Page 2 of Stolen Rival (The Stolen #1)

SORCHA

Awareness teases at the edges of my hazy consciousness. My lips are dry, my eyes fused shut, and some rude fucker’s drilling into my skull with a jackhammer.

What the hell did I do last night?

The cold claws of panic dig into my chest as the realization hits: I can’t remember.

When I try to steady my breath, it doesn’t work. It’s like a concrete slab is pressing down on my chest, and I can’t fill my lungs with air.

Start with the basics, Sor. Who are you?

Sorcha Brigid McCarthy.

That one’s easy. No amount of amnesia in the world could make me forget that God-awful middle name my parents gave me. I’m sure St. Brigid was a great aul’ doll and all, but she and I have zero in common.

She’s the patron saint of babies and nuns for Christ’s sake and was known for her ability to perform miraculous healings.

Ha. Miraculous healings. Maybe Mammy—rest her soul—and Da wished giving me the name would give me some of Brigid’s Zen. That backfired considering I grew up with a temper that could cut Connemara marble.

Though I’d give a lot of things for St. Brigid’s ability to turn water into beer.

I could do with a cold one right now. That has to be what this is. The world’s worst hangover. And I need the hair of the dog.

My stomach cramps, quickly changing my mind. Strike that, I’m never drinking again.

I can’t recall where I went last night, or what I drank, but the more empty space I find in my brain, the more alarm bells and red flags pop up.

Was I drugged? Or worse?

My body is sluggish to respond. Mercifully, there’s no immediate pain between my legs. I’d rather not lose my virginity while unconscious. My fingers and toes check in with a wiggle, but my limbs are heavy, and when I try to lift my head, I don’t get far.

Fuck. Did some arsehole drug me?

My confusion and fear quickly give way to a bloom of anger in my chest. If someone did me dirty, I’ll rip his balls off and feed them to the stray dogs.

At least I remember with crystal clarity who I am.

Only daughter, biggest disappointment—and the only one with red hair—of Brendan McCarthy, most powerful man in Ireland and leader of one of three Irish mafia families on the island.

If I could get my eyes to open, I’d roll them.

All I can hear is Da’s pompous voice in my head as he recites his spiel.

According to Irish legend, St. Patrick used a shamrock to teach the Holy Trinity to Celtic pagans in the seventeenth century. Seventy-three years ago, after the worst bloodshed the Irish mafia had ever seen, the heads of three families came together to make a truce using the very same emblem.

Apparently, my ancient history is still on point, Da would be so proud. But when I reach for what happened yesterday again in my gray matter, it’s still gone.

I attempt to open my lips to talk but they’re stuck together, and when I try to pull my body off the bed, searing pain rips through my abdomen.

What the fuck happened to me?

The stab of pain seems to unlock something in my brain. Gunfire raining down on the house, Da shoving me out of the way as he tried to reload a gun, everyone screaming.

Although the screaming might be from me. Those images flashing through my head aren’t dreams, they’re memories.

My house was under attack.

Firm hands press my shoulders into the mattress underneath me. “Easy love, you’ll rip your stitches.” A soft, calming voice is close to my ear. I’m anything but calm.

My senses kick in one at a time. The beeping sound of machines, and the faint buzz of luminescent lights. The clinical, chemical smell of a medical building. Pain. Bone-deep, agonizing pain in my gut, and a persistent throbbing in my head that won’t leave me alone.

I snap my eyes open, then scrunch them closed under the harsh glare. Those luminescent tubes are blinding but at least my eyes still work.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Sorcha, would you stop fighting and settle? I’m an old woman. I don’t have the patience for this.” There’s no malice in her voice, but she’s definitely crabby.

When my eyes finally adjust to the light, I focus on the person speaking. She’s probably in her early sixties, she’s got blue-rinsed hair, crow’s feet, and her lips are turned down in a sympathetic grimace.

“I’ll stop,” is what I attempt to say, but a low moan of pain comes out instead. A mist of sweat has prickled across my body, and if there was anything in my stomach, I’d probably hurl.

As if it’s listening to my thoughts, my stomach growls, too. My last meal was a fish supper from the chipper, Emerald Fry. When was that?

I can’t tell what time of day it is in this room.

The nurse with kind eyes checks the machines and puts a monitor back on my index finger before patting my forearm. There’s no pain where she touches. It’s a start.

“What’s the damage, nurse?” I can’t see her name tag.

“You have a nasty gash on your forehead that we sealed up with some staples. Your gunshot was a flesh wound. It’s superficial, a graze, you barely even got shot.” There’s humor in her voice. I definitely got shot. Surface wound or not, the burning and throbbing is fucking real.

“And you have some cuts and scrapes on the soles of your feet. Took us a while to get all of the shards of glass out.”

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 family business 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 even as a visitor?”

She shakes her head, a knowing sympathy creeping into her eyes.

My heart stutters, my blood running cold. “No one?”

She wordlessly shakes her head again.

Where the fuck is my family?

Da’s not answering, and when I try Tiernan and the others, it’s the same. I can’t reach anyone.

I’m all alone.