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I could feel the heat from his body leaning close. “He lost a lot of blood.”
“The IV will help,” I checked the levels and made sure the flow was still good. “It’s not like we’ve got a blood bank on hand, so it’ll have to do. I’ll keep an eye on him overnight.”
“I can do it,” Sloane said. Tommy muttered something and left the room. She didn’t even notice. “Hey, look who’s waking up.”
A single blue eye cracked open, then shut again against better judgement. “F-Fuck.”
“That bad, huh?” I smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got shot,” he slurred.
Connor leaned in. “Yeah, about that, mate. What the hell were you doing in the North End?”
“Can’t this wait?” Sloane frowned. “He’s barely conscious.”
I wasn’t an expert at things, but painkillers were their own kind of truth serum, and judging by the look on Connor’s face, he knew that. There was something else going on here.
“You were supposed to be handling that bookie down on Bolton with Teag. He said you never showed.”
“Never called, neither.” A tall, slender man leaned in through the open doorway. He had close-cropped, greying hair and dark, soot-colored eyes, almost black. This must be Teagan Kelley. I’d heard Connor mention him, before. I didn’t know why, but something about him was off. I didn’t like him.
Connor put a steadying hand on my shoulder, and I flinched away. I didn’t realize that I’d been unconsciously leaning closer to him. His eyes tightened, but he turned his attention back to Alfie. “Where were you?”
His tone of voice brokered no argument. Alfie wearily shut his eyes. “I was with a girl.”
“Who?”
“Nobody you know. It was just…it doesn’t matter. Just a thing, man.”
Sloane stood and left the room, almost bumping into Teagan on the way out. If he noticed, he didn’t show it. “So, you just decided to fuck off with some skirt and leave us hanging? With everything else going on?”
Connor was looking at Alfie, his eyes coldly calculating. “Answer him.”
Alfie took a steadying breath, and I felt for the pulse at his wrist. It was elevated, much more than it should be. “Finish this conversation later. He needs to rest.” Connor glared at me, and I stared right back for a long moment before I looked up at Teagan, equally pissed. “Out. Now.”
They didn’t like it, but they left, anyway. Alfie sighed unhappily as I laid a blanket over him and pulled up another dose of painkillers. “Thanks, Cassidy.”
“You won’t be thanking me in the morning. They seem pretty upset.” I shook my head. “I hope she was worth it.”
Alfie smiled faintly, just as he was pulled under. “She is.”
17
Connor
“Yeah,Sloane,I’mjustnot up for a family dinner tonight…no, I’m fine, but…it’s just a…no…okay…okay, see you at seven.”
I sighed deeply as I hung up the phone. Sloane might play the (maybe not so innocent) barmaid, but when she wanted something, she usually got it. The family dinner thing was her idea, and she was not taking no for an answer.
Honestly, shoring up congenial pretenses was the very last thing I wanted to do right now. Tommy inexplicably turned into a sphinx whenever Sloane was around, Alfie was on thin ice with me, and—surprise, surprise—Cassidy and I were barely speaking. Throw in the bad blood between her and Michael, and it was a party.
Fuck. Maybe I could fake my own death.
I certainly felt a step away from it. If I wasn’t knocking on death’s door, then I was at least leaning on the front gate. Tommy had stitched up the knife wound in my side days ago, but the damn thing was still an angry shade of red, and I felt like utter shite. I needed to get a good night’s sleep, not navigate the proverbial minefield of a family get-together.
Tommy and I had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning after Alfie was shot, doing our very best to put a healthy dent in Sloane’s liquor supply. We’d paid for it the next day, but we’d had out reasons. Tommy, apparently, was nursing a bruised ego and a broken heart, while I drank away frustration and guilt over Alfie’s repeated disappearances.
The whiskey sat like a rock in my gut. I just couldn’t get over the sinking suspicion that my best friend was lying to me.
