“Ciarán’s following at a distance. Boss, she’s heading to the hospital.”
The hospital.
My mind flashes to the phone and the texts she doesn’t explain.
And now she’s at the hospital. Something’s…wrong.
No. I’m not doing this. I’m not sitting here wondering, imagining, driving myself mad while she’s out there doing—what?
“Boss,” Lorcan says. “What do you want us to do?”
I check the time again.
Fuck them. Erin’s my wife. She’s out there, visiting a hospital, and every instinct I have is screaming that something’s wrong.
“Send me the location,” I say.
Even as my heart pounds, I can’t miss the fuckin’ tribute. My sister’s face flashes in my mind—the reason I pay tribute in the first place and the leverage they hold.
I grit my teeth. I have time. I can get there, see what she’s doing, and still make the payment.
I hang up the phone, and a second later, my phone pings with a notification. It’s a location pin. Erin’s location.
I park a good distance away, enough that I can see her shadowy formand see that nobody’s out here to hurt her. But who is she going to see? Where is she going?
I watch her walk with purpose. I shut the door quietly and follow her.
Is she meeting an old high school friend? The words that have been whispered behind my back come to roost.Your wife’s been around.
No.
That was a fucking lie they knew would get under my skin.
But she’s texting someone, I know that for a fact.
She walks up a winding staircase. I follow. But she doesn’t take the left into the main hospital entrance. No, she heads somewhere else.
Is she sick? Is she hiding something from me?
I take the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding in my chest. The fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor burn my eyes, but I don’t slow down. I saw which way she went.
I round the corner and spot her through a window in a door. She’s standing beside a hospital bed, her hand covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking.
That… doesn’t look like…
What thehell?
I shove the door open, ready to?—
And stop dead.
The person in the bed is a young woman. A girl, really. Maybe nineteen, twenty at most. And she looks vaguely familiar.
Is that her… sister?
Jesus Christ.
She’s pale as death, hooked up to more machines than I can count—an IV drip and beeping monitors. Her hair is thin, patchy, like it’s been falling out. She’s so small under those blankets that she barely makes a dent in the mattress. She’s asleep, or…
