Page 115 of Claim

“Get back what’s mine.” I held his gaze, stern and unflinching, as if he was just another fucker on the street testing me. And I watched his chest rise. Fall. Rise again.

Then he nodded and reached for the curtain.

I lurched forward instinctively, cuffs snapping me back into the chair. “Can I see him?”

He stopped.

Looked down. Looked up. Looked at me. Then as firm and final as any man who held all the cards would be, he said, “No.”

I blew out a hard breath through my nose, nostrils flaring. Then he stepped away, sliding the curtain shut between us, leaving me to realise that no matter what I did, who I became, that Cormac was right.

Tristan would never be mine.

He’d never be allowed to be.

Chapter twenty

Tristan

I woke to white.

Not the distant, clinical kind associated with corridors and textbooks, but closer, harsher, pressing in from every angle. The ceiling felt too near. The lights too bright. Pain reached me before thought did. An all-encompassing weight pinning me to the bed and making breathing feel like a conscious act rather than instinctive.

I tried to inhale properly and failed.

The pain in my side flared immediately, sharp and deep, radiating outward in a way that told me something fundamental had gone wrong. It wasn’t surface pain. It felt internal.

I whimpered.

“Tristan! Oh, darling, don’t move. Please don’t try to move.”

My mother’s voice cut through the haze, tight with relief and tipping into panic as she she closed her hand around mine. I tried to turn my head towards her but the movement sent a hot, blinding jolt through my ribs and shoulder; the pain stacking so quickly it made my vision pulse at the edges.

Everything hurt.

My leg throbbed dully beneath the blankets and I couldn’t feel my foot properly. Or perhaps I could feel it too much. Every sensation was distorted, amplified.

“You’re safe.” Mother smoothed back my hair from my brow. “You’re in hospital. You’re awake now.”

I swallowed. My throat felt scraped raw, as if I’d been shouting. Or screaming.

“Wh…” My voice came out hoarse. Useless.

She leant over me, getting into my sight. “You were shot.” She blinked mascara-smudged eyes. I’d never seen my mother so…unpolished. And she spoke carefully, as though the words themselves might bruise me further. “In your side. The bullet passed through, thank God. There was internal bleeding, but they got to it in time.”

Shot.

It started coming back. Everything that had happened.

“And your leg.” She tapped her hand on the end of the bed. “You were struck with… something. A metal pole, they think. The bone broke cleanly. They’ve stabilised it.”

I followed her gaze, heart sinking as I registered the weight and rigidity beneath the sheets. My leg was immobilised, wrapped and braced, elevated in a way that made it feel separate from the rest of me. As if it wasn’t quite mine.

“And you have several rib fractures. From the assault.”

Assault.

Beating.