes.
Questions get asked. Questions we can't afford right now, not with what's happened tonight. "
"He needs surgery, Niall—"
"He'll get it. Here." Niall was already straightening, barking orders toward the house, someone to boil water, someone to bring the good scotch, someone to clear the kitchen table. "Colleen's pulled worse than this out of worse men than my son. Isn't that right, Colleen?"
"Wasn't exactly planning on doing field surgery on my nephew tonight," Colleen muttered, already pressing harder against the wound as Liam hissed through his teeth, "but sure. I've done it before. We'll manage."
I wanted to scream that this was insane, that gunshot wounds needed sterile operating rooms, anesthesia, doctors who did this for a living. But looking at Niall's face, I understood with a cold, sinking feeling that there was no other choice.
They carried Liam inside between his two brothers, his face gone gray with pain, blood soaking through the makeshift bandage faster than anyone could replace it.
I followed close behind, refusing every gentle suggestion that I wait in the other room, until finally Niall just looked at me and nodded once, understanding without needing to be told that I wasn't going anywhere.
The kitchen table had been cleared and covered with clean sheets, bright lights dragged in from every corner of the house.
Colleen's hands were steady and sure as she laid out a kit of instruments I didn't want to look at too closely.
Someone pressed a rolled-up towel between Liam's teeth. Someone else held down his good arm.
I took his hand instead and held on tight, ignoring Colleen's brisk instruction to stay out of the light, honey as I leaned close to his ear.
"I'm right here," I whispered. "I'm not going anywhere. You hear me?"
His eyes found mine, glassy with pain and the scotch someone had poured down his throat, and he managed the smallest, most stubborn ghost of a smile. "Told you," he rasped around the towel. "Told you I'd take a bullet for you someday."
"That was not funny then and it's not funny now."
"A little funny."
"Sure. Whatever you say," I said. Something cracked painfully in my chest when his smile widened just slightly before Colleen's instruments made contact and he arched hard against the table, a muffled scream tearing out around the towel.
I didn't let go of his hand once through the whole thing.
Not when he crushed my fingers hard enough to bruise.
Not when Colleen finally, triumphantly, held up a small, blood-slicked piece of metal with a pair of forceps, dropping it with a metallic clink into a steel bowl.
Not even after, when they'd finally stitched and bandaged him and the color started slowly returning to his face.
His brothers helped carry him to the couch where he drifted into an exhausted, scotch-and-adrenaline sleep.
I sat beside him a long time after everyone else finally cleared out, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest, still half-convinced I'd wake up from all of this and find myself back in my old apartment, blissfully unaware that any of it had ever happened.
Niall found me there an hour later, quiet for once, setting a cup of tea down in front of me before lowering himself into the nearby armchair with a heaviness that seemed to have aged him a decade in one night.
"He'll heal," Niall said. "Colleen did good work. He's strong. He'll heal."
"He almost died protecting me."
"Aye." Niall's jaw tightened, something dangerous flickering behind his tired eyes. "And my nephew is the reason why."
The word hung in the kitchen between us, heavier than anything that had been said at dinner hours earlier.
"Declan is no longer welcome under this roof, or any roof that flies our name," Niall said, his voice low and absolute.
To me, it was a thousand times more chilling than if he were shouting at the top of his lungs.
"As of tonight, he's an enemy of this family.
I'll be putting out word before morning.
Anyone who brings him home alive, to face what he's done, will be well compensated for the trouble. "
"And if he's not brought home alive?" I asked quietly.
Niall's silence answered that question more clearly than words could have.
"You and my son need somewhere safe," he said instead, steering the conversation forward.
"In case Declan has any plans of returning to finish what he started.
Our friends have a cabin up in the mountains, a few hours outside of town.
Private land, no neighbors for miles. State-of-the-art security system. Comfortable, too."
"A cabin?" I repeated.
"It’s a very nice cabin. More importantly, it’s safe.
Nobody knows about it but family. That includes Declan, of course.
Though I doubt he'd think to look there first, not with everything else on his mind right now.
" Niall reached across the table and closed one weathered hand over mine, an unexpectedly gentle gesture from a man I'd just watched calmly order a field surgery.
"Take my son up there. Let him heal. Let this settle.
And let us handle Declan the way this family has always handled its own messes. "
I looked over at Liam, pale and unconscious on the kitchen table that had, hours ago, been set for a warm family dinner, and felt the last of my resistance drain out of me.
"Okay," I said quietly. "I’ll go.”