Page 9 of Her Irish Savage

“Hush,” Moran says, and I realize I’m crying again.

I don’t cry. But I’ve shed more tears tonight than I have in the past eight years. That’s only because my body hurts so much.

I haven’t cried for Da, and I won’t, because he was King of the Old Colony Crew. Now I’ll be the Queen. That’s the way I’ll mourn him. That’s the way I’ll honor his life.

Moran’s thumb is gentle as he wipes tears from my cheeks. He’s not at all like a warrior who spends day and night enforcing his mob boss’s commands. His fingers are soft as he smooths on the arnica. He’s still sayinghush, so I know I’m still leaking tears, and he comes back with the soothing motion again and again.

I want to fight. I want to tell him I’m not a helpless child. He needs to know I’m Fiona Fucking Ingram.

Instead, I fall asleep.

The second time I wake, I’m wedged into the corner of the sofa. Someone has piled cushions beside me so I stay upright. That same someone must have replaced my cold packs, because they’re icy enough to make me shiver.

And someone has changed my clothes.

I’m free of my boned corset and my tight leather skirt. Instead, I’m swimming in a black hooded sweatshirt, with matching fleece pants rolled up to bare my ankles. My feet are lost in thick terry socks.

It’s an ocean of softness, a universe of warmth. I’m floating on the memory of a stuffie called Bunbun—a once-pink rabbit with long floppy ears, bought by my mother the day she found out she was pregnant.

But my mother died giving birth to me. She’s been dead two dozen years. And I threw out Bunbun when I was sixteen. I didn’t need him anymore. Didn’t want him after…

Forget about fucking Bunbun.

If someone dressed me in these warm clothes, then someone—Moran, I know it’s Moran—hasundressedme. He knows I wasn’t wearing panties. He knows what Madden did before he beat me.

Groaning, I force myself to sit up straighter. I still feel pain—my face, my ribs, my tongue, where I must have bitten it. But everything is quiet now. Subdued. Like my injuries have been packed in cotton and layered in a shipping crate, and stored far, far away.

Moran was right. I needed the oxy.

I lower the ice pack from my face to my lap. I force my eyes—both of them—to open. My head feels like it’s swaying in a breeze, like I’m one of those inflatable waving-arm tube men outside some store’s grand opening.

“Go back to sleep,” Moran says. He’s sitting in the shadows across the room, knees spread wide, wrists anchored on the arms of a massive leather chair.

“I can’t?—”

“You can,” he says.

“But you?—”

“You’re safe,” he says.

“But I?—”

“Sleep.” It’s an order, one I can’t resist.

I do.

4

PATRICK

She’s a pain in the arse, but I don’t want her hurting any more than necessary. That’s why I sit up, changing her ice packs every hour. I wrap the fresh ones in kitchen towels so she doesn’t end up with frostbite, on top of everything Madden did. I make sure her breathing doesn’t get too shallow.

I don’t regret dosing her. Injuries like hers are the reason I keep a stash of oxy on hand. A slip of a girl like her, though… I probably should have started with one pill, instead of two.

But I wanted her out cold before I cleaned her up. Before I changed her clothes.

For the twentieth time, I tell myself not to think about the feckin’ leather scraps I shoved into the bin beneath my kitchen sink. Even if she could get the blood out, she won’t wear them again. She won’t want the memories.

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