Instead, some fucking EMTs were ogling my bride’s tits and I couldn’t even punch them for it. Not when I saw her breathe. It was the first time I realized she wasn’t dead, and I had to press a hand to the cold stone steps to prop me upright.
She lived.
There was blood everywhere and I wasn’t sure how they saw anything, but after another few minutes, I helped them move her onto a stretcher.
As they rolled her down to the ambulance, I recognised that I wasn’t hearing anything. I turned around, saw Aidan Jr. had been shot and was being worked over by another EMT, Lena was sobbing, Conor was clutching his arm, and I didn’t hear any of it.
I didn’t hear the sirens.
The whispers of the audience we’d gathered even though the fuckwits, after a drive-by, should have stayed inside.
I didn’t hear the wheels of the gurney on the stones as Aoife was taken to the ambulance.
I heard nothing.
I should stay. I knew that.
In the ultimate of ironies, because this life was like that, I hadn’t been shot. Looked like Aidan Sr. hadn’t either.
The good really do die young, I thought.
We needed to get to work. Needed to handle this threat, but I wasn’t capable of anything.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t. Capable. Of. Anything.
I was an intelligent man.
My fortune, and that of the Five Points, had soared thanks to that intelligence. Thanks to my reasoning, and my business savvy. I knew where to apply pressure on our allies, how to twist the arm of our enemies. I was needed here to rectify this wrong, but Aoife needed me more.
“Sir?”
Someone grabbed my arm and shook me. I was too dazed to react this time. Too dazed to smack the shit out of anyone who touched me.
They were the first words I heard, though.
“…coming with us? Need to leave. Urgently.”
I realized I was holding up the ambulance. Not that they usually waited for shell-shocked grooms, and in her state, I knew they wouldn’t ordinarily allow people to travel with them.
But I wasn’t just anyone.
I was a Five Points man, and Aoife was my bride.
Shit worked differently for us.
I jumped on board the ambulance, knowing that if I got in the way I could endanger Aoife’s life, I resented my six-foot-four frame more than ever as I tried to make myself as small as possible. Not easy.
There was a short counter beside Aoife’s gurney, and next to that, a kind of seat. I folded my form into that tiny ass enclosure, sitting sideways so I wouldn’t be a burden in the limited space.
Seconds after I settled myself, the ambulance took off and my heart rate went along for the ride too.
***
Aoife
The beeps.
It was the beeps that woke me. Fuck, they were so irritating. What was it anyway?
They reminded me of Chinese water torture, except with sound and, ya know, no water.
I wrinkled my nose as I tried to lift my hand to shove the pillow over my face, but when I tried to do that simple thing, my entire body ached.
“She’s waking up!”
The roar disturbed me. Jolted me in surprise and that sent agony shivering through me. It was then I realized how much I hurt. Jesus. It was everywhere. In my head, in my chest, even my toes ached.
It was like when you worked out for the first time in months. A forty-minute TABATA workout didn’t just kick your butt during the session, but after? Talk about moving like a ninety-year-old. This was that kind of pain I was talking about, but it went deeper because I felt so weak. So frail.
My brow puckered with irritation from the way I was hurting with no comprehension as to why, and I decided I needed to open my eyes. But for some reason, that wasn’t easy.
How could eyelids hurt?
What the fuck was going on with me?
Another yell roared from someone close to me, and I felt my hand being picked up and my fingers being squeezed. A scent blossomed in my nose, but I didn’t know it. Or at least, I didn’t recognize it over the thousand other scents in this space. Then, I felt the soft brush of something against my temple, and as the scent and touch worked together, I realized who it was.
Finn.
I moaned his name and I heard him grit out, “Open your eyes for me, beautiful, my cailín.”
God, I wanted to obey. I really did. But opening my eyes wasn’t as easy as it