Screw Me: A Screwed Duet (Five Points Hell's Kitchen Book 2) Read online

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Finn asked, and his voice was dulled, like he was trying to contain his emotions and succeeding.

  The doctor hesitated. “We don’t need to think about those things just yet. She’ll be in the hospital for a few more weeks so we can keep an eye on her. Usually, after a splenectomy—the removal of the spleen—we send patients home after a week, and they’re to return if certain symptoms develop, but because of the other issues, we’ll need to monitor her.”

  “I want to know,” Finn growled, this time sounding like he was rapidly losing patience.

  Finn was like that, I thought fondly. Impatient and cautious, wanting to know all the risks before he stepped into any fight.

  “Some patients can develop a certain kind of infection called OPSI. It can occur years after surgery,” the other woman explained, her voice soaring to a high pitch that had me wondering what my husband was doing to her to make her sound like that. “It has a high fatality rate.”

  Finn released a muttered expletive and I heard his shoes tap against the floor as he began to pace.

  “It should be me, Aidan,” he ground out. “I should be the one dealing with this shit.”

  Oh, it was Aidan Sr. The head of the Five Points, and a man who was like a father to Finn.

  It made sense why the doctor was scared. I was scared of Aidan, and I knew he liked me.

  The man made the term ‘loose cannon’ seem like a friendly warning. I was half certain Aidan was a lunatic so it was no wonder the doctor was pissing herself.

  “That’s a worst-case scenario, sir,” the doctor informed him, sympathy coating her words. “We have plenty to be grateful for.” She swallowed. Audibly. “I was her surgeon and I saw the bullet’s trajectory. If there was ever a good way of coming out of a gunshot wound to the abdomen, your wife found it. Clean entry and exit. No fractures to the ribs, just slight fissures on the lower ribcage. No nicks to any organs—just the spleen. God was certainly on her side.”

  “He works for the righteous,” came Aidan’s voice, and I opened my eyes at that.

  Of all the things anyone could say, that was the most stupid of them all.

  “It was good luck, Aidan,” I rasped. Or, at least, I tried to—because no one in this room was righteous, certainly not Aidan Donnelly! My tongue was thick though, and the words didn’t seem to form normally.

  “Aoife!” Finn cried and my blurry eyes managed to focus as I looked at him and saw he had, of all things, a beard.

  A beard?

  Jesus.

  How long had I been out?

  He ran to my side and grabbed my hand. Pressing it to his lips, he whispered, “Baby, what do you need?”

  “Water,” I half-whimpered, wishing it hadn’t hurt so much for him to bestow that kiss to my knuckles.

  The doctor bustled to my side and she pressed an ice chip to my mouth. “You’re fine, Aoife,” she said soothingly—but her eyes were cold. I remembered what somebody had said the last time I’d been awake and wondered if it had been her.

  They didn’t like me because my husband was a Five Points man.

  Well, tough shit.

  The older woman, somewhere in her fifties, studied me then Finn as he squeezed my fingers again. Though a frown flickered over her brow, I saw that her eyes weren’t cold, actually. Just scared.

  I couldn’t blame her.

  Not when Aidan Donnelly was in the room, and with a rep as large and notorious as the state itself.

  Hell, maybe they were scared of him in other parts of the States too, but never having left New York, I wouldn’t know. Considering I’d seen the man in action, I wouldn’t put it past him.

  When the ice had melted and my tongue felt less like a swollen hamster lolling around in my mouth, I whispered, “Stop scaring the doctors, Aidan.”

  A snort brayed from behind the doctor and Aidan strolled up, looking a lot smarter than Finn. He peered at me. “Scaring people is what I do best, Aoife. Figured you’d know that, being a Hell’s Kitchen girl.”

  The other woman whimpered, and I shot her a look. “His bark’s worse than his bite,” I tried to offer, but it wasn’t working. Her skin was whiter than mine—which was saying something. I made milk look colorful.

  “We’ll be in shortly to run some tests,” she mumbled, dipping her chin before scurrying out of the room.

