Celebration

I was given a private room, put on oxygen therapy, fed plenty of drugs to ease the pain of my broken bones, and basically pampered like royalty at Fitz’s hospital. Giles was recuperating in an adjacent room. He suffered a severe case of whiplash during the car crash and had to wear a neck collar for weeks. Other than that and some abrasions and lacerations caused when the airbag deployed, he was fine. I was relieved. With Rainey in the wind and Carl gone, I wouldn’t be needing protective services—hopefully. But there was still Conor. As soon as I came out of a drug-induced twenty-hour sleep, I told Kieran everything. He fell into a contemplative silence. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he said after a while. ‘Don’t worry.’ I was discharged five days later, after my broken bones healed and the bruises on my face faded away. Kieran drove me back to the apartment on the south bank. I inhaled the sweet scent of home and was welcomed by the splashes of vibrant, warm colours in the living room. It w