“Is it clear outside?” he asks me.
I nod. “It is.”
His eyes narrow even as he sits up with a groan, following my instructions. “How do you know?”
“I can feel them. They reek of menace and a deep-seated desire to kill you. There’s only one left alive in the house,” I say quickly, liftingthe sleeve of his shirt to get a better look at his wound. “It didn’t graze any arteries. I'm gonna feel around it to see if it tore muscle,” I tell him. “It’ll hurt.”
He nods, lips twisting with anticipation. I run my fingers along the edges of the gaping wound, then the sides and back of his arm, closing my eyes so I can focus purely on the feeling of it. “No muscle tears,” I tell him, opening my eyes. “It didn't go too deep. It’s just a flesh wound—"
“It’s time for you to explain how thefuckyou know how to shoot a gun,” Connor says from the doorway, his voice little more than a growl. I wince as I hear andfeelthe anger radiating from him.He wants to kill me.I’m sure of it. The purpose of tonight was tonotbe viewed as a loose end or threat, and now, I’ve turned into a greater threat than I was before.
“Do you want me to stitch up Dorian first?”
Heavy footsteps carry Connor over to me. I brace myself, hissing as he fists a hand in my hair and cranes my neck to stare up at him. What I see makes me wince. He’s covered in blood—not his own, I don’t think, but it’s soaking through his shirt and pants, and there are splatters of it across his face and neck. “Right now, I want to kill you, Mira,” he growls lowly. “Fucking. Talk.”
“Ease up, lad,” Seamus says mildly from the doorway, also having returned.
“You saw her. She can shoot. She’s been trained. The background check on her hasn’t come back yet. Last night, she was a loose end; tonight, she’s a threat.”
I whimper when Connor pulls me up by my hair, yanks the gun from my waistband, and drops me in a dining chair. He braces his hands on the back of it, leaning over me. “I find it very fuckingsuspicious that you made a distracting dinner just before nine guys decided to try to break in. Did the Serpents send you?”
Unable to control my fear any longer, I let out a shaky, “No.”
I glance at Seamus, who leans against the wall with thinned lips. He won’t help me. Then, at Dorian, who’s also watching this exchange without intervening. I give him a desperateplease helplook. His eyes shadow for a moment, as if he’s contemplating it. He glances between me and Connor; hope sears through my veins. Maybe he’ll tell his psycho roommate to back the hell off. Maybe he’ll defend my innocence.Maybe he’s not all bad…
Dorian gives his head a slight shake. A shard of pain pierces my chest. Last night, he seemed intent on keeping me alive—he’s come onto me more times than I can count in the twenty-four hours I’ve known him. Now, he’s leaving me to the resident psychopath? I saved his fuckinglife!
Connor grabs my chin roughly and redirects my line of sight to him. “Don’t look at them. They won’t help you. Look at me.Did the Serpents send you?”
“No,” I repeat again, more firmly. “If Serpents refers to the guys who just attacked, then you’ll notice I killed several of them. Why would I kill someone who sent me?”
“She did,” Dorian confirms, his words little more than a groan. He’s in pain—previously, I was going to help him, but now I’mseethingmad at him. I know I shouldn’t be, but he’s not helping me or protecting me from Connor, which means he gives a total of zero fucks about me, so I need to givenegativefucks for him. He can go to hell; all of these crazy fuckers can go to hell.
“That doesn’t mean someone else didn’t send you,” Connor growls lowly, still not looking away from me. “Who? The Southies? Someone who has shit against the Bratva?”
“No one sent me!” I snap.
“Then where thefuckdid you learn how to shoot a gun?” Connor demands.
As a general rule, I do not talk about my past. It’s a graveyard filled with bones, ghosts, and demons. Any time I’ve tried to talk about it, I ended up unleashing those ghosts and demons on myself. It rattles me so much I always spend the next days in a state of hyper-anxiety. I certainly do not want to telltheseassholes anything, but I can see just how much Connor wants to kill me. I canfeelit, too; it causes a perpetual tremble in my limbs.
“Do not withhold anything,” Connor snaps. “Either explain to mein detailhow you came by such an interesting skillset, or stay silent, and you’ll never talk again. Clear?”
My throat clicks as I swallow, forcing myself to nod. I don’t have an option but toliterallyunearth old wounds to expose myself right now, otherwise I risk getting killed. I’ve faced death enough times that the prospect isn’t as daunting as it should be, but I donotwant to die by Connor’s hands. I’m reasonably certain that his method of killing would put me through the sort of agony that I’m not eager to endure. He’s the type to send a message; if he thinks I’m a mole, he’ll probably chop me into pieces while keeping me alive. I have a higher pain tolerance than most, but I’m notimmuneto pain.
“Lift my shirt. Left side. Check my ribs,” I tell him.
“Is this a trick?” he demands.
I shake my head. “Nope. It’s show-and-tell, since you’re eager to see me dead. Check.” I’d do it myself, but I think any movement from me would drastically increase my odds of getting killed.
Connor doesn’t lift my shirt; he tears it straight down the middle, and humiliation at my exposed braandwhat he’s about to see burns in my chest. My torso is a canvas of scars, most so fadedthat they’re barely visible. Cigarette burns, old cuts from flying beer bottles… the left side of my ribs are the worst. That’s where there are two bullet wounds. Two injuries that very nearly killed me, one of which was put there by the man who was supposed to protect me.
Connor roughly twists me to the side, and his hands freeze on my waist as his eyebrows draw down.
Seamus sucks in a sharp breath; Dorian goes still as a statue; I clench my jaw, hating every moment of this.
“Explain,” Connor growls.
