“No need to kill him,” one said in a thick Russian accent, pointing his gun at me. “We’ll do it for you.”

He shot two bullets into my chest.

Everything went black.

I slipped in and out of consciousness as they rushed me to the hospital. I couldn’t feel any pain in my chest or my shoulder, which couldn’t have been a good sign. Everything was blurry. The white punishing florescent light forced me to close my eyes as soon as I opened them.

In the background, I heard Cillian and Hunter’s voices, and Devon’s.

“Johnny and Grayson are dead,” Hunter said, unaware that I was half-conscious. “We need to take care of that.”

“Troy’s on it,” Cillian quipped. “He’ll clean up the scene. He has people working on it right now. They’re boarding up the card rooms in case the police get tipped off.”

In that moment, I was glad my friends weren’t total dumbasses. I must’ve groaned because Cillian’s head snapped in my direction. The doctor and nurse behind me shooed my entourage away. We must have been heading into the operating room.

“Call Ash,” I tried to say, but even though I could move my mouth, it didn’t produce any sound.

“What?” Hunter reached over to squeeze my hand. For fuck’s sake, what was he going to do next? Cut the cord when I delivered his fucking baby?

“Call Ash!” I roared, hoping my hearing was impaired due to the gunshots and that I didn’t lose my fucking vocal chords.

Cillian and Hunter stopped dead in their tracks behind the medical staff as my gurney burst through the double doors.

I had to stay alive.

I had to.

Not for me.

For her.

I closed my eyes again.

For the first time in my life, I was losing a fight.

“I quit.”

Dr. Doyle and I were sitting in front of each other, filling out charts.

I blurted the words before I chickened out, making the older man straighten in his seat. He watched me through the thick rim of his reading glasses.

“I’m very happy to hear that,” he said finally, and all the air rushed out from my lungs in a desperate sigh. Even though I knew Dr. Doyle had been wanting me to explore more legal and accomplishing means of medicine, I also knew he had his hands full here at the clinic, and he needed help.

“I feel terrible.” I covered my face with both hands, shaking my head.

“Don’t.” I heard the smile in his voice. “I want more for you than this. That time you came to my office, when you found out what it was I did, I knew how passionate you were about this job when you told me about Ms. Blanchet, but I never hoped for you to come work here full-time.”

“But what about Mrs. Martinez—”

“She’ll survive,” he hurried to say. Then, realizing his poor choice of words, he gave a small chuckle and added, “I’ll take over. I have my own ideas about her treatment.”

I swallowed. He was a great doctor. I wasn’t worried about his abilities, I was worried about his workload.

“What are you going to do?” I asked Dr. Doyle, peeking at him through my fingers fanned across my face. The engagement ring still felt heavy on my finger. Strange and foreign and yet like a cloak of security I’d never worn before.

Dr. Doyle’s eyes halted on the huge sapphire ring, but other than his smile tugging wider, he didn’t mention it.

It was obvious he put two and two together.

Engagement meant marriage, and marriage oftentimes meant babies, and if there was one thing my children deserved, it was at least one parent who wouldn’t be at risk of being thrown into prison.

“I’m going to cut back on the work eventually, too, starting by turning down new patients.” He dropped his pen on the chart he was filling out. “You know, I thought about this long and hard recently. Why we do this…” he motioned around the room “…and I’ve come to the conclusion that we are trying to repent. We’ve both lost people we loved very dearly in the most horribly painful ways, but it is not our fault. It is time to let go of the guilt, my dear. You cannot change history. But you can write your next chapters. You are doing the right thing by quitting, Aisling. You have a beautiful life ahead of you. Ah, to be your age again,” he said wistfully, staring at an invisible point behind my shoulder, looking far away all of a sudden. “The world is spread before you in all its glory. Make the most of it. You’ve worked hard here, and you weren’t paid a penny. You’ve helped others. Now it’s time to focus on yourself, child.”

I looked down and noticed my phone was beeping with an incoming text. I slid the screen with my thumb.

Cillian: Clover.

Hunter: Cloverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

They could wait. They sure made me wait when I needed them.

“Do you think I can handle a residency?” I gnawed on my inner cheek.

I’d been so far removed from mainstream medical institutions, finding my way back into them felt almost impossible.

“Dear,” Dr. Doyle chuckled, “the question is, can they handle you? You are a force to be reckoned with. Compassionate, pragmatic, and hardworking. A lethal combination for a doctor.”

He got up, rounding the desk between us, and offered me his hand. I took it, rising to my feet. Dr. Doyle engulfed me in a hug. The deep, bone-crushing kind that rearranged your entire being in just the right way.

When I stepped out of the clinic for the last time in my life, I found myself looking behind at the building’s door with a soft smile but without longing.

Doing what I did never truly fulfilled me.

It dulled my pain.

I was ready for the next chapter in my life.

To stitch people back together, atoning for all the lives my future husband would no doubt rip apart.

I forgive you, mon cheri. You were just a kid. Besides, maybe, just maybe I put you in an impossible situation, too, I heard Ms. B’s voice in my head and knew, with a decent amount of both disappointment and relief, that I wasn’t going to hear her voice very often from now on. Her job was truly done now.

I took out my phone, striding absentmindedly to the Prius.

I had a lot of missed calls from Cillian, Hunter, and Devon. Gosh, they really couldn’t handle how yesterday went down with Sam and me. They needed to get over themselves.

The texts, however, gave me pause.

Cillian: Answer.

Hunter: Please just pick up the phone. We are not trying to yell at you for the engagement.

Cillian: Sam is in the hospital. Brigham. He’s been shot twice. He’s in critical condition.

Hunter: You have to come see him. He is asking for you.

Devon: Aisling, darling, your brothers are quite disoriented, too much to pay attention to the finer details. But as a solicitor, one must wonder, if you are currently at work, and your workplace is the hospital we’re in, how come we can’t seem to reach you?

I jumped into the car, flooring it all the way to the hospital, my heart in my throat.

My worst fear had materialized.

Sam’s sins finally caught up with him.

I blasted through the ER doors, running toward the waiting area, where Hunter, Cillian, Devon, and Troy were standing with a frantic-looking Sparrow.