Filthy (Five Points' Mob Collection #1) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,98

could go on a sabbatical so we could take a break where she could recuperate. It wasn’t like I could quit my job, nor did I want to. The Five Points was the Irish Mob. My responsibilities were waiting on my total attention, but I was allaying my duties by working from home.

Even as I cared for her, tended to her, I had a duty to the Family.

“How do I be the man she deserves?” I asked, wanting that for her so fucking much, my chest ached with it.

“Do you love her, Finn?”

Silence reigned for a handful of seconds until I choked out, “Yes.”

“Have you told her that?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Doyle asked on an impatient huff. “The woman took a bullet for you, Finn! You could at least have told her you loved her.”

My jaw clenched. “To say it now, to say it when she’s going through all this because of me is like…” I blew out a sharp breath. “I won’t tell her I love her like it’s a magic cure-all.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I’d told her before, she’d have believed me. Now, she might just think I’m saying it because I feel bad.”

Doyle snorted. “Only a man could say something so ignorant. She doesn’t care why, she just wants your love. She’s sore, she’s hurting, and she’s on the road to recovery… she wants your love, Finn,” he repeated. “Love her. Give her what she needs within reason and be the man she needs you to be.”

Could I do that? He made it sound so easy, but life was never that simple, was it?

“Apologize to her. For the shooting. For the fact she’s injured,” Doyle carried on when I stayed silent, processing his words. “Apologize for being stubborn, for being an ass. Make reparation to the one person who bore the brunt of you and the Points’ sins.” He paused. “That and three Hail Marys and three Our Fathers as well as the Act of Contrition is what I ask of you today.”

I hadn’t expected him to go so easy on me. Especially when I wasn’t here to atone for the one sin that mattered the most.

Did he understand?

“Thank you, Father,” I said softly.

“There will be a time when you’re ready to seek penance for the other matter, but as they say, if the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.”

As I rasped out the Act of Contrition, Father Doyle finished with, “Go in peace, Finn, and say a prayer for me.”

***

Aoife

I may or may not have fallen when I went to use the bathroom.

FML.

There was going to be a bruise where my side collided with the dresser and Finn was going to be wicked pissed.

Not with me.

With himself.

I knew it like I knew I was really glad the dresser was there, because if it hadn’t been, then I’d have gone down.

And only God knew if I’d have managed to get myself up again, so I guessed I should be thankful for small mercies.

He’d see it when he changed the dressing on my stomach. Cursing my luck, I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. I felt like I’d been doing this for a lifetime, when really, I’d only been stuck in bed for just under two weeks.

I was a jumble of so many mixed emotions and I was getting kind of pissed that Finn was the one blowing up when I was laying here grouchy, horny, itchy, and fidgety. And shit, I was bored. So bored. I loved reading, and when I’d had the tea room, I’d wished I had more time for it, but now that it was all I could do?

It didn’t help that I loved romance books, and those books were steamy, which made me even hornier, and it was all kinds of wrong that I could be in pain and need sex at the same time.

Hoping to God that Finn’s visit to the confessional would improve his demeanor before I had to rip him a new one, and wishing that he’d hurry the hell up because I missed him like nuts and he’d been gone for just over forty minutes—I know, I know, pathetic—I carried on staring up at the ceiling.

It provided no answers.

Well, I learned that the housekeepers cleaned the corners of the ceiling—there were zero cobwebs. Something I’d never done in my own apartment. How did they even reach those areas? I’d seen them. They appeared like little mice at around ten AM and when