KATIE
The car rolls to a stop just before the crime scene tape outside of the Orion. Detective Moore spots us approaching, his casual expression morphing into a look of dread when he sees Aiden leaping out of the car.
Despite three men trying to stop him, Aiden forcefully shoves past them and rushes for the building. His frantic movement halts abruptly when Robbie is carried out on a stretcher, unconscious and covered in blood. “Robbie!”
“Sir, you can’t—”
“Robbie!” Aiden screams, barrelling through the shield of gardaí to get to his brother.
Stepping out of the car, I notice Joe and Éabha swiftly exiting their own vehicle, concern etched on their faces as they assess the scene before them.
“What the hell happened?” Joe demands, pulling Éabha to his side, her hands covering her mouth as she watches Robbie being loaded into the ambulance.
“CCTV footage shows a hooded figure attacking Robbie frombehind,” Moore explains. “The kid put up some fight before he went down.”
“That’s my brother!” Aiden roars at a paramedic who attempts to stop him from jumping the ambulance.
Moore gives the man a subtle nod of approval, prompting the paramedic to step aside, granting Aiden access to his brother’s side.
“Will Robbie be ok?” I manage to ask, not quite able to tear my gaze from my fiancé. He is usually so calm and collected, but now his features are twisted with fear and unbridled rage.
Moore lets out a heavy sigh. “I shouldn’t be disclosing any information about this.” His gaze flickers to me once more, a hint of pity evident in his eyes. I detest that look. He thinks I’m fragile; that much is evident in the way he’s trying to handle me with kid gloves. “He’s stable for now,” Moore finally responds, his voice softer than before. “But it’s too early to tell.”
“I’m going!” Aiden argues in the back of the ambulance, freezes for a split second, and then jumps back out. “Bug,” he mutters, jogging over to me.
“It’s ok, go.” Kissing him on the cheek, I reassure him that I’ll be fine without him.
“You’ll be safer without me here.” He starts to turn but freezes again, muttering under his breath. “But what if that’s what he wants? If I leave you here, you’re vulnerable. But if you come with me and he tries to…”
“Aiden?”
He’s too busy thinking out loud to hear me. His eyes flash to the building in front of us, then he turns to Moore. “You’ll be here all night, right? It’s a crime scene, there will be gardaí here all night.” Moore nods, and Joe speaks up, understandingAiden’s concern. “I’ll walk her in and make sure there are no nasty surprises upstairs.”
Aiden appears to be torn between the desire to stay and the need to leave, eventually, he nods in agreement, squeezes my hand tightly and says, “Ring me if anything feels off. Lock that door as soon as Joe leaves. Don’t answer it for anyone; I don’t care if it’s the gardaí or not. Do not open that door until I get back.”
“Go,” I nudge him gently, giving him a reassuring smile.
Aiden gives me one last worried look before reluctantly letting go of my hand and sprinting for the ambulance.
Joe tells Éabha to stay with Moore and leads me inside just as the ambulance pulls off. The almost vacant nightclub is eerie; a handful of gardaí are busy taking statements from Keith and the other bouncers on duty. Keith spots me coming, offering up a tight smile and head tilt in acknowledgement as Joe leads me up the stairs of the Orion and into Aiden’s office.
“You can go back down to Éabha; I’ll be fine.”
He doesn’t listen. Ushering me inside, he gently closes the door behind us and begins searching every corner of the room. “Usually, I would say AJ is just being paranoid,” he tosses over his shoulder, pulling open the door to the bathroom and searching anywhere someone could potentially hide. “But we both saw what Walsh is capable of; I wouldn’t put it past him to try and pull a sneak attack.” He closes the bathroom door and charges for the adjoining rooms, checking behind the doors, in the wardrobes, and even under the bed AJ uses when he’s spent all night pouring over paperwork. “Mind you,” he says with a grunt, pushing himself off the floor and scanning the room one last time. “If Walsh wanted to die so badly, he would have been better to do it himself.”
I don’t know what to say to that. It’s obvious that Joe knows who he’s dealing with where Aiden is concerned, but I’m not about to agree with his deduction. Aiden is going to kill David Walsh; it was already on his to-do list, but since Walsh targeted Robbie, any chances he had of a quick death just flew out the window. Aiden was livid before, when it was just me, and I wasn’t even hurt. His baby brother just got carried away on a stretcher—the streets of Dublin will run red with blood until Aiden finally sinks his blade into Walsh’s chest.
“Thanks for…” I make a point of looking around the otherwise vacant room.
“No problem. Take care of yourself, Katie,” Joe spins for the door. “Don’t forget to lock it behind me.” He calls, pulling the door shut behind him.
I make a point of doing just that. Turning the lock until I hear a click and sealing myself inside, I breathe a sigh of relief.
This part of Aiden’s office holds the only window in the building, peering out into the concrete horizon which is Dublin City Centre. I fight with my heels, falling over the back of the couch after losing balance before I wiggle the straps free.
Risking a peek outside, I look down at the crime scene tape and flashing lights from the surrounding Garda cars. Taking a deep breath in, I cross my arms and look at the ceiling, letting it out. “Please let Robbie be ok.”
The computer on Aiden’s desk hums softly, the only sound breaking the heavy silence in the room. Maybe the cameras caught something—anything that can tell us who did this to Robbie. Dropping into the desk chair, I wiggle the mouse to wake up the computer screen, hoping for some answers to this nightmare. Aiden will want to know. He’ll be checkingthe cameras as soon as he gets back to see who he needs to hunt down and kill. I pull up the security footage, skipping to the time of the phone call from Keith, ballparking Robbie’s attack around the fifteen-minute mark of that phone call, I guess right. The footage shows a hooded figure approaching Robbie from behind; there is a flash of a knife just as Robbie turns around.
