know someone who works in the medical field who can help you out?” Dr. Holmberg said, knowing damn well ushering the two fuckers in the back of the van to a hospital was out of the question. It was as good as admitting to the crime.
Even though the local DA and police department were in my pocket—I went to the sheriff’s son’s christening and the DA’s father’s funeral, I was on such good terms with them—I wasn’t dumb enough to rub it in their faces and make them ask me hard questions. Even if the DA and the police liked me, there was still the FBI to think about, and they were breathing down my neck recently.
“You’d be surprised, Holmberg, but I don’t know many doctors. Or fucking astronauts, for that matter. My line of work is killing people, not nursing them back to health.”
That wasn’t entirely true, though.
I knew Aisling Fitzpatrick, and she was a doctor.
A good one at that, if I were to believe my sister, Sailor, who wasn’t in the habit of handing out unwarranted compliments.
Nix also knew how to keep secrets. Came with the territory of being a Fitzpatrick and belonging to one of the most notoriously corrupt families in North America.
Perhaps standing her up without an apology then throwing what we shared on Halloween in her face the last time we met, proceeding to take a nice, big dump on her pride and lighting the entire situation on fire wasn’t the best tactic to handling things with her, seeing as I needed her now.
Normally, I was more calculated than to needlessly poke and humiliate people who didn’t deserve it.
Normally, I didn’t handle Aisling Fitzpatrick.
She brought out the worst in me. I was borderline allergic to her. So sweet, so innocent, so accommodating. Still living with her fucking parents.
And really, rejecting her was doing her a favor. I was going to have her father’s head on a platter in about two seconds, when I exposed him for everything he was and squeezed the truth out of him.
See? Even I had my fucking limits.
They were few and far between and faded, but they were, apparently, in existence.
Then there was the oath part. Even though I was a world-class bastard, I wasn’t a dishonorable one. The Fitzpatrick men paid me good money not to touch Aisling, which meant I needed to at least make a half-assed effort to keep my word.
“Perhaps you could—” Dr. Holmberg started, but I’d already hung up the phone and was calling Sailor to ask for Aisling’s number.
My sister and Nix were good friends. The wallflower and the lady.
“Does that mean you are finally going to ask her out?” Sailor asked on the other line. I heard her washing something in the background, probably Xander’s bottles.
I threw a glance to the back of the van, where Becker was bleeding out—possibly parts of his lungs—and Angus looked like his arm had been screwed into the rest of his body by a blind toddler.
“Are you fucking high?” I scowled at the road, talking to my sister. “She’s a child.”
A child I’d done some pretty grown-up shit to.
I didn’t think eight years were a big deal in terms of an age gap. I slept with women who were in their mid-twenties sometimes, although I naturally gravitated toward women my own age. But Aisling wasn’t only eight years my junior. She also had that pure as the driven snow halo of a blue-blooded angel.
A blue-blooded angel who sucked your balls like the future of the country depended on it then proceeded to take it up the ass like a pro.
“High? Oh, I wish. I can’t do shit while breastfeeding. Not even drink a glass of wine.” Sailor sighed wistfully, reminiscing about times when she didn’t have a husband to knock her up as soon as she pushed out a baby.
“If you want sympathy, I suggest you talk to someone with a heart,” I grumbled.
“Oh, really? So what’s the thing beating in your chest?”
“It’s not beating. It’s ticking. Probably a bomb.”
She laughed heartily. “Don’t be too harsh with Ash. You know she is a gentle one. Love you, asshole.”
“Bye, shitface.”
I hung up and called the number Sailor had given me. Aisling answered on the fifth ring, just as I was about to hang up and make a U-turn, delivering two, sweaty, injured beefcakes straight to her manicured front lawn.
“Hello?” Her sweet voice filled the van, flooding the goddamn place like an overwhelming perfume.
“It’s Sam,” I hissed in annoyance.
“Oh,” was