One day, I’ll get close enough to ruin him, and he won’t even see it coming.
Chapter Four
RONAN
The hospital smellslike antiseptic and blood.
I sit rigid in the corner of the waiting room, the plastic chair cold and uncomfortable beneath me. My palms are no longer sticky since the blood has dried, but I don’t know if I should take that as a bad sign. It means too much time is passing, and I’m yet to hear from the surgeon whether my father is alive or dead. That has to be good, right?
Good or bad, though, what happened means war.
While I haven’t moved in over an hour, maybe two, Kieran won’t stop pacing.
His heavy footsteps on the linoleum floor are like a ticking time bomb because the moment he stops, he’s going to have tofeel, and that’s not Kieran’s style. Especially, when it comes to our father.
He keeps muttering a mix of curse words and prayers under his breath as we continue to wait for an update from the doctors.
I wanted to take it as a good sign that our father was still breathing when they loaded him into the ambulance, but the more time passes, the more doubt sets in.
It’s not impossible to survive a gunshot wound to the head, but the quality of life that follows is likely not something my father would want.
He’s never been one for sitting around, and if he had to spend the rest of his life in bed, being waited on hand and foot, I know he would have wished for that bullet to have killed him.
Kieran huffs as he continues to pace. “This is taking too long.”
He has always been the one who burns the hottest out of all of us. He might not have inherited our mother’s flaming Irish hair, but he inherited her temper, and right now, as he worries about a man who always treats him as less than, he looks ready to set the world on fire. I know my brother. He may hate how my father treats him and Brennan, but he still craves his attention, his approval, and his affection, even if he hides that craving so deep that even he forgets it sometimes.
Brennan, on the other hand, sits next to me, completely still except for the way his right leg bounces up and down. His face, while pale, is neutral and composed. But the small cracks in his composure are in the way his eyes keep darting to the clock on the wall and the way he balls his hands into such tight fists that the skin on his knuckles turns white.
But that’s Brennan. He’s cool under pressure and the most logical out of all of us, but grief doesn’t give two fucks about logic.
As I’m unraveling, the weight of what’s waiting for me almost crushing me to the ground, I have to remind myself that Kieran and Brennan are my responsibility now. My brothers barely seem to be holding it together, so it’s up to me to keep this family afloat.
Lorcan sits a few feet away from us, arms crossed over his chest.
I can’t even begin to imagine how he’s feeling. I’ve seenmy brothers wounded on many occasions, but nothing even remotely close to a gunshot wound to the head.
Much like Brennan, he’s looking composed, but the slight sag of his shoulders and the deep crease between his eyebrows show me that what happened weighs heavily on him too.
Despite their differences, Lorcan has become our father’s right hand, his most trusted and respected ally out of all of us.
I’ve seen Lorcan make men cry and bleed without breaking a sweat, but tonight he looks like all of his past choices have caught up with him.
The door behind me creaks open, and I jolt upright before I can stop myself, my heart pounding as a doctor dressed in a surgical gown walks toward me.
He has a mask pulled down around his neck, and he’s wearing a grave expression as he locks eyes with me. “Mr. Sullivan?”
Nodding once, I tuck my blood-stained hands into my pockets. I don’t need a medical degree to know it’s bad news.
“We did everything we could, but the damage to your father’s brain was extensive, and he lost a significant amount of blood.”
The doctor pauses, and even though I know what that means, it’s not enough for my brain to register the reality of what’s happened.
“I need you to spell it out for me, Doc,” I grit out.
The doctor looks a little taken aback by my tone, but he dips his chin. “Your father didn’t make it. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Silence.
