Tommy, one housemaid I trust with my life, and the two guards I stationed outside her door.
The fewer who know, the safer she is.
Or the safer we are.
I’m not sure which one I’m protecting yet.
I run my tongue across the back of my teeth at the growing annoyance building inside me. My brain feels too full and Zaria’s voice keeps replaying in my head, the way she saidDo itand leaned into the barrel of the gun.
There’s a part of me that thinks she’s not capable of doing the kind of shit her father orchestrates. But that’s been wrongbefore. I’ve seen people look harmless until the moment they slit your throat.
I need more time with her to figure it out.
That’s the reason she’s still alive, or at least that’s what I keep repeating to myself.
With all this going on, the last thing I expected to be dealing with was a suicidal crazy woman dropped on my doorstep, branded by the enemy, and carrying secrets bigger than she is.
But why not? Why the fuck not.
Everything else in my life exploded recently. Might as well add one more unstable element.
I shake my head and pour myself a drink. Whiskey, two fingers, no ice. My hand doesn’t shake exactly, but it isn’t steady either.
The glass is halfway to my lips when the door swings open.
They’re right on schedule.
Declan walks into the room first, followed by Keira. He looks pissed.
"Fucking texting me at three in the morning that you've got some news and then nothing? What the hell, bro?" Declan says and walks straight toward me, his voice laced with irritation. "Little early, but I'll take one."
I pour him a glass without a word, then motion toward Keira with the bottle.
"No, I'm fine." She sits on the armrest of the leather chair by the window, her gaze fixed on me.
"You may want one," I say, setting the bottle down. "When I tell you what I've pieced together."
She straightens, eyes narrowed. “What news?”
Declan takes a sip, then sits in the chair next to her. "Yeah, let's hear it."
I lean against the desk, the wood cool beneath my palms, and exhale slowly.
"Our family didn't always control Boston. Seems our grandfather killed for it."
Declan's brow furrows. "What the hell does that mean?"
I start at the beginning.
I tell them everything Zaria said.
About our grandfather and the Donoghue family.
About working together, then the betrayal, and the fire.
About how Cormac survived the massacre as a kid, witnessed the flames, lost everyone, and was thrown into a psychiatric ward where he built the foundations of the Morrígan Order.
I tell them how he used his dead father’s hidden money to create Shadowharbor, how he’s been slowly poisoning Boston from the inside out with alliances that weren’t alliances at all, just traps set decades in advance to destroy us.
