away, not totally out of the room because his footsteps grew nearer not distant. Then, I heard Finn’s strident pace, and the room got warmer the minute he crossed the threshold.
“She’s sleeping again,” Aidan told him with a grunt.
“Fuck. I wanted to talk to her some more.”
“She needs the rest.”
“I know.” Finn swallowed. “I-I just needed to see her awake.”
Aidan released a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, son.”
When Finn whispered, “Me too, Aidan,” those were the last words I heard before I tumbled into a deep sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
Finn
“Go home. Get some rest. You’re not doing her any good here.”
I scowled at Eoghan as he stepped into Aoife’s private room. “What do you want?” I asked gruffly, not needing his advice and not appreciating it either.
“Came to check up on you. See if you guys needed anything.”
I released a breath and though it made me feel like a kid, I rolled on my side on the too-small trestle bed Aidan had arranged to be placed in here.
It was marginally more comfortable than the armchair I’d been using for the first two days, but because it was the only thing that could fit in here without causing any obstruction, it still wasn’t like my bed at home.
Not that I deserved to be comfortable.
“You sulking?” Eoghan asked.
With my back to him—and he and the rest of my family were the only people I could turn my back on—I scowled at the wall. “No.”
“Why aren’t you answering Mom’s calls, then?”
“Don’t have anything to say.”
“You know she’d come if Dad was letting her out of the compound, right?”
My nose wrinkled. “He put her on lockdown?”
“Yeah. The rest of the women too.”
We had a compound over in Queens. It was a small hotel that, in a pinch, we could shove our men’s wives and kids in if shit hit the fan.
An out-and-out attack on the Five Points’ council?
Yeah. There’d been a veritable explosion of shit. Golgothan sized.
“Bet she’s loving that,” I said dryly. It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, that Lena had been holed up in Queens. I wished Aoife was there now instead of here. Fuck, I’d give my left nut for her not to be drifting in and out of consciousness the way she was.
“Yeah, she’s bitching. As usual.”
The bed dipped at my side and Eoghan rested against me like I was an armchair.
“Dick,” I groused at him.
“Eoghan, actually. Didn’t know you lost your memory during the drive-by.”
“Ha-Ha,” I retorted. “Fuck off, would you? I’m just trying to get some sleep.”
“Don’t know how you can on this thing. Looks like you’re going to fall off, and bro, hate to tell you this, but you stink.” Eoghan grunted. “Can’t you move her to a room with space for a bed and a private bath so you can shower off some of that stench?”
“They’re moving her tomorrow.”
We had been in the ICU for a while, but I had a feeling Aidan had put pressure on the right people to keep us close to the ‘facilities.’ It sucked that we were taking up an urgent care space, but I couldn’t find it in myself to give a damn.
This hospital got a huge chunk of its running costs from donors. What Aidan donated to this place, thanks to me, was enough to run this floor for a year. I figured we deserved some of the gold treatment, and Aoife deserved platinum.
She’d been my wife for five minutes before the impossible had happened…
Sometimes I wondered if she slept to avoid me. If she pretended just so she didn’t have to face me.
Was she scared?
Of the Points? Of our future?
Of me?
I couldn’t blame her.
I was scared, but I couldn’t let her go. More selfishness but she was… even sleeping half the time, she was my fucking life. I’d killed for her, and I’d do it again and again. I just wished that I’d been the one to spot the truck. If I had, maybe I’d have stopped the drive-by from happening before it had a chance to begin.
“It’s not your fault, Finn,” Eoghan whispered.
“Isn’t it? I shouldn’t have married her, shouldn’t have brought her into this life but I can’t live without her, dearthàir.”
He sighed at my Gaelic use of the word ‘brother.’ Something we only used to mess with each other or in times like these. Times where we were at a loss and needed one of our kin to keep us from drowning.
“You don’t have to live without her. Dad told me himself that