Page 120 of Jaded Soul (Kovalyov Bratva 3)

“Sure thing.”

We start the drive. It seems to me the cabbie is going so fucking slow.

“Oi, mate—if you can speed up a little, there’s an extra fifty in it for you.”

Instantly, he hits the accelerator and we’re driving twenty miles faster than before. I glance at my phone. It’s been fifteen minutes since I left the police station.

It’ll take another fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the airport from Saoirse’s house in Finglas.

I don’t have time for this. The clock is ticking on my death warrant.

But I can’t leave Ireland without speaking to her first.

“Faster, mate,” I whisper. “I don’t have long left.”

* * *

The moment I see her house snuggled in the neck of the cul-de-sac, I tell the cabbie to stop.

“Keep the meter running,” I instruct him. “I won’t be long. You’ll get an extra fifty.”

He gives me a bright smile and a tip of the imaginary cap as he parks by the side of the road. I launch myself out of the cab and sprint to Saoirse’s front doorstep.

I bang on the door a dozen times before I see the buzzer for the bell.

Brrring!

Brrring!

Silence. No footsteps. No movement.

And then I realize: she’s not here. She must be with her father at the hospital.

“Fuck!” I roar. I don’t have time for this shit.

I punch the doorframe hard enough to split a few of my knuckles. I leave the blood smeared there on the peeling white paint.

A little memento, I guess. Morbid.

I race back to the cab. “Clontarf Hospital,” I bark. “Push this fucking shit-heap to the limit, mate.”

The ride there is a blur of Dublin sidewalks and storefronts and alarmed pedestrians. To his credit, the cabbie whips the vehicle like his life depends on it.

Which I appreciate, since mine actually does depend on it.

We come to a screeching halt in front of the hospital. I’m out of the vehicle before it’s even fully stopped. My feet pounding the pavement. My breath coming in short gasps.

A clock in my head is tolling out every second. I’m painfully aware of how little time is left here—and how much there is that I want to say to her.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I barrel past nurses and doctors, past frightened families and zonked-out patients.

Up the stairs, down a hall, up another flight of stairs.

Left-right-left-left-straight to the end.

And there it is. CONNELLY is scrawled in messy handwriting on a whiteboard outside the room.