Page 3 of Severed Rivalry
I hit the red light at the onramp and grab my phone
Me: En route. Any news yet?
Liam: Not that I’ve heard. I just arrived.
Ayla: We’re downstairs. Where are you?
I weave through the streets and am at the offramp near the hospital when I see the rest.
Liam: Stuck at security. What the fuck.
Christian: Cian, room 3112. Show ID at security and you’ll be let in.
Me: Thanks
Ayla: Stop texting and driving.
Of course my baby sister who swears she’s not the mothering type is always the one pulling that shit. How I survived the nearly seven years before her arrival, I’ll never know.
Not true. It was raucous and fun. Then Liam showed and it was more raucous, more fun, and a bit more dangerous. But when Ayla came home, everything shifted.
My brother didn’t need protection. He was the kid on the playground that would pop someone in the face if they bullied another kid. My sister, though… Neither Liam nor I would let her face something if we could take the brunt first.
She called us overprotective.
Hell, in the last several months since her accident, that protectiveness has skyrocketed.
Ayla, Liam, and I aren’t the three musketeers. It’s never been we three and no more. But it’s always been two at the third’s back no matter what wall that back is up against.
I’ve parked and am exiting the elevator when I see my brother-in-law, Christian, looking pissed as fuck. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
He lifts a hand, dismissing me, and stalks into the elevator.
“All righty, then.”
What the fuck happened? We were literally just together at his bar chatting about business when I saw Renée… I mean, Sariah.
They were heading out when I went to talk to her.
Sariah.
Where has she been for the last fifteen years?
And why is she back? Or did she never leave?
My collar is too tight. The blue tie is trying to choke me. I pull the knot down, unbutton the neck, and press the security button to be allowed onto the ward after offering identification, heading in the direction of the nurse’s station.
“Janie Murphy?” I ask.
The nurse points at a door in the corner. I don’t miss that she wants to say something, but now’s not the time.
I push the door open to find Dad locked in a stare-down with Liam while Ayla is butt to ankles against the wall crying.
All of this is bad. Ayla crying sets off every protective instinct I have. Until Christian, it was my job to protect her. Feisty grown woman, successful businesswoman, or not, she could count on me.
She still can.
But Liam and Dad are like lighter fluid and a match… they’re going to combust. It’s never a matter ofif,but ofwhen.
