Page 96 of Mob Saint

“Da, are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No.”

My dad rests his hand on my shoulder as I force myself to squat on my haunches so I can better assess Cormac. We’re seven months apart because I came two months early. He says he never remembers a time without me. How could he? He was still an infant when I was born. Sean and Shane may be the twins, but Cor and I may as well be.

We don’t have the exact synchronicity Shane and Sean do, which is uncanny even after knowing them their entire lives. But Cormac and I are close. We don’t necessarily know when the other gets injured, and we don’t necessarily feel each other's pain, but I do today. It’s as though the bullet ripped through my other shoulder.

“You look almost as bad as Cormac. Sit down.”

I practically collapse rather than lower my arse to the floor. I look toward the stairs leading to Tiera’s bedroom as I push back my left cuff and raise my wrist. I don’t feel my phone in my back pocket, and I’m sure they took Da’s and Cormac’s too.

“We have our watches. I can still see yours underneath your sleeve. I have mine, and Cormac has his.”

“Push your alert, and I’ll do the same for mine. Then I’ll do Cormac's.”

I watch my father pull his watch down his wrist until he can see the side. All our watches have a distinctive, bigger dial on the side. It’s really a button that, if we push, sends out an alert to everyone in our family that we’re in distress. It’s the smaller dial that sets the time. I press mine, and I watch my dad do his own, then my brother’s.

My mind’s a jumble now that I’m sure my father and brother are still breathing. Where's my girlfriend? Where’s the only woman I have ever loved? The only woman I will ever love. I planned to tell her that when we had dinner together. But obviously, that all went to shite.

I didn’t know for sure until this morning when I needed to protect her. Yes, need. Not want, not should, but need to protect her. Nothing was more important to me than making sure Tiera got out of Gareth’s house unharmed. Now I have no idea where she is or who has her. I remember parts of what happened. Men burst in here, and I didn’t even get a good look at them as I ran down the stairs to help my father and brother once the intruders started shooting.

I was barely halfway to the bottom step before searing pain ripped through my thigh. The pain that I know all too well. It wasn’t the first time I’ve felt it, and I doubt it will ever be the last until I’m put in the ground. Blessedly, I know this was just a graze. Before I could do much more, pain tore through my left shoulder when I slammed into the wall to avoid getting shot again. Fortunately, my gun was in my right hand. Even though I could shoot ambidextrous, it meant I didn’t drop the weapon.

I know I squeezed out several rounds, and I hit at least one guy before I went down from a guy pistol whipping the back of my head. But there’re no bodies here but that of my dad, my brother, and me. Where did they go? Who were they? And where did they take Tiera?

Anger boils inside me. It’s instantly turning to rage. Actually, it’s already rage. I want nothing more than to find the people who did this to my brother, to my father, and who took Tiera. But I have to remain calm despite how difficult it is. If I lose my shite, then I’ll be no good to anybody. I have to think logically in order to rescue Tiera. If I don’t, will I have a chance to tell her I love her?

I know most people would think this is lust. Most people would say it’s infatuation. People would think I’m ridiculous to believe it’s love after a couple months, but I’m not. I know how it goes. I’ve heard the stories about my parents. I’ve heard the stories about my aunts and uncles. I’ve watched my cousins fall in love with their soulmates.

I know who Tiera is to me.

She might not be ready to feel the same way I do. Even though I know she didn’t have a good marriage, I still fear she loves her dead husband and that she can’t give me her whole heart like I want to give her mine. Even if that’s the case, I will live with it because life with her is so much better than life without. I worried if I could handle living with a ghost in our relationship. I will if it’s the difference between having a future with Tiera or not. But to have that life, I have to find her.

My rage continues to boil until it threatens to spill over. And I remind myself over and over that’ll be counterproductive. It will get us nowhere.

“I need a shirt. I need to stop Cor’s bleeding. I need something to press against the wound.”

When I shake myself out of my trance and start thinking about what my brother needs, I notice my father is already pulling his shirt off. He’s about four steps ahead of me, and that makes me feel guilty for not focusing on what’s right before me, that I’m letting someone else come ahead of my brother. I’ve never done that before, but this is different.

Tiera is different. Tiera is the one who comes first for me. My family will always be a millimeter behind. Nothing has ever been more important to me than family, and nothing ever will be. Tiera is part of my family now. I don’t know how long it will take to make that official. I pray it happens. But for now—as far as I'm concerned—she’s more than just my girlfriend. She's my forever.

“Seamus, I’m well enough to go look for Tiera. Let me go upstairs and make sure she’s not still up there.”

“Thanks, Da.”

I hate that I’m still too weak to do it myself, but my head’s ringing enough for me to want to vomit if I move. I don’t want to think someone took her, but I also don’t want to think the reason she can’t respond while still up there is because she’s dead. God help me if that’s the case. I refuse to even remotely consider she is. If I let myself think that, I’ll shrivel into a ball and be worthless to everyone. If I think that, I’ll picture her being tortured by the sick fuck who peels faces off.

I don’t know that I’ll ever recover. Whoever did this shouldn’t have touched my family. They will pay for the rest of their very—very—short life.

I watched Da grab the banister as he hauls himself up the stairs. He’s moving far slower than I’ve ever seen him except for when he’s been close to death. That’s an experience I’ve never been fond of, and it’s happened more than once. I know the pain I’ve felt watching him get hurt is exponentially less than the pain he feels when it’s one of his sons. I can’t imagine how he feels right now with my big brother still unconscious. He’s doing what he has to because it’s what he was trained to do. I also think he needs a few minutes alone, so I don’t question whether he should climb stairs when his head’s still bleeding.

It makes me think again about a future with Tiera. If we have a baby girl, her gender would protect her. A daughter might be called a princess, but that’s not how it goes in syndicates. That’s what people outside our world call them. There’s nothing spoiled about the women in my family. Or even those in the other syndicates. They’re as tough as nails, for lack of a better way to say it. Tiera is one of those. She might not be a daughter, or sister, or niece, or even a cousin of a mob boss. But she has been around it her entire life.

If we have a son—a little boy—then what happens to him? I know Dillan, Finn, and Sean wonder the same thing if they have a son. I’m certain Maks and Bogdan Kutsenko wonder that, too. So far, Niko has only had a little girl, but Ana’s pregnant again just like Bogdan’s wife, Christina. None of the other bratva couples have children. I’m sure Luca Mancinelli is grateful he’s only had a daughter with his wife. But I suspect Maria might be pregnant. What then? What would Matteo do if he has a little boy?

What would I do?

We’ve been mob for four generations on one side of my family and three on the other. There was no getting out for my grandparents. There’s no getting out for my parents. There’s no getting out for me. None of us can walk away because it would make us greater targets. That means it’s inevitable my son would become a mobster too.

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