I grimaced. Guns went off when people dropped them. Fortunately, this one didn’t.
“No,” Fiona screamed, shoving past me.
I released Donal and he dropped to the ground.
Ferris turned and ran. Tully stood there, staring with an open mouth, before he turned and ran too. Both of them sprinted off, leaving their leader to bleed on the pavement.
Fucking cowards.
“Oh, god, Donal.” Fiona turned him onto his back. He coughed more blood, a fine spray splattering over her shirt. “Oh my god. There’s a hospital. We’ll get you to a hospital.” She looked up at me, desperate.
But I shook my head. The bastard wouldn’t last another five seconds.
Whether he meant it or not, Ferris was one hell of a shot. The first bullet ripped into Donal’s lungs. The second hit the poor guy’s heart.
Donal convulsed and Fiona held him tight. She spoke soothingly to him, but his eyes dimmed rapidly. I knelt down, watching closely for that last moment, when the final bit of life disappeared.
I reached out and brushed his eyelids, closing them over his lifeless stare.
Fiona was shaking when I peeled her away from the corpse.
“Come on, we have to go.”
“Donal.” She stared in horror. “How did that happen? How did that just happen?”
“Your cousin was a little trigger-happy.” I didn’t add that I was lucky as hell and probably should’ve been dead in Donal’s place.
She was in shock. I guided her away from the body, back to my truck. Azar glared at me as I went and I gave him an apologetic shrug.
For once, that wasn’t my fault.
Fiona leaned up against the window. Her clothes were smeared in blood and she had splatters on her cheeks and forehead. I drove off, heading away from the scene before the cops could show up.
“It’ll be okay,” I said softly and tried to take her hand.
But she pulled it away from me, shaking her head. “Donal’s dead because of me.”
I stared at her, my jaw working. “Donal’s dead because his dumb fuck cousin decided to start shooting.”
“He saw you with me and got scared. God, Mack, they’re just stupid kids.”
“They’re your age. Would you shoot someone just because they were hanging around with a family member?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then it’s not your fault. You didn’t make them overreact. They chose it.”
Tears rolled down her eyes, smearing the runny blood down her chin.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. And I knew how sick that made me.
“I was just with them last night. It was like the old times again, you know?” She stared out the window as more sobs ripped from her chest. “God, and now Donal’s gone. Right when he was starting something with Shannon.”
I didn’t know who Shannon was, but it sounded like she wouldn’t be happy when she heard the news.
Fiona cried and I kept my hand on her leg. I couldn’t stop, not with the cops back there, not until we were safe. But when I finally reached home, I pulled her over and wrapped my arms around her, heedless of the blood.
There wasn’t much I could say. She was too upset to hear any of it, and I could only imagine what was running through her mind. Blaming herself, anger and sorrow, a mix of all that plus a thousand more little details I’d never fully grasp.
That was what family did. They sucked you in and changed you irrevocably, and no matter what happened, there’d always be that mark.
She was a Doyle, whether she liked it or not, and watching one of her cousins get killed right before her eyes was probably a nightmare come to life.
I took her inside. I was as patient and as tender as I could be. I drew up a bath and got her undressed.
She was pliant like a doll.
I put her into the warm water and washed off the blood. The water turned pink. I drained it then filled it up again. Her hair spread out, the red tips floating around her shoulders.
“I liked Donal,” she said softly. “He wasn’t such a bad guy.”
“I’m sorry.”
Although I wasn’t, not particularly. He did try to stab me to death for no reason.
“What do we do now?”
“We keep going forward. You don’t want your brother to end up like him, right?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Then we keep going.” It took all my willpower not to look at her gorgeous, naked body, but I did kiss her neck and her lips.
My tongue entered her mouth like an invading force.
She reacted with a soft moan, and that only set my blood burning for more.
I always felt like this after a kill. Even though it wasn’t my kill, the adrenaline still raged inside of me, looking for an outlet. I wanted to break something. To murder it to bits.
Instead, I could make Fiona feel better.
I kissed her harder, deeper. She moaned softly and her hands came up. She weakly tried to push me back.