Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Erin
I check in with Bridget before the fight, but she's not answering. Neither’s Mam. The mobile reception can be shite at the hospital. I know Cavin got a text that rattled him before he stepped in the ring. He doesn't want to admit it, but I can see it in him.
I probably shouldn't have brought it up, but I'm not very good at timing and knowing social cues or anything like that, so fuck it. I shouldn't have brought it up before he fought though.
I know he needs to focus, but sometimes rage fuels his energy unlike anything else. I probably shouldn't be here. But I made Cavin promise I could.
That's what Ciarán keeps telling me with his eyes every time I glance at my assigned bodyguard. He's positioned himself between me and the ring like his body can shield me from what's happening in there, but I can see through the gaps in the crowd. I can see Cavin.
He moves like violence personified—controlled, precise, and brutal. I can still feel him inside me.
I hope he can still feel me too. I hope his back stings where I scratched him and wrecked him. He likes that; I know he does.
He's fighting some young lad from Cork tonight, scrappy little Mackey with more heart than brains. Mackey's outmatched, and everyone knows it. You can see it in the way the crowd leans forward, hungry for blood, certain of the outcome.
Tonight's purse is heavy with bets placed. I should look away. I should go upstairs like a good girl and pretend I don't care, but I can't stop watching him.
The way his muscles coil with each punch, the ink on his ribs shifting with every breath. Blood on his knuckles—not his. Never his. The cold focus in his eyes, like he's somewhere else entirely—somewhere dark and distant.
This is who Cavin McCarthy is, and I know it better than anyone else in this fucking ring. Stripped of the suits and smooth words and the gentle way he touches me when we're alone. Just raw, dangerous man. Mine.
The navy cap I knitted him is pulled tight on his head. He’s fighting bare-chested, bare-knuckled, wearin’ the fuckin’ hat.
Something in my chest clenches at the sight of it. I wish we hadn't argued before the fight.
I wish—
Then something in the crowd shifts. I feel it before I see it, and I wonder if it's my connection to Cavin.
There's a wrongness in the energy, like the air pressure drop before a storm.
Bodies move with purpose instead of excitement, and the roar changes pitch, goes from bloodlust to something sharper.
Ciarán feels it too. I watch his eyes flicker to mine, and then his hand goes to his weapon, his body tense.
“What the fuck—” I start, but then I see him.
A big bastard in a bandana pushes through the crowd on the far side of the ring. Not a fighter. Something worse. His eyes are cold and focused, and he moves too deliberately.
I grab at Ciarán. “Stop him—Ciarán, fucking stop him! What's he—” The man climbs into the ring behind Cavin.
“No. No. Cavin!” I scream. “Cavin!”
My voice hurts from the effort of screaming and pushing through the crowd. Ciarán grabs me and hauls me back, but I shove at him, batting his hands away..
“Cavin, behind you!”
But my voice is lost in the sudden surge of noise. This isn't right. This isn't how it works. There are rules, even here in this world of blood and broken bones—there are fucking rules.
The big man crashes into Cavin from behind. Mackey just stands there, stunned and useless. Cavin staggers forward, caught completely off guard, and the young, stupid Cork kid, out of desperation, sees his chance and lunges.
“Cavin!” I scream. “No!”
The word rips out of me, but it's drowned in the sudden roar of the crowd—half of them screaming in outrage, the other half howling in savage glee.
He spins and gets an elbow into the man’s face. Blood sprays across the canvas, and I can see Cavin knows something's wrong. For a second, I think he's survived things that would kill normal men… but he's not a bloody immortal.
The big man's boot catches him in the kidney.
Cavin's face goes white, and his body seizes. And then he's falling, crumpling to his knees.
And my whole world collapses.
“Cavin!”
I'm screaming his name now, proper screaming, and I don't care who hears. Don't care that I'm supposed to be calm and collected.
“Ciarán! Do something!”
He's moving, trying to shove through the crowd, but it's too thick. I reach for my phone, my hands trembling, and text every bloody one of his cousins and brother:
Get to the ring NOW! It's an ambush.
They're pushing in from all sides now—some trying to get away, others pushing closer to see. We're stuck in a crush of flesh and sweat and rage.
I grab Ciarán's arm. “Move! We have to—”
The big man pulls something from his jacket, and time slows. I see the pipe before it's fully out. It’s metal and heavy, the kind that could cave in a skull, that could kill a man with one good hit. My knees buckle.
Cavin's on his knees, shaking his head like he's trying to clear it. The Cork kid stares and finally forgets his fight.
“McCarthy!” he yells. “Watch out!”
