could, all the while making my way toward Cash, who had fallen. He was on the ground, and before anyone else could get to him, I stood in front, my bow raised, an arrow ready, daring another man to come near my husband.
A few tried, but they fell next to the other men who’d come to kill the marauder of Hell’s Kitchen.
Something touched my leg and I turned, my bow pointed down, my arrow at the ready.
“You said you’d take my heart with an arrow someday, my darlin’,” Cash said. “Do it now.” He coughed and blood dripped out of his mouth.
My chest heaved and I couldn’t move.
“Kee,” Harrison said, touching my arm. “Keely!”
All of a sudden, it was like Harrison was screaming inside of my skull and it sent an automatic command to my hands. I dropped the bow and arrow, my knees giving out, right beside my husband on the bloodstained ground. My hands fisted in his torn and soaked shirt, and I set my ear against his heart, listening.
“Look at me,” he said, barely able to talk. I sat up some, looking him in the eyes. He lifted his hand, going to touch my face, but stopped. “Too narrow,” he breathed out.
Then he shut his eyes and the breath left my lungs on a cry.
33
Keely
No! Bullshit! I sucked up my tears, keeping my husband’s shirt locked in my grip. I looked down at him. “No one—no fucking one—is allowed to kill you, Cash Kelly, but me! Do you hear me?”
I looked up at my brothers, who were all huddled around my husband and me, ready to act if someone else came out of nowhere. “Harrison,” I said, “put pressure on his neck. Now!” I looked at Lachlan. “See if any of the other spots are as bad. Hold pressure. You, too, Declan.” They all nodded and started to move around me. “Owen.”
My brother stood there, staring at Cash. “Owen!” I screamed. He blinked before he looked at me. “Give me your phone!”
“Kee, he’s—”
“You don’t get to tell me what he is! Give me your phone! Now!” I held out my hand, and he set his phone in my palm. “Keep an eye out,” I told him while I dialed the number. Mari picked up on the second ring.
“Kee? What’s—”
“Mac,” I said, my voice breaking a little at the sound of her voice. “Put him on the phone!”
I heard the phone move and then Mac said, “My wife’s friend.”
“Your uncle,” I said, and another cry left my mouth before I could stop it. I put a hand over my lips to cover it, but all I could smell was blood. I could taste it. “I need him. Here. My husband is dying!”
Mac’s uncle was Tito Sala. I’d heard things about him. How he took care of the Fausti family personally. He was a damn good doctor, and if he couldn’t save your physical body, no one else could. I’d met him once, seen him around a few times, and even though we didn’t speak much, something about him made me think the rumors were true.
“Ten minutes,” Mac said. “He’ll be there, Keely.” Then he hung up.
We all kept pressure on the spots that seemed the worst. They’d cut him up like they were trying to slaughter an animal. Stripes. He was going to have so many stripes after this.
It was the longest ten minutes of my fucking life.
Tito Sala hurried onto the scene, and I finally felt like I could breathe again. He had a woman with him, another doctor—he called her Dr. Carter—and together they started to do what they could on the sidewalk. They murmured back and forth. The main thing that stuck out to me was the word “artery.” That evil bitch had almost nicked it. If she had, he would’ve already been dead.
An ambulance arrived a minute later, the lights going around and around on all of the dead that littered the street. The feathers on my arrows were green, and they looked gruesome in the glow of the red lights.
Harrison put his arm around me as they lifted my husband and set him on the gurney. Dr. Sala and Dr. Carter ran with them, shouting out orders.
I went to run behind them, but Harrison kept me in place. “This is where we need to go.” He showed me his phone. Mac had texted him an address. I didn’t recognize it.
“What hospital?” My teeth chattered, and suddenly my entire body felt like it’d been