“Nooo… don’t get up.” She blinks drowsily, still half asleep, curls a mess and eyes squinting without her glasses (which broke last night). She slowly pushes herself up and yawns. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t know yet.”
I hit the call back button and rise from the bed, phone pressed to my ear.
It occurs to me only half a second later as the cool air from the AC hits my crotch that I’m naked. I forgot after we’d gotten done showering last night I’d skipped the sweatpants I’ve been wearing to bed to make Jhene comfortable.
That barrier between us had been broken, and Jhene made it clear she didn’t mind.
The phone only rings once before Ronan picks up.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he growls in place of hello. “We’ve been trying to reach you for an hour!”
“Sleeping. It’s five a.m. But I’m guessing shit’s hit the fan?”
“There was a reason the Bratva fled last night,” Ronan says. “Kidnapping the stray? It was a distraction.”
“What do you mean? What the hell happened?”
“My father—he’s dead.”
I stop mid-pace, narrowing my eyes as I stare ahead of me. But the surroundings of the apartment don’t register. I’m too honed in on what Ronan’s said, the events of last night replaying in my head.
“They killed himandthe security I had on his room.”
“Hospital staff?—”
“Is it any question?” he interrupts. “Must’ve paid them off to look the other way. These fuckers waited two hours before even phoning me and letting me know he wasfound dead in his room! It wasn’t the cancer that got him—somebody accessed his room first!”
“Fuck,” I swear under my breath. I start toward the closet. “I’m on my way.”
I snatch the first pair of jeans off the hanger and wrench them on, turning to the dresser next for a T-shirt.
“Killian, what’s going on?” Jhene asks from the bed. “Talk to me.”
“It’s complicated. Don’t know what the fuck’s going on yet. But Seamus Callahan’s dead.”
She gasps, brows knitting close. Before she can ask the question, I answer it.
“Taken out,” I say. “Not the cancer. I’ve gotta go. I’m gonna have Brady come by to watch over the place. Don’t go anywhere, alright?”
She nods fervently, eyes large and wide awake. I can’t resist striding over and dropping a kiss to her brow.
Reassurance last night still meant something; that I don’t regret a second of it, even with these latest developments.
“Your glasses,” I say. “We’ll have to find time to go out and get you a new pair.”
Then I grab my keys and wallet off the nightstand and head out the door.
I arrive to the yellow police tape and uniformed offices at the hospital. The tape stretches across the doorframe leading into Seamus’s room, cordoning off the space as an official crime scene.
Ronan and Cian are in the corridor outside looking livid. More furious than I’ve seen either in a very long time.
“When’d these asshats show up?” I demand loudly as Istride toward them. I’m gesturing to the uniformed officers in the middle of their investigation—or at leastpretendinglike it.
I keep going toward the hospital room ’til some prick with a badge pinned to his chest stops me.
“Sir, you’re not allowed in there,” he says.
