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The waiting room was where the world was yanked out from under my feet. Where it all came crashing down, all my carefully constructed walls to hold back the rage and terror.
Thank god it had been a private waiting room, because Callum McTiernan had strode through those doors like the four furies themselves, with Sloane right behind him.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he hissed at me.
I just clenched my jaw and continued burning a hole in the floor.
“Cal,” Sloane warned.
“Connor, look at me when I’m talking to you. Do you have any idea how big of a mess you just made? Jesus H. Christ, I never took you for a hothead but this—”
“I did what I had to do.”
“You acted without thinking! I’ve got nearly a dozen—” Callum glanced at the door and quickly lowered his voice. “A dozen bodies that you left piled up in that big old house, Grady and Bootsie are running around trying contain the damage. Cops breathin’ down my neck, Moretti is in the wind, and you’re here in a goddamn public hospital with two detectives right outside the door just itchin’ to talk to you.”
“What would you have me do?” I was on my feet now, rounding angrily on my father.
“Not blindly rush into a trap, for starters!” Callum shrugged off Sloane's hand when she tried to calm him. “You’re damn lucky Alfie was able to get ahold of the guys in time. What if it had been more than just Teagan and a few goons, hmm? What then? I’d be visiting what was left of my nephew and his wife down at the morgue instead of here. You used goddamn grenades! For fuck's sake!”
"Those were mine." Tommy raised a finger.
"You stay the fuck out of this, Thomas."
I exploded. “Are you honestly gonna stand there and say you would have done anything different in my shoes? They had her, Callum. They werehurtingher. Torturing her, and if I had gotten there even five minutes later, it would have been too late.”
“Stop.” Sloane positioned herself between Callum and me, forcing us apart. “Stop this right now, both of you. This is neither the time, nor the place for this.”
She looked at me and pointed to the bathroom. “Connor, go wash up. You’re covered in blood. And you,” she turned to her father. “You say you have a mess to clean up? Then go clean it. You’re not doing anybody any favors by digging into this right now.”
Tempers flared. Emotions spilling onto the floor, loose and messy.
But Sloane's jaw was set, and with a final glare at each of us, we retreated to their separate corners.
I started to crumble as soon as the bathroom door closed. It was the blood. I scrubbed and I scrubbed until my skin was raw. It was under my nails and caked into the lines on my palm, rust-colored and stinking with the pungent smell of violence.
Mostly Teagan's, but plenty of it was Cassidy's as well. My knuckles were bruised and swollen from where I’d hit Teagan, and I could still see his skull coming apart under my hands like a rotten pumpkin. Far from the first man I’d ever killed, but it was the first one I’d taken apart like that with my bare hands.
And I wished I could do it again. A hundred times over for what that bastard had done to her.
I stood there for several long minutes with my head under the faucet, the water so cold it almost hurt. Deep, shuddering breaths as I tried to wipe the image of her broken body being taken from my arms and laid out on a gurney. An oxygen mask on her face. Penlight shone into her eyes and IV placed, vitals called out as they wheeled her away from me. More shuddering breaths as I tried to wipe the image of what I could’ve found in that horrible room if I’d arrived just a little bit later.
Get yourself under control, Connor. You’re no use to her like this. She was strong for you. She survived. Now you have to be strong for her. You have to BE THERE for her.
When I exited the bathroom, Sloane was alone in the waiting room. I sat heavily next to her, and lowered my head into my hands. It was a long time before either of us spoke.
“I’m not going to make excuses for Callum” she said quietly. “He was out of line. We both know it. He gets vicious when he’s scared, and when he heard you had taken off after Teagan and Moretti alone…”
"Like he actually cared about what happened to me." I scoffed. "Or Cass, for that matter. All he cares about is his precious Clan. He has made that painfully clear to me since the day I got Aiden killed."
Sloane grabbed my chin and turned my face towards her. "That was not your fault. Neither was Johnny, or your parents, or Cassidy. You are more than just the worst moments of your life, your perceived failures. You are more than that to us. To Cassidy."
I clenched my jaw but said nothing.
"You don't see Callum as I do. This war has gotten under his skin, and he doesn't want to lose anyone else. Even you."
“I wasn’t alone. I had Tommy and Alfie.”
“I know. What’s done is done, and Callum needs to get over that. He may be the head of this family, but Cassidy is your wife, and this was your call, as much as it scared us both. He blames himself for this, you know.”
