Page 55 of Aidan

Aidan doesn’t waste a single second before he palms my cheeks and his lips are on mine. Cheers and clapping echo around us, but the only thing I care about is my husband. Oh my god. Aidan is my husband. Joyous laughter spills from me. He draws away and our eyes meet.

“Wife,” he says in a gruff tone.

“Husband.”

Aidan threads his fingers through mine and turns us to face our family. Everyone is on their feet whistling and celebrating. The music plays and we step down off the slightly raised dais to walk toward our future. The music is drowned out by a massive boom. The floor shakes.

Confusion is on several faces, but the men’s expressions turn fierce and they all share intense glances. Heads swivel like we’re all searching for the source of the noise, when there’s another explosion and everything around us turns into chaos as the walls collapse with a deafening boom.

CHAPTER27

Aidan

Gunfire ringsout as debris falls from the ceiling.

“Everybody down,” a gruff voice yells out that sounds like Da’s.

Sorcha’s hand is ripped from mine and she falls to the ground. I scream her name and cover her body as I cough on the dust, and smoke fills my lungs. Children are screaming as morepoppingsounds reverberate around us.

I can still make out shadowy figures. My attention turns to my wife lying still beneath me. I can only pray someone doesn’t shoot me in the back.

“Sorcha, baby, look at me.” I carefully run my hands over her, searching for a wound.

Blood stains her dress. My hands shake as I shove all the fabric up and out of the way, my heart beating like a drum, and fear like I’ve never experienced before swells inside me. I can’t breathe from it. There’s a bullet wound along her upper thigh, although it only appears to have grazed her. She groans and shifts. I search her again and find a large bump on the back of her head.

Roars of pain join the whimpers and cries around us and bodies fall. Fuck. I reach for the ankle holster under my pants and pull out my weapon. Finally the smoke begins to clear giving me a better view of my surroundings. Concrete walls lay crumbled around the perimeter.

The gunfire slows until only a deathly silence fills the air.

“Throw down your weapons or I will kill her,” a heavily Arabic accented man breaks it.

I search the room. The women are huddled on the floor protecting the weeping children. Dead bodies—enemies—lie in crumpled heaps. My brothers, Da, Roarke, and Nathan are all standing with their weapons pointed toward where the doors leading into the suite used to be. Several armed Moroccans—none of them Ayman Naji—flank the man in the center, whose arm is wrapped around Imogen’s neck and who’s holding a gun to her head. Fear lines her face and her eyes are locked on Liam who faces them withhis own gun raised. His other arm hangs loosely at his side and blood drips off his fingertips and falls to the floor in a puddle at his feet. I don’t have a clean shot and I don’t want to move and set off any itchy trigger fingers.

“I said throw down your weapons,” the man holding Imogen roars again.

“Not a chance. If you hurt her, you’re a dead man. You’re all dead,” Liam says in a harsh tone.

“My men are closing in as we speak,” Da warns, pain etched on his face. “You have nowhere to go.”

I study him and spot the blood soaking through his shirt. How bad is it?

The Moroccans exchange glances, as though they’re trying to decide whether or not to believe Da. They converse in Arabic until the man holding Imogen slowly backs up, his hold on her not loosening an inch as he brings her with him. The men behind him follow suit, their weapons still trained on all of us.

My family moves as a single unit forward, no one taking their eyes off our retreating enemies. At my feet, Sorcha groans again.

“Aidan,” she whimpers.

There’s no decision to make. I let Da and the rest take care of things and I drop to my knees next to my wife.

“I’m here, baby. I’m here,” I reassure Sorcha, caressing her face and brushing her hair back, taking care to avoid the lump on her head.

Her eyelashes flutter and slowly open. Her pupils are dilated and she blinks rapidly as though she’s having trouble focusing. Finally, she’s able to lock onto me.

“Wha—what happened?”She tries to sit up and whimpers in pain.

“Careful. A bullet grazed you.”

Her head snaps up and she clutches the side of it. “God, my head is killing me. This is worse than any hangover I’ve ever had.”

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