“Isla.” Her name leaves my lips on a battered plea. “Isla, sweetheart. I’m here. I’m here.”
I wait for her lids to pop open as though the sound of my voice has the ability to perform miracles. But I’ve only been friendly with the devil, the conductor of destruction himself, and her eyes remain shut, her face pale from loss of blood.
Terror mounts, gathering in my throat, my chest.
Hurriedly, my fingers skim her neck, searching for her pulse. Weak, too weak. Her chest looks ravaged by a sea of red. She needs pressure. Christ, what she needs is a surgeon but we’re too far away from the Palace. Lifting the hem of my shirt, I tear the fabric in two. It would be better if the cloth were clean, if we were within driving distance of Holyrood, but there’s no time to dwell on what isn’t reality. I need to get her to a hospital—now.
Pressing my shirt to her open wound, I shift her weight and gently gather her in my arms.
Her breath ghosts over my neck, faint but there. Barely.
“Stay with me, sweetheart. Fucking stay with me.”
With her limp frame tucked into my chest, I tear out of the office, barely sparing Jack’s hunched-over frame another look.
The dining area is completely empty. Chairs turned over. Splintered stemware glittering on the floor. I ignore it all, too focused on the woman in my arms. “I’m breathing for us both. Every breath. Every hope. Do you hear me, Isla? Don’t give up. Please, please don’t give up.” My face heats; eyes prick with moisture. “I need you,” I rasp, aware of my voice cracking, “I love you.”
The heavy weight of my boot has the front door sailing open. It flings wide, nearly coming off the hinges, and then I’m cutting left, toward where I left Peter and Josie. Her brother must spot us in the rearview mirror because the passenger’s side door flies open and then his lean frame is sprinting toward me.
“What happened? Saxon, what happened to my sister?”
He shot her.
I can’t say the words out loud. They’re crammed in my throat, lodged there with panic and grief and love. So much love for this woman, and fuck!
“Recline your seat.” When Peter hesitates, clearly hating the thought of leaving Isla’s side, I bark, “Now!”
His face whitens, and with a short nod, he’s moving and I’m trailing behind, hot on his heels. The passenger seat goes horizontal and Peter inches to the side, waiting. Waiting. I look down at Isla. Her lips are blue and her skin so very pale, and I drop my head, praying to feel the shallow ghost of her breath on my—
“Saxon,” Peter argues, “lay her down.”
I can’t let her go. Won’t let her go.
My fingers dig into her flesh, pulling her tighter against me. If I put her on that seat . . . if I release her for any amount of time—
“Priest.”
“Help me,” I grunt, and then we’re carefully lowering her onto the seat together. Josie’s whimpers are more strokes of terror down my spine. I’m aware of ordering her to keep Isla in place while I drive, of Peter clambering into the backseat along with his younger sister. Six minutes. That’s all it’ll take to deliver her straight to the front doors of the closest hospital.
I punch the accelerator, grab Isla’s limp hand in mine, and don’t let go.
I’ll hold on for the two of us forever, if it means she’ll stay by my side.
“Who did this?” Peter demands, anger undercutting the obvious worry in his voice. “Who did this to her? Was it your brother? Was it?”
“No.”
“Priest, you better tell me who it was or so help me God, I will—”
“Stop!”
It’s Josie’s cry that snaps her brother into silence. “Stop! We have to be calm for her. We have to b-be calm. What if”—a sharp sob escapes her—“what if she c-can hear us yelling?”
In the rearview mirror, I see Peter’s shoulders begin to tremor. “She can’t die. She can’t.”
“I won’t let her.” Two pairs of eyes find mine before I return my gaze to the road. Softly, I speak only to Isla, “Do you hear that, sweetheart? I won’t let you. Don’t you dare disappoint me. I—I need you. Now, tomorrow, forever. You’re my only, and if you die on me, I’ll fucking drag you back from heaven myself.”
The moment a member of staff spots our car pulling up in the emergency lane, controlled mayhem ensues.
There’s clear, concise shouting about stretchers and body scans and then Isla is being ripped from my arms. I feel her loss immediately, and I flex my fingers, as though in doing so, I might retain the feel of her warm weight within my embrace.
“I’m her brother,” Peter announces to a nurse in scrubs. “We have to go with her. Please.”
The nurse turns dark eyes on Josie, who sticks her tear-stained face in the air with complete defiance. “Younger sister,” she says primly, before pointing a finger at me. “And that’s her husband.”
Peter doesn’t bat an eye at her claim, nor does the nurse, and I . . .
I step forward, linking an arm around Josie’s thin shoulders. “We need to be with her, however we can. The waiting room. The cafeteria. I don’t give a fuck where we are, so long as we’re seconds away when she comes out of surgery.”
Blinking back at me, the nurse offers a gallic shrug and turns on his heel.
We follow like a dog trailing its master’s heels.
“She’ll be fine, right?” Josie asks me.
I swallow, tightly. “Yes. Yes, she’ll be fine.”
Peter slants me a disbelieving look, and I avert my gaze. I’ve seen men survive worse injuries, and others die from a wound that shouldn’t have amounted to more than a scrape. And never have I been as terrified as I am now.
The nurse leads us to a small room with green-painted walls and uncomfortable chairs scattered throughout the space. He points to a water fountain with a dismissive wave of his hand, and then mentions something about food being available right around the corner and down the hall.
Peter and Josie collapse onto chairs, side by side, and I stalk the empty space.
I meet the gaze of every nurse and doctor that walks past, as though daring them to tell me the worst. They drop their eyes to the floor, every one of them. Cowards. Anxiety ripples through me as an hour turns into two with no updates from the trauma surgeon. And then, finally, commotion starts from down the hall.
Isla’s siblings launch from their respective chairs, moving to my side.
But it’s not the doctor’s grim-set face that I spot striding toward us.
It’s Marcus Guthram’s, and the satisfied smirk he’s wearing has me growling obscenities beneath my breath. He’s sandwiched by four other Met officers, all donned in the same navy-blue uniform that I wore, just days ago when I broke into the Coroner’s Court.
Josie’s small hand lands on my arm. “What’s happening? Did they find the shooter?”
“No,” I mutter, clenching my teeth, “they’ve found me.”
The Metropolitan’s police commissioner stops in front of me then snaps his fingers at the officer to his right. “Cuffs, Barnaby.”
The younger officer leaps into action, nudging Josie and Peter aside and coming around to my back. Aggressively, he grabs my arms and jerks my wrists together at the base of my spine. The second that cool metal encircles my flesh, I try to wrench away, only for three of the other officers to swarm me.