There was a bit of hope in his heart that Brigid was gone, but the luck of the Portuguese apparently didn’t run the same for the Irish. Rafe recognized the wide-bodied black town car idling in the valet’s pass-through, mostly from the Finnegan’s Pub and SFPD vinyl window stickers tucked discreetly along the back glass. If there was any doubt left in Rafe’s mind, it was shooed away by Brigid’s appearance at the building’s entrance, her melodic Irish brogue thanking the doorman for letting her through.
She was a sharp explosion of red hair and personality, but Rafe’s gaze drifted to the handsome dark-haired man following her. Brigid’s hand fluttered as she talked, patting her son’s arm or side, navigating down the walk to her car with clear, sure strides. Quinn took the touching gracefully, head cocked to one side as his mother chattered away. She was carrying a weighted-down brown bag, its jute handles clutched tight in her hand, and it swayed back and forth with each step Brigid took, knocking Quinn in the shin.
It was good to see them laugh. Especially when Brigid realized she was beating her son up with whatever she was carrying. Rafe heard her hearty burst of Gaelic, something teasing and tender he couldn’t understand. Maybe never understand, really. Even at their most difficult of tense times, Brigid and Quinn loved one another—a mother and son relationship he’d never achieve with his own.
Yet when Brigid caught sight of him at the edge of the sidewalk and smiled as wide as a sunrise breaking through a San Francisco morning fog, Rafe knew he didn’t have to look any further than Quinn’s flame-haired tornado of a mother if he needed any love.
“Hey, come into my house and clean me out?” Rafe teased, crossing the few feet between them. Nudging the bag, he sniffed down at Brigid. “Thieving baggage, isn’t that what you guys say?”
“It’s cat food,” Quinn offered. “Harley’s a food snob. She won’t touch most of what Kane brought over.”
“Whereas my worthless fleabags would eat the flesh off yer bones before ye’ve drawn yer last breath.” Brigid slapped away Rafe’s hand as he reached to carry it for her. “I’ve got this—”
The bag gave way under the weight of the cans, its bottom splitting at the seams. Brigid moved forward as Rafe bent down, grabbing at the rolling tins before they could launch off of the sidewalk and down the hill. They hit hard, smacks of metal on cobblestone and cement, but Rafe heard something else, a cracking sharp slap of sound he couldn’t figure out, no matter how hard his mind turned it around. He blinked and looked, his attention snared by Brigid’s alarmed gasp, wondering what she’d seen or heard.
Then all Rafe saw was the blood.
Chapter 16
Reaper came for all of us
Jerked us up from the brine
Slipped out from his bony fingers
Landed on our feet just fine
Took four steps to Freedom
Took four souls to the line
Spat at the Devil at the Crossroads
Drank our sins with sweet, sweet wine
—Death, Devil and Sin
QUINN WAS covered in his mother’s blood. He’d entered into the world covered in her blood, and now he feared she would leave while he stood in a cruel mockery of his own birth.
He didn’t remember the drive to the hospital. Something primal in him snapped into place, and he’d thrown both his lover and his mother into her idling black sedan, ordering Rafe to press his hands to the wound on Brigid’s chest. There probably were red lights along the way. He didn’t remember those either. Nor was he surprised when he pulled up into the hospital’s ER intake bay and found a phalanx of cop cars screaming up behind him, their lights and sirens set to full blast. Quinn hadn’t cared about the wave of dark uniforms coming toward him. He was only focused on one thing—getting Brigid inside the cold cement box of a building before she drew her last breath.
“There’s so much blood.” The sheer amount of it staining his clothes and hands staggered Quinn. “She’s so tiny. How can she have so much blood? God, suppose that’s all she had?”
A second later, panic hit, and he paced away from the wall he’d been near, almost bumping into a drawn-faced woman. His brain kicked into gear, slapping Quinn with her name—Kiki, his sister. Hell, he couldn’t even remember his own sister.
“This is your fucking fault, Quinn.” Ian rounded on him, cutting across Kiki’s path. His younger brother—youngest, really—brought himself up to his full height, towering over their sister. Ian’s expression was hard and sour, his not-quite-formed echo of Connor’s strong features startling to see in another face. Quinn took a step back, but Ian followed, nearly shoving his chest into Quinn’s. A quick finger stab into Quinn’s collarbone, and Ian was off on a tear. “You’re the reason she’s in there. Fucking dying. You’re the—”
“Stop it.” Donal didn’t rise from his seat in the waiting area. He didn’t have to. The shock wave of his low, cutting voice stilled his children, bringing them all to a poised apprehension. “Sit down or walk away, Ian. I’ll not be having to hear ugliness while I’m waiting for yer mother to come back to me.”