“No! No! Cavin!” I'm screaming. It's a prayer. A plea. It's useless.
Because the pipe is rising. Because Cavin's not getting up fast enough. Because I'm too far away and there are too many bodies between us.
The pipe comes down… and hits him.
The sound is wet and hollow and terrible, a sound I'll hear in my nightmares for the rest of my fucking life.
And Cavin goes limp. Just stops. Collapses boneless onto the canvas. Blood starts immediately, dark and wet, pooling beneath his head.
Everything in me stops. The crowd is screaming, wild.
My heart. My breath. My world.
The man moves, raising the pipe again.
I'm not thinking. I have to do something.
My hand closes around the grip of Ciarán's gun. He's still focused on the ring, trying to shove through, and his holster isn't secured properly. Thank fucking god.
The weight of the gun surprises me. It's heavier than it looks. For a split second, I think I can't.
I fucking have to.
My hands shake so badly. Is there a safety? I don't fucking know.
I raise it toward the ceiling and pull the damn trigger.
The recoil slams through my arm like lightning, up through my fingers, into my shoulder. I feel like they shatter. My shoulder screams in protest, and the gun nearly flies from my grip. The sound's so loud it feels like my skull cracks open.
But it works.
It fucking works.
Every single person in the ring goes still, and the pipe misses its mark.
Heads swivel toward me—toward the gun in my hand—toward the girl in the nice dress who just fired a weapon into the ceiling of an illegal fighting ring.
The big man looks up, and for one perfect moment, our eyes meet.
I cock the gun and point it straight between his eyes.
His eyes are flat. Dead. The eyes of a man who kills for money and sleeps like a baby afterward.
He runs. Drops the pipe with a clatter and bolts for the exit, the Cork kid right behind him, the fucking coward.
The spell breaks, and panic erupts like a bomb went off. People stampede toward the exits. Strong arms are around me—I step on the foot of an unknown man who screams behind me. Everyone's trampling to get away from the girl with the gun.
There's another gunshot, but I don't care. I don't care about anything except—
Cavin.
Cavin.
My heels catch on something—broken glass, something slippery, a wallet, a person, I don't fucking know. I kick off my shoes, feeling the sting of glass biting into my foot, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters except getting to him.
They part for me, too busy trying to save their own arses to block my path. The ones who aren't running just stare at me as I shove them aside.
Ciarán screams at me from behind. My phone is buzzing and ringing in my pocket.
I vault over the ropes, don't even feel my knees hit the canvas. Just scramble forward on my knees toward where Cavin collapsed in a pool of blood.
Ciarán falls beside me. I snap at him. “Grab the pipe. Stick that into a fucking shirt. We need fingerprints.”
There's so much blood. Too much. It’s soaking into the canvas and dripping through the ropes. Up close, the smell hits me—copper and salt—and my stomach heaves.
“Cavin. Cavin, please.”
My hands find his face, his neck, searching for a pulse with shaking fingers.
It's there, faint but steady, beating against my fingertips like a promise.
The cap I knit helped cushion the blow.
Relief hits me so hard I nearly collapse on top of him. “Oh thank god. Fuck.”
His eyes flutter open, unfocused and glassy. There's a gash across his temple, deep and ragged, blood matting his hair and running down the side of his face.
“What are you doing here? Go home, lass.” Then he blinks, and his face goes livid. “Jesus fucking Christ, Ciarán, I'll fucking tear every single goddamn limb off whoever did this and beat you with it. Someone shot a fucking gun. Get her out of here—”
“No. I'm not going anywhere. You're hurt. Cavin,” I say, my voice steady and calm. “And… well, I shot the gun.”
“You cleared the fuckin’ room, lass.” Despite the blood and the violence, I almost smile.
“I shot it into the ceiling. I'm not here killing anybody.” My hands move over him. “Unlike that bloody sod who came after you with a fucking pipe.” I keep pressure on the wound, my cardigan already soaked through. Thirty seconds. Sixty. The bleeding has to slow.
“Fuck. Okay. Okay.” Possible internal bleeding. Concussion for certain. And the head wound is still pumping blood under my hands. “Okay, we need to move you. Can you—”
I touch his shoulder, and he makes a sound low in his throat, agonized, and I have to swallow the bile that rises in my chest. Shoulders shouldn’t look like this.
I turn to Ciarán. “Call the medic. Cavin, can you stand?”
He tries—because even half conscious, bleeding and broken, he's too stubborn to stay down. He tries to lever himself up with his good arm, wobbles, and falls heavy like a shot elephant.