And it seems as if the ordeal has helped Aileen, too. She fought this. She fought me. She fought our union, and bringing a child into this family. But now it seems she’s assumed her role with grace and strength, and hell if I don’t love her the more for it.
“Seems the man who worked for my father, the damn bodyguard who stood right outside my door back at home, had a hand in the coke trade. Supplied my brother by skimming off the top of shipments, as it were. I thought Dermot was killed for letting me go, but he wasn’t. He joined up with the O’Gregors in the north, held my brother by the bollox with the coke, set the fire on the greenhouse for vengeance. When that didn’t work, he had other plans.”
“Motherfucker,” I mutter. “Where’s he now?”
“Jail,” Keenan mutters. “Club security called it in before we could get to him. Blaine is, too.”
“Son of a bitch survived then.” I turn to Aileen. “And how do we know all this? I’m guessing Dermot didn’t confess to anything.”
“Sheena,” she says. “The redheaded reporter?” She grows a little sheepish and looks at her hands. “She was the one who lured me to the club to begin with.”
“What’s that? What do you mean?”
She looks at me, then mam and Keenan. It’s the first time she’s told anyone, I’m guessing.
“That day we were shopping,” she says. “She came to me in the dressing room. Told me I had to get to the club, that my sister was in trouble.”
My hands clench into fists as she tells me the story, and I steady my breathing to calm myself.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“She told me I couldn’t,” Aileen says. “Look, I know how stupid that was now, but at the time, I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Maybe a good, hard spanking will help her think straight.
“Don’t blame her, Cormac,” mam says. “Sheena’s the one to blame.”
“And even then,” Keenan says. “The lass was blackmailed by Dermot and Blaine.”
“How do you know this?”
“She fessed up to Nolan.”
“Aye.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose together to help me think straight.
“And we’ve been in touch with Martin,” Keenan says. “Shouldn’t have to do anything on our end, brother. You and I both know peace between the clans is of the utmost importance to him. He’ll take care of Dermot and Blaine.”
“Aye, but I wish I could get out of this bed and take care of them myself.”
“Of course you do,” Aileen says softly, her hand on my arm. “I know you’d probably like to break their legs, or bust their heads, or put bullets through their pasty white temples, mmm?”
I grin at her. “You talk about vicious, brutal violence like you’re telling me a bedtime story.”
She smiles at me, leans down, and kisses me. I’m enveloped in her soft, feminine scent. “And this, my love, is why you and I were meant for each other.”
Something warms in me at that. She’s changed. Whatever wall that divided us before has crumbled to dust. I squeeze her hand, and she places her head on my chest. I can’t move my left arm easily, but tuck her against me with my right.
“That’s a good girl,” I whisper. I inhale her scent and hold her to me. It isn’t until I feel the gentle tremble of her shoulders that I realize she’s crying.
“I thought you were gone,” she says through her tears, her voice choked with meaning and pain. “You bled so much. They had to bandage you up and they moved so damn slow. You passed out on the way, and I thought… I thought…”
“Shh, sweetheart. It’s alright. You’re a good lass to see me through this. But I’m fine. And you’re alright?”
“Fine. They used a goddamn electric shock thing to keep me and Sheena in line. Seems the sick fucks at the club use it for fun, hmm?”
I shake my head. “Not me,” I tell her. “I prefer--”
I look to mam and stop. Aileen groans.
“We’ll leave you two,” mam says, looking from me to Aileen with a sort of wistfulness. “She’s a good woman, Cormac. You see to it you treat her right.”
“The very best,” I agree. “Course I will.”
As soon as Keenan and mam leave, Aileen climbs straight into the hospital bed beside me. I lift my arm and she crawls under it, burrowing her head on my chest and draping her arm around me.
“I love you, Cormac McCarthy,” she says, her vivid eyes still shining with tears, but laced with conviction. “I love you so much it hurts right here.” She takes my hand, makes a fist, and places our hands together on her heart. “I knew when I was in that room that you’d come for me. That you’d protect me, no matter what. That you’d do anything for me. I knew it in my heart, and I knew when they took you from me that I wanted that. I wanted you. I wanted us.”