  I got the feeling that in normal situations, my husband and his adoptive father would be the ones ushered out, while a team came to tend to me. Of course, things never worked any normal kind of way with the Five Points in attendance. Certainly not when those men were the head and one of his right hand men.

  My gaze returned to Finn’s haggard face, and I saw his eyes were wet as he stared down at me. He’d bowed down slightly so my triceps could rest on the sheets, but he could support my forearm and use the position to press my hand to his stubbly cheek.

  That he was being so affectionate in front of Aidan surprised me. PDAs weren’t exactly good for the reputation of a man in Finn’s position—it spoke of how scared he’d been for me.

  By the sounds of it, I’d come off lucky. Well, as lucky as a bride can be when she gets shot on the church steps just moments after signing the wedding certificate, that is.

  My lips curved at that, because yeah, I remembered what happened now. At my rueful smile, Finn gaped at me. What? Did he expect me to sob? Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have broken down and screamed at him, demanded he leave the room, leave me alone, but God, I really didn’t want to, and I figured the chick who’d just been shot could get her own way for a while.

  “Was anyone else hurt?”

  Finn’s features turned stoic. “Aidan, Lena, and I were the only ones who weren’t shot. All the brothers got hit.”

  “Badly?”

  He shook his head. “Aidan Jr. took the worst one—it shattered his femur.” My eyes widened at the repercussions of that injury. That would require months of rehab and some PT too. “Brennan and Eoghan were grazed. Conor was also, to the bicep of all places because it was such a large target or so he says—” Aidan snorted at that. “Brennan was mostly hurt when Aidan fell into him. Broke his wrist.”

  I was inordinately grateful our wedding party had been so small. There’d been a few other guests, but the brothers had swarmed around us at the entrance, leaving the others stuck inside and safe.

  “Jenny?” I asked after my best friend.

  Finn’s fingers danced over my skin. “She’s fine. She was inside.”

  Thank God for that.

  Fumbling with the paper cup the doctor had rested close to my hand that contained mostly melted ice chips, Finn saw my struggle, dipped into it and placed a small piece in my mouth. He frowned at the cup, reached for it and mumbled, “I’ll get some more.”

  Because I couldn’t tell him I’d prefer him to stay rather than Aidan, he headed out, apparently grateful to have a purpose.

  Blowing out a breath, I caught Aidan’s eye. He was studying me like a scientist might peruse a new species of frog.

  “What is it?” I asked huskily.

  “You angry?”

  The question made me frown, but I answered honestly, “I’m too tired to feel anything but thirsty.”

  He pursed his lips after contemplating that for a few seconds. “I can understand that. Don’t blame Finn.”

  Did I?

  I didn’t think I did, even if that wasn’t a rational response.

  Finn wasn’t directly at fault, but equally, the Five Points were at war with a Colombian cartel for a reason. They’d obviously done something to make the Colombians get itchy trigger fingers.

  Still, I didn’t want to be angry with Finn. He was my husband for a reason. I’d only known him a short time, but he was rapidly becoming the person around which my baseline was set.

  If he was okay, then I was okay.

  Pathetic but true.

  Was that what happened when you loved someone? Or was it just because I was a doormat, waiting
for a Points man to trudge on me?

  “The boy worships you. Any man with eyes can see that,” Aidan stated gruffly. “He’d take your place in a heartbeat.”

  “Maybe, but he can’t actually do that, can he?” I replied, my tone soft. “I love him, Aidan. I don’t want him to beg for forgiveness on bended knee.”

  “What do you want then?”

  I shrugged, then grimaced as the simple gesture sent shockwaves of pain through me. “I don’t know,” I answered hoarsely. “Nothing just now. I’d be happy if this pain just went away for a while.”

  Closing my eyes because I was tired again, I heard him sigh. He stepped away, not totally out of the room because his footsteps grew nearer not distant. Then, I heard Finn’s strident pace, and the room got warmer the minute he crossed the threshold.

  “She’s sleeping again,” Aidan told him with a grunt.

  “Fuck. I wanted to talk to her some more.”

  “She needs the rest.”

