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"You should have run," I tell Maeve. "Taken Conor and disappeared."

"I thought about it."

"Why didn't you?"

She looks at me, those ocean-blue eyes swimming with emotions. "Because he needs his father. And because... I need you too."

Siobhan makes a disgusted noise. "Fucking pathetic."

Maeve ignores her. "Don't think this means I forgive you. Or that I'm okay with any of this."

"I know."

"And when we get back, we're having a serious conversation about our future. About what happens next."

"Anything you want."

Jack returns. "Cormac's sending men. They'll be here in thirty minutes to collect her." He nods at Siobhan. "He says to get you to a doctor."

I look at my sister, slumped in the chair, defeat and rage warring on her face. "What will he do with her?"

Jack shrugs. "Not my business to know."

But I know. Cormac doesn't forgive betrayal. Especially not family betrayal. We have a few brothers in shallow graves.

"Tell him not to kill her," I say.

Maeve stares at me. "After what she did? She threatened our son! You have lost a lot of blood, do you feel okay?"

"She's still my sister."

"She shot you!"

"I know." I hold Maeve's gaze. "But I'm not becoming my father. And I won't let Cormac become him either."

Siobhan looks up, confusion breaking through her anger. "Why?"

"Because that's what he would want. Us destroying each other. And I'm done playing his game."

I take Maeve's hand, squeezing it tight. "Let's go home."

As we walk to the car, my arm around Maeve's shoulders, I think about what I just did. I could have let Cormac kill Siobhan. Maybe I should have. But I'm tired of Donovan’s killing Donovan’s. Tired of being what my father wanted me to be.

"Thank you for coming for me."

She kisses me, quick and fierce. "Don't get used to it. I'm not making a habit of rescuing your ass."

But her eyes tell a different story. One I never expected to read again.

CHAPTER12

MAEVE

"Four fucking hours." I check my watch again and kick at the leg of the waiting room chair. "What's taking so long?"

The clock on the wall ticks another minute. My fifth cup of vending machine coffee burns my tongue, but I drink it anyway. Anything to keep moving, keep from thinking about Declan on that operating table.

"Bullet wounds get infected. Who knew rolling around in decades old dead fish wasn’t sanitary?" I mutter, pacing the empty waiting room. When I found him, this morning burning with fever, his shoulder red and swollen, I lost my shit. Fuck Donovan back-alley doctors. I dragged his ass to a real hospital.