My body sagged in relief as he reached me. We were safe. He was here, and we were surrounded. Nothing and no one could touch us now.

“Pop,” I whispered as he wrapped his thick arms around me.

“My Brenna girl. Where have you been, lass?” He squeezed my middle in a tight hug.

My relief was unfortunately short-lived because the moment he squeezed, my body tensed in pain. I promptly lost consciousness and felt nothing.

I woke up, bleary-eyed, to someone prodding at my ribs. At first, I wasn’t aware of my surroundings, so I began to panic, frantically pushing those roaming fingers away.

“Brenna! Stop! Let Doc look at you.”

I heard my father’s voice from across the room. The past week came back to me instantly, and panic rushed in for another reason.

“Where’s my girl? She was in the car! Where is she?” I feverishly looked around the room, not spotting my daughter anywhere.

“Ach. I found her. Don’t be worrying about that. I left her outside with the boys, and she was just fine. Now say hello to Doc. Let him finish looking you over, and we can have a bit of a chat, yes?” he admonished me.

I looked to Doc, who hadn’t seemed to age since the last time I saw him—well, except for the fact that he seemed to have lost about thirty pounds. I wasn’t sure he ever had an actual medical degree, but he’d been fixing up members of the club and their families for as long as I could remember. He’d always seemed like such a contradiction to me. He could gently set a five-year-old’s broken arm (mine) and beat the hell out of someone (some huge guy that I had never seen before) all in the space of an hour. He was old as dirt when I was a kid, and I wasn’t sure how he was still alive and kicking.

“Hi, Doc. It’s been a while,” I said with a sheepish smile. “I’m not used to waking up to someone coppin’ a feel. I thought you were just getting handsy. Sorry about that.”

He started to guffaw in his deep baritone, and I found myself smiling at its infectiousness. His looks were deceiving; the man’s voice was as strong as ever.

“Glad to know you still got some fight in you. Although, I’m wondering where that fight went when whoever it was cracked these ribs,” he replied with a raised eyebrow. “You’re going to need to take it easy, girl. I don’t know how you’ve been getting around like this.” He shook his head. “I’ve wrapped your ribs, which doesn’t do a whole lot other than keep you aware of things, so you don’t move the wrong way. There’s really nothing I can do for you at this point. I’ll leave you some pain meds, but with the way you react to them, you may want to stick with something over-the-counter.”

I’d always had a very strong reaction to pain medication. For some reason, they just seemed to hit me harder than they did everyone else. When Doc had given me one for cramps when I was a teenager, I’d slept for thirty-six hours. It’d freaked Pop way the hell out.

With a nod, Doc packed up his bag and left, closing the door behind him. I closed my eyes for just a moment, preparing for what I knew was going to be an extremely hard conversation. When I opened them again, Pop was sitting on the edge of the bed. I realized I was in his room, and it was freshly painted in a garish shade of yellow, but before I could say a word, he started to speak.

“Brenna, what the hell is going on? You show up here after five years—and believe you me, lass, I’m grateful—but the minute I hugged you, there you went, fainted dead away in my arms. So, I lifted you up to carry you inside, and out of the corner of me eye, I found your wee lass sitting in the car bawling her eyes out.”

Even after all these years, if Pop was upset about something, his accent got thicker. I found that comforting in a way that I couldn’t explain.

“She wasn’t making a sound, Brenna! Tears were falling down her face, and she wasn’t making a bloody sound! She couldn’t be more than four years old, and she doesn’t say a word when her mum collapses? I handed you off, and as they took you inside, I grabbed your girl. Now, she’s crying, mind you, but no matter what I said, she just kept on crying, but she was completely fuckin’ silent.”

He raised his arms in exasperation, and I forced myself not to flinch from the sudden movement.

“She was stiff as a board! I can understand the lass being afraid of a scary old man like me who she don’t know from Adam, but she didn’t fight me! Oh no, I lifted her up, and her back just snapped stick straight, but she kept on crying. Then, when she finally stopped, I left her with the boys outside. I came in here and saw Doc checking out that bruising you have all over your body. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

As he spoke, his face got redder and redder, and by the time he finished, I could see the tendons in his neck straining under the skin. I took a deep breath to try and calm my nerves. The conversation could end in one of two ways: Pop would be mad as hell at me, or he’d be ready to kill my husband. I knew it would be the latter.

“Now, Brenna!” he growled.

“It’s a long story,” I said, trying to find the right words. I was already starting to cry.

His voice was softer when he spoke again. “Start at the beginning, lass.”

“I’m married. I’m sure you already know that though. Um, we met in college, and he seemed like a really good guy. We dated for a while, and eventually, he asked me to marry him, and I agreed. By then, I was pregnant, so we just did a quick Justice of the Peace thing, ya know? Things were fine for a while. His family is from Salem, and they’re really into politics although I’m not sure what his dad does. He makes a lot of money though because, Pop, seriously, his mom lunches. She spends her days doing all of this charity shit, and she doesn’t work. Ever. She’s never worked. Plus, she’s a bitch.”