“I am going to kill you, Brennan.” Cillian Fitzpatrick stormed into my office at Badlands the following day, with Hunter trailing behind him. “You have some nerve cornering my sister like that. Your bet with her is off. We’ll pay the money.”
I sat back in my seat, smirking as I tapped my fingers over my mouth. It had been three hours since I dropped Aisling off at the clinic to hand in her resignation, and already I missed her like crazy. The idea of giving up on the engagement after she’d agreed to it seemed as far from reality as letting Cillian and Hunter shove a ten-foot spiky dildo into my ass while I watch reruns of Hannah Montana.
“I don’t want the money,” I drawled.
“Well too bad…” Cillian stopped in front of my desk, his fists clenched “…because buying my sister is not an option.”
“I didn’t buy her, I won her. You were the one who bought your wife, while we’re on the subject, and you…” I turned to Hunter before he opened his mouth “…you don’t even have a say in this. You’re having sex with my sister. Count your blessing that you are still alive. I still have no idea what she sees in you.”
Hunter lifted his hands up in surrender. “Same here, bro. I have no idea why she is with me. I just know I’m not letting her go.”
“How did you get in here anyway?” I frowned. The entrance was manned by two bodyguards.
Cillian took a seat in front of me, and Hunter occupied the chair beside him as they both invited themselves to stay.
Cillian and Hunter had no idea what went on between me, their father, Aisling and Jane, and I intended to keep it that way. Not because I gave a fuck about what they thought but because I knew it would hurt Aisling if her brothers doubted my devotion to her. And she would be upset when Hunter and Cillian passed the information along to Persephone, Sailor, and Devon, making the fact I stabbed her in the back a well-known matter.
“Oh, I know Johnny and Grayson from way back.” Hunter waved his hand around dismissively, referring to the bouncers standing at the front door. “I told them we came in to congratulate you on your engagement.”
“When really we came here to tell you that you will not blackmail our sister.” Cillian lit up a cigar. The stench of the burning rolled tobacco drifted around the room, and I tried to remember what I liked about smoking. Cigars smelled like feet on fire, and cigarettes were their cheaper equivalent.
It was peculiar. How both bad and good habits were born from boredom. How they turned into an obsession, an addiction, before you knew it. And how taking back control from them became a habit in itself.
“Your sister is a big girl.” I laced my fingers together on my desk, trying to keep the disdain from my voice. “She came to me of her own free will. As you recall, you paid me not to get anywhere near her, which should tell you something about her reaction to me.”
“And as you recall, you crapped all over your promise not to touch her, if you are getting married now,” Cillian retorted.
Cillian wasn’t wrong, but he couldn’t prove his suspicion either, so I just flashed him a barely tolerant smile.
“Do you have proof?”
“No, but—”
“Then I suggest you keep your opinion where it belongs, in Reddit conspiracy theory threads. Aisling and I are engaged to be married. The marriage will take place sooner rather than later. I’ve already spoken to your father about deducting the annual bonus for not touching her as I intend to touch her very often—and very inappropriately. I understand that the Fitzpatrick family enjoys seeing Ash as the prized, devoted daughter who dotes on Jane and fulfills her father’s every whim, but this stops now.”
“Which brings us to our next topic.” Cillian narrowed his eyes at me. “Seems to me like the entire divorce ordeal between my parents, along with the stolen cufflinks and poison case disappeared into thin air. As the person in charge of the situation, would you care to explain it?” He held his cigar between his teeth, half-smiling.
The problem with Cillian was that, unlike most of my rich clients, he was smart and observant. Those things were definitely a thorn in my side.
“Gladly.” I smacked my lips together. “We found the person responsible for all those things. For obvious reasons, your father swiped it under the rug. Didn’t want your mother to become even more upset with him when another lover came to light. How is Jane doing, by the way?”
“Don’t pretend like you care,” Cillian yawned. I doubted he cared, too.
“Fair enough.” I chuckled. Hunter, the only one out of us three who actually gave a fuck, confirmed that she was still attending therapy. Good for her. She needed all the help she could get because I was never letting her emotionally manipulate Aisling again.
“You quit smoking, huh?” Hunter’s gaze flicked to my desk, which now lacked the usual mountain of ashtrays, cigarette packs, and Zippos. “From one addict to another, let me tell you, I’m really proud of you.”
“That warms my heart,” I said.
“Really?” Hunter’s eyes lit up.
“No,” I deadpanned, looking between them. “Did you get everything you came here for? I have a busy day. It’s called work…” I snapped my fingers, making a show of reminding them “…you know that thing people do to make money when they are not born into royalty.”
“You are about to marry into royalty,” Hunter jested, wiggling his brows.
“Which reminds me,” Cillian put his cigar out, standing up and buttoning his blazer, “there is no way I am letting you marry my sister without a prenup.”
“I’ll sign the goddamn prenup,” I bit out, “but she can’t know that.”
“She can’t know that?” Hunter frowned. “Why not?”
