"Me too, Maeve. Me too."
I stay there, rocking her slowly in the quiet room, until her fingers loosen on my shirt and her head goes heavy against my shoulder. She's asleep.
I watch her for a long moment, her small chest rising and falling against my ribs.
Then, the adrenaline drops, the coldness starts in my fingers, moving up my arms, settling in my chest like a sheet of ice. My collarbone is burning where the glass cut it, my knuckles are raw and bleeding, and my head is pounding with a vicious, black ache that makes it hard to see.
I almost lost her. Five years of building walls, and he walked right through them.
I gently lay Maeve down on the small leather sofa in the corner, pulling my suit jacket off and draping it over her shoulders. She stirs, murmuring something, then settles back into the dark.
I walk to the door, my legs feeling like lead, and step out into the corridor.
The hallway is dim, the only light coming from the emergency wall sconces.
Atara is there.
She is sitting on the floor against the wall, her knees pulled to her chest, her chin resting on them. Her dress is torn at the shoulder, exposing her pale skin, smudged with soot and blood. Her hair is a wild, dark halo around her face.
She doesn't look up when the door clicks. She doesn't speak.
I stand there, looking at her, and my heart does a heavy, painful thud against my ribs. I want to pull her into my lap. I want to rip that red dress off her and mark every inch of her skin until she forgets the sound of the gunshots. But I can't. My body feels hollowed out, like someone scooped the marrow from my bones.
I walk over, my boots dragging on the carpet, and slide down the wall right next to her.
Our shoulders touch.
She doesn't move away. She doesn't say a word. She just shifts slightly, pressing her arm against mine, her heat seeping through the fabric of my shirt.
We sit in the dark corridor, the silence of the building pressing in on us.
I look at my hands. They are covered in blood. I try to make a fist, but my fingers won't cooperate. They are shaking. Really shaking now.
The ice in my chest starts to crack.
I try to hold it. I clench my jaw until my teeth grind, my chest heaving as I try to force the air down into my lungs. But there's no room. The black pit is too big.
A sound leaves my throat, a low, broken noise that doesn't sound like a man at all.
I bury my face in my bloody hands, my shoulders shaking, and a cry tears itself from my chest.
31
Atara
A sound leaves Lorcan’s throat and it's not the angry roar I’ve grown used to.
I slide down the cold hardwood wall right next to him. My red silk dress bunches around my knees, already ruined, smudged with soot and someone else’s blood. I don't care about the dress. I don't care about the fact that we’re in a hallway in a ruined ballroom with fifty enforcers standing just beyond the double doors.
"Lorcan," I say softly. "Hey. Look at me."
His eyes are wide, glassy, and completely blank. He’s staring straight through the opposite wall. His breathing is fractured,shallow little gasps that make his chest heave violently against his charcoal shirt. His hands are clawing at the polished floorboards, his knuckles raw and bleeding, leaving dark, wet streaks on the wood.
He’s drowning. The King of the West Coast is completely under, and the water is five years deep.
No way am I letting him stay down there.
I don't call Kieran or Echo. If his men walk through those doors right now, they’ll see the Don with a cracked crown, and right now, Lorcan doesn't need to be a Don. He just needs to breathe.
