The doctor bustled into the room, shutting the door quietly. He looked around, bushy orange brows drawing together over his pale forehead.
“Hello, Liam. Thank you for coming,” he said in his clipped, no-nonsense voice that he used in medical situations.
Shite….It was bad.
“I have your test results, boss.” Doc nodded to Da. “Breeda, sit down.”
My mother went to the exam table and leaned against it. “Go ahead, Sean. Do you want to talk about Padraig first or—” Ma cleared her throat but didn’t look at me.
I bit my tongue. In the presence of my elders, I knew better than to make demands. It seemed there was more than one source of fishiness here.
“Padraig first,” Doc clipped out.
“Shoot it straight, Sean O’Ryan, or I’ll shoot you.” Da drew himself up straight.
“It’s pleomorphic liposarcoma.” Those fancy words didn’t sound good. “A fast and aggressive soft tissue tumor. We rushed the biopsy, and it’s spread to your lymph nodes. We won’t know until we do the MRI if it has attacked the organs yet, so I can’t recommend treatment. In fact, that’s where my extent of the medical realm leaves you. You’ll have to go to specialties.”
“No, we want you,” Ma insisted.
Da took her hand, patted it, and then murmured softly in the voice he only used for her. “He’s family medicine, Breeda.”
And trauma medicine.
But this wasn’t either of those.
I was still trying to wrap my thick, fuzzy brain around what he’d said. Da didn’t look sick. His color was good. Skin sun kissed and freckled. Foxy red hair dusted with silver threads. Eyes sharp and clear like the Malin Sea.
He wasn’t sick.
Not him, the boss of our organization.
Suddenly, the world began to tilt. I prided myself on holding my liquor with the best of them. And while a hangover was the typical price of a heavy night’s drink, it didn’t make me sick.
But the urge to puke seized me now.
“Liam?” Cara was there, standing in front of me. I hadn’t seen her move. “You’re looking green around the gills, boy.”
“I’m fine,” I ground out.
“Better sit,” she suggested.
I flexed my jaw.
Meanwhile, the others were talking a mile a minute. I couldn’t follow their conversation. It was about which Cancer Center was the best choice. Or so I thought. The ringing in my ears wouldn’t quit.
Padraig McDonagh wasn’t sick. He was supposed to live forever. Be the thorn in my side, the reason I couldn’t do things my way with the organization.
Mary, Jaysus, and Joseph…if something happens.
I tapped down on that thought. I was the sword, the dark knight. I didn’t have designs to rule. Not till Da was ninety and ready to finally retire. By then, I would have found a bullet.
“Well, we don’t want to go there if the cartel runs that system. We’ll have to find a neutral hospital group,” Da grumbled.
“We’ll find one,” Doc assured him. “I’ll make some calls. Maybe St. Catharine’s? I know they are run by the Italians….”
Everyone looked at me.
“Wrong family,” I muttered. “That’s Grimaldi turf.”
