CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nora
I woke up thinking I would hear Liam inside the house. I lay in bed for a bit, waiting to hear his footsteps or his voice coming from downstairs, but the house was really quiet.
The empty space beside me bothered me more than I’d thought it would.
I got out of bed, put on one of Liam’s shirts, and went downstairs. The kitchen smelled like coffee, and there was a note on the counter by the coffee machine.
Had work to deal with. Eat something. I’ll be back before you have time to start missing me. L
I laughed to myself. It was funny how confident he was. I read the note again. It was silly that something this simple could make me smile so much. I made some coffee and toast. I wasn’t really hungry. I kept looking out the window, thinking I might see Liam’s SUV.
When I finished breakfast, I needed something to do. There were some books in the living room, so I picked one up.
After twenty minutes, I realized I hadn’t read anything. My eyes were on the page, but my mind was elsewhere. I wondered where Liam was and what he was doing. I wondered if it had something to do with the investigation. Just thinking about it made me feel weird inside. I closed the book.
“So much for distracting yourself.” I went back to the kitchen, washed my coffee cup, and cleaned the counter. I checked my phone. There were no new messages. Then I went upstairs. At one point I stood by the window watching the rain clouds, and my mind started to wander.
I remembered what Victor had taught me: waiting meant something bad was about to happen.
But this wasn’t the same thing, I told myself. Liam wasn’t Victor. That should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. I’d started to think that nothing bad could happen when Liam was around, and now that thought scared me.
I’d spent a year learning not to depend on anyone. Liam had changed that in just a few days. I didn’t know if that made me feel safer or more in danger…maybe both. Then I heard a car engine. It was far away at first, but it got louder and louder, so I went downstairs.
I felt relieved. Then I saw Liam as he was getting out of the SUV. Something was wrong. His arm was close to his body. He was trying to hide that he was hurt. Then I saw the blood.
Oh my God, what happened to him?
I didn’t remember crossing the distance between us.
One moment I was standing on the porch staring at the blood staining Liam’s sleeve, and the next I was in front of him with both hands already on his arm, searching frantically for the wound as though seeing it for myself might somehow make it less real.
My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely hear anything else, and when my fingers brushed the damp fabric of his shirt, a fresh wave of panic swept through me before I could stop it. “Liam!”
“I’m fine.” He said it so calmly that, under any other circumstances, I might have believed him. Instead, I looked from his face to the blood, then back at his eyes, and felt something inside me turn.
“No, you’re not. You’re bleeding.”
“It looks worse than it is. It’s only a graze.”
“I don’t care if it’s only a scratch. You’re bleeding!”
He opened his mouth as though he intended to argue, but I was already guiding him toward the front door before he could say another word.
I wasn’t even sure whether I was helping him or simply dragging him along through sheer determination.
All I knew was that I wanted him inside, where I could see exactly how badly he’d been hurt.
Paddy followed us into the house, closing the door quietly behind him. He watched the two of us for a moment before the faintest hint of amusement appeared in his expression.
“Boss,” he said, sounding almost sympathetic, “I’d stop telling her you’re fine if I were you. I’ve seen this look before.”
Liam sighed and gave Paddy a look that suggested he wasn’t being particularly helpful.
I didn’t have the patience to listen to either of them any longer.
“Sit down.” Both men looked at me. “Liam,” I said more firmly, “sit.”
To my surprise, he actually did. He lowered himself carefully onto the sofa, still insisting with every movement that nothing serious had happened, while I hurried into the bathroom to collect the first aid kit.
By the time I returned, Paddy had disappeared into the kitchen and came back carrying a bowl of warm water and several fresh towels.
“I thought these might help,” he said quietly. He placed everything on the coffee table before looking at Liam. “The doctor has already spoken to Michael. He’ll come by later this evening just to make sure you’re fine, but from what I saw outside, the bullet only grazed your shoulder.”
“I told her that.”
I shot Liam a look. “You can stop talking now.”
The corner of Paddy’s mouth lifted slightly. He hesitated just long enough to make sure everything we needed was within reach before disappearing toward the far end of the house. I knelt in front of Liam and reached for the buttons of his shirt.
He watched me without saying anything. My fingers weren’t as steady as I wanted them to be. Twice I fumbled with the buttons before finally undoing them, and when I pulled the fabric gently away from his shoulder, I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
The wound wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d imagined. The bullet had carved a shallow path across the top of his shoulder instead of burying itself inside him. Blood still coated the surrounding skin, but the bleeding had already slowed considerably.
Relief washed over me so suddenly that it made my knees weak. Then irritation followed immediately afterward.
“You call this fine?”
“I call it manageable. Occupational hazard, that’s all.”
I dipped one of the towels into the warm water before carefully wiping the dried blood away from his skin. He barely reacted. Once the blood was gone, I opened the antiseptic, soaked a piece of gauze, and pressed it gently against the graze. Liam inhaled sharply.
