“They’re isolating you before the kill,” I continue. “They’re cutting you off from everything, and then they’re going to ask for a meeting with you and Declan and Keira. A ‘summit.’ A conversation about restoring trust. About ‘what comes next’ after your father’s death.”
I breathe hard and swallow. It’s the most I’ve said in days.
Callum’s eyes bore into me.
“And you’ll never leave that meeting alive.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
I can see the thoughts racing behind his eyes. The calculations. The rage. Maybe even the fear he’s trying to bury beneath that controlled exterior.
He puts his gun away and rubs his face.
“How do you know all this?” Callum asks finally.
The truth is a burden I’ve carried for years. It’s been wedged in my chest like a shard of glass. Every breath cuts. Every ritual, every sacrifice, every plan has pushed it deeper.
Saying it out loud feels like dragging that glass out with my bare hands.
This is it. The beginning of my end.
“My name is Zaria Quinn,” I say. “But that’s not what the Order calls me. To them, I’m the bloodline.”
"Bloodline?" Callum asks.
I nod.
"Cormac Donoghue is my father, and now that I'm here, either you're going to kill me or he will."
8
CALLUM
Idon’t remember moving, not fully.
One moment I’m staring at the girl who I just had a gun to her head, the next my legs are walking on instinct.
I get outside the room and slam the door behind me, the noise making Tommy’s head snap toward me. I lean against the wall and rub my chin.
Holy fuck. Cormac Donoghue's daughter.
I need a moment. There are a million things running through my mind. I have to think clearly and I couldn’t do that in the same room as her.
Matei Ionescu just delivered me either the greatest gift imaginable or a damn Trojan horse, and I can't tell which.
She doesn’t seem dangerous, but maybe that makes her the single most dangerous thing in this house right now.
But the fear in her eyes, the way she leaned into the gun, no one leans into a gun aimed at their skull unless the terror inside them is bigger than death.
She literally asked me to pull the trigger, that wasn't an act. I've seen enough liars to know the difference.
She's scared. Broken. Terrified.
And if Cormac is really her father, why would he kill her?
What father would murder his own daughter?
The question sits heavy in my chest. I think of my own father, the way he looked at me the day he told me I was ready when the time came. The pride in his eyes, knowing the legacy would pass from one generation to the next.