“It’s not the money I care about, it’s keeping your sister,” I grunted, annoyed that I had to spell it out for him, like he didn’t know what it meant to be pussy-whipped.
“You really do love her, don’t you?” Hunter grinned smugly.
“Give us a smart-ass answer and I will kill you,” Cillian warned.
I was about to answer when someone kicked the door down, sending it flying off its hinges and skating along the floor. I reached for my gun in my desk’s drawer, but the two men in the balaclavas were faster.
“No need to kill him,” one said in a thick Russian accent, pointing his gun at me. “We’ll do it for you.”
He shot two bullets into my chest.
Everything went black.
I slipped in and out of consciousness as they rushed me to the hospital. I couldn’t feel any pain in my chest or my shoulder, which couldn’t have been a good sign. Everything was blurry. The white punishing florescent light forced me to close my eyes as soon as I opened them.
In the background, I heard Cillian and Hunter’s voices, and Devon’s.
“Johnny and Grayson are dead,” Hunter said, unaware that I was half-conscious. “We need to take care of that.”
“Troy’s on it,” Cillian quipped. “He’ll clean up the scene. He has people working on it right now. They’re boarding up the card rooms in case the police get tipped off.”
In that moment, I was glad my friends weren’t total dumbasses. I must’ve groaned because Cillian’s head snapped in my direction. The doctor and nurse behind me shooed my entourage away. We must have been heading into the operating room.
“Call Ash,” I tried to say, but even though I could move my mouth, it didn’t produce any sound.
“What?” Hunter reached over to squeeze my hand. For fuck’s sake, what was he going to do next? Cut the cord when I delivered his fucking baby?
“Call Ash!” I roared, hoping my hearing was impaired due to the gunshots and that I didn’t lose my fucking vocal chords.
Cillian and Hunter stopped dead in their tracks behind the medical staff as my gurney burst through the double doors.
I had to stay alive.
I had to.
Not for me.
For her.
I closed my eyes again.
For the first time in my life, I was losing a fight.
Aisling
“I quit.”
Dr. Doyle and I were sitting in front of each other, filling out charts.
I blurted the words before I chickened out, making the older man straighten in his seat. He watched me through the thick rim of his reading glasses.
“I’m very happy to hear that,” he said finally, and all the air rushed out from my lungs in a desperate sigh. Even though I knew Dr. Doyle had been wanting me to explore more legal and accomplishing means of medicine, I also knew he had his hands full here at the clinic, and he needed help.
“I feel terrible.” I covered my face with both hands, shaking my head.
“Don’t.” I heard the smile in his voice. “I want more for you than this. That time you came to my office, when you found out what it was I did, I knew how passionate you were about this job when you told me about Ms. Blanchet, but I never hoped for you to come work here full-time.”
“But what about Mrs. Martinez—”
“She’ll survive,” he hurried to say. Then, realizing his poor choice of words, he gave a small chuckle and added, “I’ll take over. I have my own ideas about her treatment.”
I swallowed. He was a great doctor. I wasn’t worried about his abilities, I was worried about his workload.
“What are you going to do?” I asked Dr. Doyle, peeking at him through my fingers fanned across my face. The engagement ring still felt heavy on my finger. Strange and foreign and yet like a cloak of security I’d never worn before.
Dr. Doyle’s eyes halted on the huge sapphire ring, but other than his smile tugging wider, he didn’t mention it.
It was obvious he put two and two together.
Engagement meant marriage, and marriage oftentimes meant babies, and if there was one thing my children deserved, it was at least one parent who wouldn’t be at risk of being thrown into prison.
“I’m going to cut back on the work eventually, too, starting by turning down new patients.” He dropped his pen on the chart he was filling out. “You know, I thought about this long and hard recently. Why we do this…” he motioned around the room “…and I’ve come to the conclusion that we are trying to repent. We’ve both lost people we loved very dearly in the most horribly painful ways, but it is not our fault. It is time to let go of the guilt, my dear. You cannot change history. But you can write your next chapters. You are doing the right thing by quitting, Aisling. You have a beautiful life ahead of you. Ah, to be your age again,” he said wistfully, staring at an invisible point behind my shoulder, looking far away all of a sudden. “The world is spread before you in all its glory. Make the most of it. You’ve worked hard here, and you weren’t paid a penny. You’ve helped others. Now it’s time to focus on yourself, child.”
I looked down and noticed my phone was beeping with an incoming text. I slid the screen with my thumb.
Cillian: Clover.
Hunter: Cloverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
They could wait. They sure made me wait when I needed them.
“Do you think I can handle a residency?” I gnawed on my inner cheek.
I’d been so far removed from mainstream medical institutions, finding my way back into them felt almost impossible.
“Dear,” Dr. Doyle chuckled, “the question is, can they handle you? You are a force to be reckoned with. Compassionate, pragmatic, and hardworking. A lethal combination for a doctor.”
