“I can’t, Pigeon. I’m not allowed to have screen time, remember?” I pout back at her.
“I know, so I brought an eye mask in here that you can wear, and I’ve even turned the volume real low. I’m just tired of being alone while Kieran’s working.”
Kieran’s barely working, and he’s only doing so today because we got a lead on whoever is behind this bloodshed in our streets that hasn’t slowed down. We got a hold of two of them a few days ago, and Roe said one’s speaking Italian and the other fucking Spanish. Either they’re all speaking other languages to be assholes, or they’re all street kids who formed into their own little group. The latter, most likely.
“Yeah, okay.”I take the mask and place it over my eyes after laying on the couch beside her.
I seriously feel like a giant toddler with everyone coddling me, but at least when Nix does it, it feels like I’m doing her a favor at the same time. I don’t want her to be lonely, and what if she needs something while she’s in here alone? Okay, that last part is ridiculous. Ryan’s standing just outside of the door if she needs anything. She’s on medicine, and they did some procedure to close something to stop her from delivering so early. She’s only thirty weeks, and I know from Clara that normally you go to forty weeks. So she still has two and a half months to keep my new cuddle buddy inside.
We lay in silence with only the low sound of some rom-com playing in the background. It doesn’t take long for me to doze off. I’m praying when I wake up this headache is finally gone, and my lips can finally taste his again. Damn, I miss him, and he’s only been gone an hour. We need to talk, but first this nap.
20
Chapter Twenty
Kieran
My blade slides through the layer of hypodermis like a hot knife through butter. Nothing pulls me into that trance-like state as well as this. It’s tedious work, skinning someone alive. It takes but a twitch of a finger to nick the wrong vein and it’s game over. I’ve had many game overs before I got this down to a science. My guy’s up on my favorite butcher’s hook. He’s passed out recently, so he isn’t talking. That does nothing aside from allowing my mind to wander to places I’d prefer it didn’t go.
My wife and I got pregnant earlier this year and I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited in my life. That includes our wedding day or when I completed this procedure correctly for the first time. However, they are up in the top three best moments.
We quickly realized that the pregnancy we watched my oldest brother and his wife go through wouldn’t be our experience. Nix has thrown up constantly since the day she got that first positive. She’s constantly hooked up to IVs to keep her hydrated or having tests run on her. We thought pregnancy was going to be the happiest and most exciting time. That’s not what we were given, though. No, we were given a strenuous pregnancy with a baby who’s trying to escape months too early.
I thought I knew what fear was before Nix. Hell, I thought I learned what real fear was the day she confided in me about her past and again when I watched her put herself between me and a gun held by the men from her past. All of that pales to the real possibility that one day soon I could be a widower and the father of a child who never took his first breath.
They say that falling in love and becoming a dad will put petrifying fear into you. Damn, if they aren’t right. Right now I’m so fucking scared I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the day.
The worries that plague me have no business bleeding into my home life, though. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Kieran, that doesn’t make any damn sense.’ You’re right, it doesn’t when I just say it like that. The thing is, I can’t freak the hell out over this. Why? Because as scared as I am, my wife is ten times more petrified. She may lose our baby and her life.
I know she puts all of this on herself, but that’s so far from the truth. This isn’t her fault. It isn’t anyone’s. It’s just the luck of the draw. cervical insufficiency, hyperemesis gravidarum, and high blood pressure. All issues that aren’t uncommon in the world of pregnant women. Add them all together, though, and apparently it’s the trifecta for Kieran’s life falling apart.
I’m not a good man. No one who knows me would say,‘Oh, Kieran Byrne? He’s the best guy we’ve ever met,’if you couldn’t tell from my current task at hand. But dammit, I’ll turn it all in for them to just be okay. I’d walk away from all of this if it meant I could guarantee a healthy wife and baby.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath to stave off the tears burning the backs of my eyes. This fucking sucks. My brothers are as supportive as they can be. Really, they’re amazing. They just don’t understand, and if I had it my way, they never would. I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy.
Whimpers from my guest snap me out of the pity train I was on. No time for feeling the shit I’ve pushed down for months when work’s right in front of me. Reluctantly, I pull my knife away, leaving a three inch flap of skin just dangling down his forearm.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just stop.” He whispers so softly that I have to strain to hear him.
“You guys always tap out at the best part.” I don’t stop my eyes from rolling in annoyance. “What’s your name?”
“S–Samuel.” He responds in a thick accent that I can’t quite place.
“Where are you from, Sammy-boy?” I take the tip of my favorite knife and run it down his chest just hard enough for blood to bubble to the surface, but not hard enough to do any real damage.
“Louisiana.” He coughs out.
“Good. Now round two, and this is the most important question of the night. Who the fuck sent you?” I narrow my eyes as I watch him gasp for the smallest breath before having to start all over again. Dude is on death’s door, for sure.
He whispers something, but I can’t make it out. I inch closer to hear him, but not close enough that he can touch me. Not that he could, but my brother got stabbed recently for getting too close and someone not being as secure as we thought. So, I’m not taking any chances today.
“I said– I said– fuck you, your family deserves everything they get. Especially that whore wif–” My blade strikes out and slices clean across his throat before he can blink. He’s bleeding out everywhere, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t get the last word in these situations.
I lean close to his ear and whisper right as the light dims in his eyes, “No one speaks of my wife and lives to tell about it.Beidh tú sruthán i ifreann.”
Once I’m positive that the fucking scum is dead, I shoot off a text to the cleanup crew and head to the office to shower before heading to Rowan’s house. I’ve been away from my wife too long, and I’m itching to get her back in my arms. Right where she and my baby belong. I’ll make sure they’re okay if it’s the last thing I do. And make no mistake, if my wife and son don’t survive this shit, neither do I. I’ll meet them in the afterlife before they even have the chance to miss me. Where they are is where I’ll always be.
21
