Page 51 of The Celtic Resolution
“Where…” What happened? The last thing I remember, I was with Saoirse. “What happened?”
“Oh, God,” Mary sobs. “I can’t believe you’re awake. I thought they finally got you. Aftereverything, why won’t they leave us alone?”
My vision clears with each blink and I grip Mary’s hand back as tightly as I can. “What?”
“Thatbitch, Saoirse,” Mary spits out through her soft sobs. “She tried to kill you!”
There’s no way that’s true, is it? My brow tightens as I search back, trying to recall exactly what happened the last time I was awake, but it’s cloudy. “Mary, I don’t think?—”
“Don’t you try to defend her!” Mary snaps, clutching my hand between both of hers. “I only just got you back and she nearly took you from me again!”
“Tell me… tell me what happened.”
She sniffles and plucks several tissues from the tissue box resting on the bedside table and bundles them to her face. “She shot you and left you for dead in the street, that’s what happened!”
It comes back to me faintly.
Saoirse ordering me to stay away. The crushing realization that this was the last time I’d get to speak to her. The need to make her listen to me and the desperation not to lose her. But she kept telling me to leave and I… I…fuck.
I was such a dick.
I remember the gun in her hand but the events afterward are blocked by darkness and heat.
Did she really try to kill me?
“Shit,” I croak. “I don’t understand…”
“All you need to understand,” comes my father’s deep voice from the doorway, “is that you have done a great thing in taking two bullets for me and this family.”
Twobullets?
“Dad?” Looking past Mary, Domenico stands in the shadows, but when our eyes meet, he walks forward.
“I’m proud of you, Son.”
It’s most likely the drugs but those words instantly create a fuzzy heat behind my eyes that feels like I’m drowning. My heart flutters and a strange, satisfying warmth sweeps through my chest.
“Dad,” I croak.
“Two bullets. That’s a hell of a thing to take for this family,” he says tightly. “And you survived. If that isn’t a show of strength, then I don’t know what is.”
“I told you,” Mary weeps. “I told you he’d be okay. He’s strong, Dad. See? Now stop being such an asshole to him, please! I don’t care why, if it’s because you’re men or what, but Dad, please, I want us to be a family again. Don’t cut him out again, please!”
Her words echo the hope in my own heart and to my surprise, Domenico appears to agree.
“It… has been a wake up call, to say the least. It’s one thing for the Irish to spread rumors about us when we’re alreadypicking up the pieces after several bad years, but to go after my son? To shoot you and leave you for dead like a dog in the street?” Anger licks at his words and he grips the back of Mary’s chair. “I will notstandfor this.”
Mary swivels and places her hand on his arm, trying to calm him. “Let’s not talk about them then. Let me go tell the doctor he’s awake. It’s been four days and I was so worried!” She stands and leans over me, wetly kissing my forehead. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Bruno.”
“Thanks, sis.”
After she leaves, Domenico moves to the foot of my bed and grips the railing there. “This,” he says, shaking his head. “This meanswar.”
“Dad—”
“No, son. They tried to take you from me. I know I have not been the warmest since you returned. In truth, after your mother died I closed myself off with grief and when you came back, it was a reminder of how I had failed you as a father. I thought I had enough time to fix that but learning that she left you for dead in the street? My onlyson?”
I’ve never heard him speak so strongly about me before and the fuzziness behind my eyes threatens to turn into real tears. “I’m okay,” I say hoarsely, glancing down at the swathes of bandages covering my chest. “I’m alive.”