I finished disinfecting the wound, spread the medicated cream carefully across the damaged skin, and wrapped a fresh bandage around his shoulder with slow, deliberate movements.
Each time the bandage circled his arm, I found myself checking the wound again, almost expecting it to have become worse while I wasn’t looking.
Only after I secured the final strip of tape did I finally allow myself to sit back. My hands remained resting lightly against his forearm. I hadn’t even realized I was still touching him until several quiet seconds passed and Liam covered one of my hands with his own.
“Nora.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because now that the practical work was finished and there was nothing left to clean, bandage, or fix, all the fear I’d managed to keep under control came rushing back.
When I’d opened that front door and seen the blood on his shirt, the only thought that had entered my mind was that I was too late. The possibility had lasted only a few seconds, but it had terrified me anyway.
Liam hadn’t moved since I’d finished bandaging his shoulder. One of my hands was still resting lightly against his forearm, while his remained over mine, warm and reassuring in a way I hadn’t expected. When I finally looked up at him, he was already watching me.
His eyes searched my face with the same quiet attention he gave everything else, and I realized he’d noticed the change in me long before I’d found the courage to say anything.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
I tried to smile. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if it’s keeping you this quiet.”
I looked away, tracing the edge of the bandage I’d wrapped around his shoulder just to give my hands something to do.
The neat white dressing looked completely out of place against his skin.
It should have made me feel better. Instead, it reminded me that only a few minutes earlier that same shoulder had been covered in blood.
“I thought...” My voice caught. I swallowed and tried again. “When I saw you outside...I thought...”
I couldn’t finish. I didn’t have to; he understood. His thumb moved gently across the back of my hand, but he didn’t interrupt. He simply waited, and somehow that made everything harder.
“For a second,” I whispered, “I thought I’d lost you.” The words hung between us. I closed my eyes, embarrassed by how much they revealed. “It wasn’t rational. I know it wasn’t. The blood just...” I let out a shaky breath. “It scared me.”
He remained quiet, simply waiting for me to say everything I needed to.
“What happened?” I asked at last. “Really.”
He leaned back slightly, careful not to pull against the fresh bandage.
“We followed a lead. A burner phone connected briefly yesterday, and we traced the signal to an abandoned warehouse. It was exactly what my instincts said it would be. A trap.”
The word landed heavily between us. He didn’t embellish the story. He simply told me they’d found the phone, realized it had been planted, and that the shooting had started almost immediately afterward.
“They knew you would come. They were counting on it.” My stomach tightened.
“And you still went, knowing it could be a trap.” I stared at him in disbelief.
The frustration I’d been holding back since he’d walked through the front door finally escaped.
“This happened because of me.” His eyes lifted immediately, and I shook my head.
“Liam, if I hadn’t come into your life, none of this would’ve happened.
Nobody would’ve been waiting in that warehouse. Nobody would’ve been shooting at you.”
“That’s not how this works.”
I stood before I even realized I was doing it and began pacing slowly across the room, unable to remain still any longer.
“I’ve spent a year running from this. You tried to help me, and now you’re coming home bleeding because someone wants information about me.
” I stopped and looked at him. “You have to stop.” His expression didn’t change.
“You have to let this go. I’ll leave if I have to.
I’ll disappear. I’ll go somewhere nobody can find me.
I’ll keep running if that’s what it takes.
I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because of my past.”
The words came out before I could reconsider them. For several seconds Liam didn’t move. The warmth that had been in his face disappeared so gradually that it was almost impossible to notice.
The amusement vanished first, then the softness. Even the exhaustion seemed to fall away until all that remained was the man I’d first met inside the bar, the one whose calm carried more weight than most people’s anger. He looked at me for so long that I felt my confidence begin to disappear.
“Are you finished?” His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
He rose from the sofa despite the fresh wound, ignoring the stiffness in his shoulder as though pain simply wasn’t important enough to acknowledge. He crossed the room without hurry, stopping only when he stood directly in front of me.
I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
“Listen carefully,” he said quietly. “Because I’m only going to say this once. You think disappearing will fix this.”
“It—” He raised one finger, and I fell silent.
“You think if you walk away, everyone else stays safe. You’re wrong.” The certainty in his voice left no room for argument. “Nobody decides where you go except you. Nobody lays a hand on you and walks away. And nobody comes after what’s mine and expects me to stand aside while they do it.”
My breath caught. “I’m not yours,” I said, though the words sounded far less convincing than I’d intended.
His expression didn’t change. “You can keep telling yourself that if it helps.” He held my gaze without blinking. “It won’t change what I’m going to do.”
His voice remained calm. That calmness frightened me more than shouting ever could.
“Whoever planned that ambush made one mistake. They thought they were sending me a message.” A faint, humorless smile touched the corner of his mouth. “But they’ve just given me a reason to fuck them up.”