“You asshole,” I hissed under my breath. “I thought you were going to die.”

“Yeah, I heard about the Grand Prix dick tour once I’m in a coffin. It’ll have to wait another few decades or so. Sorry.”

“I was just teasing to see if you were conscious. I thought I felt you move,” I explained, watching as his eyes shut again, his throat bobbing with a hard swallow.

“I know, sweetheart.” His tone turned soft, scratchy.

“Can I do anything for you?” I asked.

“Can you climb on top of me and ride me?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t do anything for me, Nix.”

“Everyone is waiting outside. They are worried sick.” I rubbed his uninjured arm. “I should go out and tell them you’re okay.”

He nodded then grunted again, realizing his mistake. Everything must’ve hurt, and I made a mental note to ask the nurses to up his morphine dose.

“But I’m not going to go out there until you promise me something,” I warned.

His eyes were still closed when he asked, “Yes?”

“You asked me to quit my job, and I did, even though I did so with a heavy heart, knowing I won’t be able to help so many people who are in pain. Now I’m asking you to bow out of the battle with the Bratva, Sam. No more bloodshed. No more. I don’t deserve to become a widow because of your pride. Give up Brookline. Turn your back on this side of the city. Troy never took it over for a reason. Promise me.”

“It is not in my nature to lose.”

“Yet sometimes—not often—you will. You have to lose Brookline or you’ll be losing me. This is an ultimatum, Sam. I will not be made a widow at twenty-eight.”

He opened his eyes, looking at me, surprised.

His voice dropped low. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

I had to do this. For him. For myself. For his family and our future children. If he cared more about a piece of Boston than he did about me, marrying him was going to be a mistake. I felt oddly reassured by that simple logic. We held each other’s gaze, silent for a moment. His jaw ticked with annoyance.

“I can make this work,” he said. “I’ll talk to Vasily.”

“Give up Brookline.”

“I’ll get more security.”

I shook my head, standing up from the floor, wiping my cheeks clean of tears.

“I’m sorry, Sam, but it’s not enough. I’m not putting my heart in the hands of a man who won’t take care of it.”

“Goddammit, woman.” He turned his head sideways, closing his eyes, swallowing hard. “Fine. Fine.”

I knew how difficult it was for him to say this, to make this sacrifice. I leaned down and kissed his cheek softly.

“Thank you. I’ll go tell the others you are awake.”

Stepping backward and getting ready to leave, I turned around and heard his voice, sharp and cutting like glass.

“That’s what it feels like, doesn’t it?” he wondered, half in awe. “Love. I can’t believe I caught feelings like some fucking amateur. So many of them, too. This is deplorable.”

I grinned, glancing at him from behind my shoulder. He shook his head, scowling at the wall.

“Say that again,” I said.

“I’m a fucking amateur.”

“The love part.” I laughed.

He turned to glare at me.

“I love you, you little fool. I insisted on no prenup because I didn’t want you to run away, not because I cared about the money. It was never about the money. Even when I took the job with Gerald and Cillian, there was one thing I cared about, and it had nothing to do with power. I had that before I set foot in your house. I wanted to be close to you, even if I hated not being able to have you. I visited your father on a weekly basis. This thing was bigger than both of us, but we had a lot to lose.”

The idea that I wasn’t the only one who waited to catch glimpses of him made my heart stutter. I walked back to him, gently placing my hand on his cheek. He curled his fingers over my arm, looking up at me.

“I was close to blowing it all to shit, wasn’t I? You and me. The night you ran away into the woods. I could feel it.”

I shook my head.

“I never stopped loving you, Sam. Even—and especially—when you least deserved my love.”

“Kiss me, Nix.” He tugged me down to him. Our lips met. His were cold and dry and chapped, and I quivered, wanting to cry with what he’d been through. I pressed feathery kisses around his mouth, chin, and neck, smiling down at him, kissing his forehead one last time.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I fucking live for you,” Sam retorted. “Literally. I’m about to give up a lot to have you.”

“So you should.” I walked away, taking one last glance at him, knowing we were going to have a million more goodbyes.

And a million more hellos, too.

I ran to the waiting room, breaking the good news with a rush of stuttering words. Sparrow squealed and darted toward the room. My parents let out a relieved breath, though I wasn’t entirely sure what my father was doing here in the first place. Was it the guilt of keeping us apart for all these years?

Cillian and Hunter were the only ones who didn’t look visibly delighted by the news. They glared at me hard as I rehashed the moment in which Sam woke up, obviously omitting the lovey-dovey stuff that would make them gag.

“Hey, Ash, can we speak to you?” Hunter cleared his throat, throwing a glance at my parents. “Alone.”

He turned around before I could answer, marching down the hallway. Cillian followed him wordlessly. Frowning, I went after them, something cold and stony settling in my chest. This didn’t sound good.

They stopped when we reached the junction between the elevators and the emergency exit, a good length away from our parents. They both turned to look at me. All I needed was one look to figure out that they knew everything.

“What have you been playing at, Aisling?” Cillian demanded, his voice like icicles dripping down my skin, causing goose bumps to rise in its wake. “We went to the front desk and asked for you when we first arrived here. We couldn’t reach you on your cell, so we thought to go downstairs and check. The receptionists told us there was no Dr. Fitzpatrick in the hospital. Ran through the database. In fact, we went as far as going to the gynecology department ourselves to look for you—maybe you weren’t registered yet because you are still doing your residency—but I’m sure you know we came back empty-handed.”

“You are working somewhere,” Hunter pointed out. “The long hours, the hospital scrubs, your disappearing acts during dinners. What the hell is it you’ve been doing?”

I must have turned pale because even though they still looked at me like they wanted to kill me, they schooled their faces and stopped showering me with questions. I knew I had two options. Come clean and own up to what I did for almost a year or let them live with a half-assed lie. A lie wouldn’t be so harmful. After all, I quit.

Still, I couldn’t lie to them. Not again. My lies were piling up neatly on my conscience. Besides, I could no longer pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Someone tailor-made for my family to ensure they were happy and fulfilled and proud of me.