He got up, rounding the desk between us, and offered me his hand. I took it, rising to my feet. Dr. Doyle engulfed me in a hug. The deep, bone-crushing kind that rearranged your entire being in just the right way.
When I stepped out of the clinic for the last time in my life, I found myself looking behind at the building’s door with a soft smile but without longing.
Doing what I did never truly fulfilled me.
It dulled my pain.
I was ready for the next chapter in my life.
To stitch people back together, atoning for all the lives my future husband would no doubt rip apart.
I forgive you, mon cheri. You were just a kid. Besides, maybe, just maybe I put you in an impossible situation, too, I heard Ms. B’s voice in my head and knew, with a decent amount of both disappointment and relief, that I wasn’t going to hear her voice very often from now on. Her job was truly done now.
I took out my phone, striding absentmindedly to the Prius.
I had a lot of missed calls from Cillian, Hunter, and Devon. Gosh, they really couldn’t handle how yesterday went down with Sam and me. They needed to get over themselves.
The texts, however, gave me pause.
Cillian: Answer.
Hunter: Please just pick up the phone. We are not trying to yell at you for the engagement.
Cillian: Sam is in the hospital. Brigham. He’s been shot twice. He’s in critical condition.
Hunter: You have to come see him. He is asking for you.
Devon: Aisling, darling, your brothers are quite disoriented, too much to pay attention to the finer details. But as a solicitor, one must wonder, if you are currently at work, and your workplace is the hospital we’re in, how come we can’t seem to reach you?
I jumped into the car, flooring it all the way to the hospital, my heart in my throat.
My worst fear had materialized.
Sam’s sins finally caught up with him.
Aisling
I blasted through the ER doors, running toward the waiting area, where Hunter, Cillian, Devon, and Troy were standing with a frantic-looking Sparrow.
The latter paced from side to side, seeming to be deep in conversation on the phone with her daughter, urging her not to come.
“No, honey, someone needs to take care of the kids. Please don’t leave them with Persy. She has her hands full as it is. I’ll keep you abreast.”
It was the first time I’d seen my future in-laws since Sam proposed, and it was in less than positive circumstances. I threw myself at Hunter, grabbing onto the lapels of his pea coat.
“Where is he?”
“Hey,” Hunter said gravely, his voice lower and more concerned than I’d ever heard before. Cillian would not look at me. Did they know something I didn’t? The thought made me want to kneel right there and throw up on the floor. “He’s in surgery right now. I guess you can’t go inside, but surely you can ask the staff how he is doing? You work here and everything. You must know some of the doctors.”
Still in a daze, I mumbled something about it being a huge hospital and not wanting to take advantage of my position, although I could tell Hunter looked at me funny. The walls were closing in on me. My family was becoming suspicious. Why had it taken me so long to get here if I worked in the premises?
Because I never actually worked here. I just couldn’t tell you what it was that I did.
The great irony of getting caught in the lie on the day I quit my job with Dr. Doyle didn’t escape me, but my mind was occupied with all things Sam. I stared longingly at the door Hunter gestured toward. Behind it doctors were fighting for Sam’s life.
“Tell me what happened again,” Troy insisted, badgering Cillian and Hunter, and they recited the entire scene. How they came to talk to Sam about my engagement to him (at this point they stared at me pointedly), how they discussed it at length. How they didn’t hear anything when the Russians put bullets in Johnny and Grayson’s heads because they used a silencer. How the Bratva burst through Sam’s office door, aiming their weapon at him.
“He’s a strong fucker.” Hunter sniffled. “On our way here he was half-conscious. He even asked us to call you, Aisling.”
All eyes lifted and rested on me, burning a hole through my face. Wrapping my arms around myself, I ignored them, waltzing over to a nearby window and staring out of it.
The world kept on spinning, and it felt like losing Ms. B all over again, only much worse. Cars honked, cluttered together in neat lines on the road. Clouds sailed. Women cooed at each other’s strollers on the streets.
Suddenly, I felt bloated and swollen with resentment.
At my parents for depriving me from having Sam until it was too late. At myself for listening to them, for waiting around, for denying myself of what I wanted. And at Sam, who ruthlessly devoured Boston—to the point where Boston had no choice but to devour him right back.
“Hunter,” I called out, still staring out the window, my eyes glued to the street. He approached me, stopping right next to me.
“Call Mother. I want her here. For once in this lifetime, I want her to comfort me.”
“Are you sure?” He frowned. “I don’t want this to have the opposite effect. What if she ends up nagging you about her psoriasis or tries to drag you to a shopping spree at the mall?”
“She won’t,” I said with conviction.
The women with the strollers on the street hugged each other goodbye and went their separate ways. I was filled with nausea when I realized it was possible I would never have babies with Sam. That this could be it for us. “I won’t let her.”
Hunter nodded curtly, stepping aside to call my mother.
Then, alone, with my face tilted in the opposite direction of everyone, I allowed the tears to fall. One by one, they slid down my cheeks, hot and salty.
I needed to let them go or else I’d drown.
