“Where’s my love?” Jamie asked, and I reached over and flicked his ear. He cursed and walked away, rubbing at the side of his head.
Finn had been laid out on a small white couch that he was oozing blood all over while Corbin paced with his phone to his ear. He didn’t look away from the lad.
“He’s a right feckin’ mess,” Corbin said to someone on the other end. Well, maybe the car in the driveway was just an extra and didn’t belong to a doc.Hell.
“Shite, that’s not good,” I said, nodding toward Finn.
“No, it isn’t.” Aspen didn’t drop his arm from around me, and I leaned heavily against him as exhaustion slammed me.
Corbin growled and ripped the phone away from his ear to stare at it. “What took ya so long?” he asked, transferring his glare to Jamie.
“Well, excuse me, but I had to handle some fellas. Not a huge deal, just about fifteen or so, right, Cillian? Not everyoneran the feck away!”
Corbin shrugged. “I told ya to. Why didn’t ya listen?”
“Who’s in charge here?” Jamie asked, but he didn’t sound too indignant about it.
Corbin sighed. “We gotta do something with this now! That’s your fault.” He jabbed his finger toward Finn. “The doc that usually comes is jammed up at the hospital where he works.”
I shook my head. “Joaquin must’ve been tracking our movements to hit us so quickly after we got back into town. He’s not playing.”
“And the cops are at the mansion right now, probably only looking to get their bribe money for shutting up about a gunfight, but they’re still in the way there,” Aspen said. “We got word right before you got here.” He stared at me, and I had the feeling he wanted to say something about the fact that I hadn’t followed directly after him, the same way Corbin had, but he would save it for later when we were alone.
“Well, no one is gonna be polite about the usual boundaries with someone in the Reyes family dead. The gloves are off. Shite,” Jamie muttered, glaring at Finn, as if it was his fault someone had rammed the van.
A thrill raced through me. “It’s old school games. Let’s get Finn dumped at a hospital, then catch a few hours of shut eye. Might be all we get for a couple days. Then we’ll go on the hunt for Joaquin.” Aspen held me closer, and I hissed out a breath as arousal stabbed my gut. This was going to be so fecking good. Who knew how many people would die?
“Sloan won’t like us dropping men off at the ER,” Corbin grumbled.
“He ain’t here, is he? What’re we supposed to do? Let him bleed out?”
Jamie sighed and walked over to the couch. He bit his bottom lip and stared at the lad. “We leave him for the doc. If the doc says he has to go to the hospital, he goes.”
We all stared down at Finn.
“The longer he stays that way, the less likely it is that they can do anything about that shredded skin,” Aspen said, shaking his head. “Assuming he doesn’t go into shock or have brain swelling, he’s still on shaky ground. He’s lucky he didn’t die on impact.”
We all looked at each other.
Corbin cursed. “Hell, I’ll drive him to the closest hospital. I’ll get him in there without anyone remembering my name or seeing my face. That’s what I’m good at.”
This was war. We hadn’t seen anything as dirty as this fight would get in a long while. The bloodied body of a young man, who’d started out the night in high spirits, wasn’t an unusual sight when these types of brawls began between the bosses. I caught Aspen’s gaze and grinned. It probably meant there was something wrong with me, but I loved it.
“Help me move him. I can’t have blood on me,” Corbin snapped.
“Don’t ye worry, boyo,” I said as Finn roused a bit when we tossed him in the back seat of the car in the driveway. “We’ll give Joaquin some hell for ye.”
Finn nodded, but I couldn’t tell if he smiled or not. He was too cut up. Yes, this was war.
17
ASPEN
“Where’re ye taking me?”Cillian grumbled, glaring out the passenger-side window. We hadn’t bothered napping, and we were both feeling the long night full of ups and downs.
Rosita had overseen the delivery of a couple of cars to us at the safe house, as well as more weapons and our clothing. We’d decided it was smarter to stay there than go back to the mansion—for now. Sloan had made sure all his homes were bulletproof and armed for an attack, but we preferred to have the Reyes boys guessing where we were. This time, we wanted the upper hand.
“To get an army,” I replied and steered the black SUV into one of the narrow back streets. The area was clean and had a murky glow, bright enough to see but not the kind of light to showtoomuch.