  “I know.” Finn swallowed. “I-I just needed to see her awake.”

  Aidan released a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, son.”

  When Finn whispered, “Me too, Aidan,” those were the last words I heard before I tumbled into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Two

  Finn

  “Go home. Get some rest. You’re not doing her any good here.”

  I scowled at Eoghan as he stepped into Aoife’s private room. “What do you want?” I asked gruffly, not needing his advice and not appreciating it either.

  “Came to check up on you. See if you guys needed anything.”

  I released a breath and though it made me feel like a kid, I rolled on my side on the too-small trestle bed Aidan had arranged to be placed in here.

  It was marginally more comfortable than the armchair I’d been using for the first two days, but because it was the only thing that could fit in here without causing any obstruction, it still wasn’t like my bed at home.

  Not that I deserved to be comfortable.

  “You sulking?” Eoghan asked.

  With my back to him—and he and the rest of my family were the only people I could turn my back on—I scowled at the wall. “No.”

  “Why aren’t you answering Mom’s calls, then?”

  “Don’t have anything to say.”

  “You know she’d come if Dad was letting her out of the compound, right?”

  My nose wrinkled. “He put her on lockdown?”

  “Yeah. The rest of the women too.”

  We had a compound over in Queens. It was a small hotel that, in a pinch, we could shove our men’s wives and kids in if shit hit the fan.

  An out-and-out attack on the Five Points’ council?

  Yeah. There’d been a veritable explosion of shit. Golgothan sized.

  “Bet she’s loving that,” I said drily. It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, that Lena had been holed up in Queens. I wished Aoife was there now instead of here. Fuck, I’d give my left nut for her not to be drifting in and out of consciousness the way she was.

  “Yeah, she’s bitching. As usual.”

  The bed dipped at my side and Eoghan rested against me like I was an armchair.

  “Dick,” I groused at him.

  “Eoghan, actually. Didn’t know you lost your memory during the drive-by.”

  “Ha-Ha,” I retorted. “Fuck off, would you? I’m just trying to get some sleep.”

  “Don’t know how you can on this thing. Looks like you’re going to fall off, and bro, hate to tell you this, but you stink.” Eoghan grunted. “Can’t you move her to a room with space for a bed and a private bath so you can shower off some of that stench?”

  “They’re moving her tomorrow.” We hadn’t been in the ICU for a while, but I had a feeling Aidan had put pressure on the right people to keep us close to the ‘facilities.’ It sucked that we were taking up an urgent care space, but I couldn’t find it in myself to give a damn.

  This hospital got a huge chunk of its running costs from donors. What Aidan donated to this place, thanks to me, was enough to run this floor for a year. I figured we deserved some of the gold treatment, and Aoife deserved platinum.

  She’d been my wife for five minutes before the impossible had happened…

  Sometimes I wondered if she slept to avoid me. If she pretended just so she didn’t have to face me.

  Was she scared?

  Of the Points? Of our future?

  Of me?

  I couldn’t blame her.

  I was scared, but I couldn’t let her go. More selfishness but she was… even sleeping half the time, she was my fucking life. I’d killed for her, and I’d do it again and again. I just wished that I’d been the one to spot the truck. If I had, maybe I’d have stopped the drive-by from happening before it had a chance to begin.

  “It’s not your fault, Finn,” Eoghan whispered.

  “Isn’t it? I shouldn’t have married her, shouldn’t have brought her into this life but I can’t live without her, dearthàir.”

  He sighed at my Gaelic use of the word ‘brother.’ Something we only used to mess with each other or in times like these. Times where we were at a loss and needed one of our kin to keep us from drowning.

  “You don’t have to live without her. Dad told me himself that the bullet couldn’t have had a finer path.”

  “He’s sure it’s God’s will,” I stated wryly, amused despite myself. “He’ll be saying she needs to be up for sainthood next.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past him,” Eoghan agreed. “What is it? Two miracles before the Church will consider it?”

  I snorted. “One miracle is enough for me.”

  “Seriously though, she’s okay, right?”

