Page 4 of Stolen Rival
Da’s going to give me shit over that. He’s always telling me to put slippers or shoes on, and to stop running around in my bare feet.
“And my family?”
Her eyes flex wide. “You were brought in alone, love.”
Maybe they were taken to another hospital. Maybe they’re sitting outside worried sick in the waiting room. Maybe they’ve gone underground until whoever did this is caught and punished for attacking the McCarthys.
I can’t help smirking. Retribution will be swift and bloody. Da and my three older brothers aren’t known for having a softer side. I may have been kept out of the familybusiness because I’m just a girl, but I understand enough to know that this won’t go unanswered.
Da’s fair but the McCarthys have a reputation for being bloodthirsty with a flair for the dramatic. I wouldn’t put it past my eldest brother, Tiernan, to carve out the guts of whoever did this and string his intestines up like fucking fairy lights.
I hope he does.
What can I say? I have my family’s taste for revenge. Especially since pieces of me are being held together by stitches.
When I try to sit up again, it’s easier. The kind-eyed nurse helps me upright and hands me a plastic cup half filled with water and a bendy straw.
She pushes a button on the machine, and after a beat, the pain in my body simmers down from an eleven to an easy eight. I love her. Whoever she is, I’m telling Da she needs a raise. Or a promotion. I wonder if she’d move to the care facility my younger brother Cathal is in. He’d probably love her, too.
I touch a tentative finger to my forehead. A bumpy, jagged line arches over one of my eyebrows and down my temple making me hiss—I’m not sure if it’s in pain or fury. I’m going to need to get a fringe cut in to hide the inevitable scar this leaves.
I need to talk to Da. “Nurse?”
She’s wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. “Yes, Sorcha, love?”
“Where’s my phone?”
She jerks her chin toward the bedside cabinet, and when I grunt as I try to twist to reach it, she admonishes me with an impatient sigh. “Hold your whisht, child.”
My leg bounces while she takes my blood pressure, gives a disapproving tut, and takes it again. “I don’t like how high this is.”
“I was just shot, nurse. That probably has something to do with it.”
“And unfortunately for the rest of us, the shooter missed your sarcasm nerve.”
I really like this woman. “No idea how. Guess I’m lucky they couldn’t hit the broad side of a bus.” I wink at her.
She eventually hands me my phone, and when I turn it on, relief floods my veins that there’s still a full battery. It’s early evening, just after six on Sunday. I’m sure Father Michael was wondering where we were this morning for mass.
There are a few messages, a missed call from my best friend, but nothing from any of my family. The nurses must have told them I didn’t have my phone. I frown. Da might be a wicked aul’ battle-ax, but there’s no way he wouldn’t send a message to check in on me if I disappeared.
When I press the call button to ring Da, the panic starts. Icy tendrils of all-consuming, breath-stealing terror slither up my spine and curl around my ribs.
The call rings and rings and rings. I try again. Each time the tentacles of fear crush my body as they tighten like bands around me.
The nurse is still hovering around the room.
“Nurse?”
“Yes, love?”
“Are my family in the waiting room outside?” I already know the answer before she says it, but I need to hear it. Bone-deep dread threatens to pull me under into hysteria, but I force myself to keep breathing and look at the nurse—Bridie according to her badge, another fucking Brigid.
“No. I told you, you were brought in alone.”
“N-no one came in with me? Not evenas a visitor?”
She shakes her head, a knowing sympathy creeping into her eyes.
