hit by the ambulance pulling away from the scene—my heart going with it.
“Kee,” Harrison whispered. “They have their own places. Places that are set up with all of the equipment they need. Even the ambulance belongs to them. C’mon. I’ll drive you.”
We stopped when we noticed two figures coming from across the street. Mac and Rocco. Both men were related to Tito Sala. One by blood and the other by marriage.
Harrison shook Rocco’s hand first. Then he hesitated, but after a second, offered his hand to Mac. I wasn’t sure what Mac was going to do, since there was some bad blood there, but Mac took it.
Mac looked around. “How many archers are there in New York city?” It sounded like a question, but it was more of an observation. “Ones that can do this much damage?”
All three men looked directly at me as my brothers came to stand next to us.
“We will clean this up,” Rocco said, nodding. He touched me on the shoulder. “My uncle will do what he can for your husband. Go now and be with him.”
Gigi sat in the front seat next to my brother as we went in search of the address Mac had texted. I’d totally forgotten she’d been there until she touched Harrison on the shoulder, whispering, “My uncle will do what he can for your sister’s heart.”
For your sister’s heart.
I reached for the pendant, clutching it so tightly that the chain around my neck started to dig into my flesh. The lights outside of the car window passed in a blur, illuminating each crevice of the metal heart, stained with my husband’s blood.
“If you die on me, you bastard,” I whispered. “I’ll never forgive you for not showing me what’s inside of this heart!”
“It’s easy enough to find out,” his voice echoed inside of my head, like the sound of waves crashing into the Irish shore.
“Not without you,” I whispered back, the panic in me turning into anger. I was so fucking angry at what had happened, at how they were coming at him from all sides, that I wanted to go back and kill them again.
Cash had told me that he carried the hearts of all the men he had killed. Not me. I gave them to the devil as soon as that first blade sliced through his flesh. I had a reason to kill. And it was my right to defend what belonged to me.
Cash Kelly’s heart.
My brother looked at me through the rearview mirror, but I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t want anyone to see that the anger was a shield for a deeper hurt that I knew would never heal unless my husband did.
It only took us a few minutes to get to the “hospital.” It looked like an abandoned warehouse from the outside, and when we stepped onto the sidewalk, one of the Faustis let us inside. The place might have looked unused, but it had been recreated into something like an emergency room.
Cash was inside of a room, and it looked chaotic, even with only two doctors and a nurse. Tito Sala made eye contact with me for a brief second before he called out to the nurse to shut the door.
Harrison led me to a chair and made me sit. He tried to hand me a glass of water, but I pushed it away. It was hard to sit and wait and not do something. Every nerve inside of me was wired. Every cell hurt.
An hour went by.
By then, the entire place was filled with people. All of my brothers. Mari. A bunch of the Faustis who told me they knew Cash and respected him. They would light a candle for his soul. It was an odd thing with the men around me, how they were religious people but killed on the regular.
It was a world that I wasn’t used to, but it was mine now. I’d been baptized into the life by the blood of my husband. It was smeared all over my skin.
Mari clasped my hand. “Even though they do what they do, inside—” she touched her heart “—most of them have good, too.”
I clasped her hand back, almost losing my shit at the strength in her voice.
An hour and five seconds later, Tito Sala came out of the room. He took a seat next to me, sighing. “Your husband is a lucky man,” he said, patting my hand. “The cut on his neck was a close call. A little