  “She’s going to be on antibiotics for the rest of her fucking life, and she’s going to need vaccinations every year too,” I ground out.

  “Aidan might have a limp for the rest of his life, and Brennan’s wrist?”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s the one Dad kept on breaking when he was fucking around with that Bratva chick.”

  I rolled over onto my back. “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lena find out?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Think she will?”

  “Probably. Dad’s freaking out.”

  “I wondered why he hadn’t been hovering around this place for a few days.”

  “I think he’d prefer for the Colombians to kill him rather than Mom.”

  I snickered at that—I couldn’t help it.

  “That’s not funny, Eoghan,” Aoife rasped in that new way of hers. It was like the intubating tubes had damaged something on the way down. I’d gut the bastard who’d hurt her if I knew who to gut.

  “Isn’t it?” Eoghan replied rhetorically, getting to his feet to walk toward her. “Hey, little sister, you faring well?”

  That he called her that, and so soon, didn’t surprise me. Aoife had bled for the Five Points. She was one of us now.

  I rolled up into a sitting position and quickly scrubbed a hand over my face. I knew I looked like shit, but it suited my mood, and Aoife was too out of it most of the time to really care.

  “I’m just tired,” she whispered. Her head rolled on the pillow, her hair spilling over it like wine from a glass, and I realized she was looking for me.

  My heart leapt because, when she saw me, she released a shaky breath—relief had the frown on her brow unfurling. I strode over to her and grabbed her hand, then ducked down and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. The IV infusion was there, and I wanted to punch the dude who’d stained her skin with a shit ton of bruises—they never seemed to be able to find a line. I’d watched them stick her so many times, I’d wanted to throttle them.

  Her knuckles scratched my jaw and, not wanting to disconnect from her, I kicked out with my foot and hooked the armchair behind me. Sitting back in it, I pressed my face into her hand.

  “You aren’t shaving.”

  Eog
han snorted. “Your powers of observation are coming in leaps and bounds, Aoife. All this sleep is serving you well.”

  She huffed at him, then studied me again. “Have you showered?”

  “Can’t you smell him? Christ. We need the doctor back in here if you can’t.”

  “Why aren’t you taking care of yourself?”

  I choked a little. Wanting nothing more at that moment than to climb into bed beside her. Fuck the shower. Fuck the goddamn world. “I’ll go clean up when I know you won’t wake up without me being here.”

  She was silent a second, then she murmured, “Oh.”

  Eoghan shot us both a look, and I could tell he didn’t understand.

  Why would he?

  Though I kept expecting her to wake up with loathing in her eyes, the minute she was awake, she wanted to see me. I’d watched her pulse speed up on the monitor then had seen it start to slow the second she found me with her gaze. My voice wasn’t enough. Sight was the only thing that calmed her.

  I wasn’t about to complain. Not when she should be asking for a lawyer to demand an annulment.

  Christ, would any judge in the land refuse her?

  Nausea swirled inside me at the thought, and I pressed another kiss to her fingers.

  Eoghan grunted. “That means we have to put up with his stench a while longer, hmm?” Then, he snickered. “Dear God, Aoife, get better soon, yeah?”

  Her lips curved—I didn’t have to look up to hear it in her voice. “For your sensibilities, I will, Eoghan.”

  “That’s an Irish woman for you. So accommodating.”

  She hooted softly. “Which Irish women do you know?”

  “Well, they’re always accommodating to me,” he purred, and I raised my head to spear him with a glower.

  “You’re not flirting with my wife, are you, dearthàir?”

  He grinned at me unashamedly. “She’s too beautiful not to.”

  When Aoife giggled, I didn’t snap at him, just rolled my eyes. It was good to hear her laugh, and for some reason, she found my brothers amusing.

  Yeah. Funny-haha, not funny-strange, either. The latter being substantially truer.

  I’d seen her talk to them several times on her own at Sunday lunch at their folks’ home, and had monitored how she’d settled in. I still wasn’t sure how that was possible, just knew she’d relaxed around them. Had started to build a rapport with five of the most dangerous men in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.