“I leaned over you,” Tiernan rasps, face going pale again. “You weren’t breathing. Kaden saw it too.”
“Kaden was in on it,” I say, gripping Tiernan’s shoulder hard enough to anchor him. “His job was to keep you from getting too close and spotting the act.”
Christian and Tiernan are only twenty-six and twenty-seven; we’ve known them since they were scrawny kids trailing after Nolan. When Nolan died with no heir, Christian stepped up and proved he’s twice the manFlanagan ever was. Right now he looks about twelve, eyes glassy, trying to process that his big brothers aren’t actually in body bags.
“Those fucking drugs,” Kian snarls again from the corner, rolling his shoulders like he’s trying to shake the paralysis out of his arms. “You told me I wouldn’t feel a thing, you lying bastard.”
“Same cocktail you took for Alek last year,” Christian mutters, rubbing the heel of his hand over his face. “Fecking Christ.”
“Sorry we kept you in the dark,” I say, softer now. “Flanagan was always breathing down your necks. We needed him to believe it one hundred percent.”
Relief floods their faces so fast it almost hurts to watch.
“So Flanagan takes the burn?” Tiernan asks, voice steadying.
We all nod.
“Rules are rules,” I shrug. “And he does love his precious rules.”
“The ghost of Christmas past,” Kaden drawls from the doorway, strolling in with that shit-eating smirk, hands in his pockets like he didn’t just sell the performance of a lifetime.
Christian spins. “Wait. Viviana and Autumn, did they know?”
“Yeah,” Declan answers, already bracing.
Christian’s eyes go huge. “She passed out. Viviana actually collapsed in my arms.”
Tiernan drags a hand through his hair. “Autumn dropped to her knees, sobbing like her world had ended.”
The room goes dead quiet for half a second.
Then we lose it.
Declan wheezes first, shoulders shaking. “She what?”
“Full faint,” Christian says, half laughing, half horrified. “I hold her in my arms like a corpse.”
“And Autumn,” Christian adds, “I’ve never seen anyone cry that hard. Thought she was going to break in half.”
I stare at Declan. He stares back.
“They might be better at this than we are,” Declan says, voice thick with pride and disbelief.
Connor throws his head back and roars with laughter. “Viviana, I expected. But Autumn? Jesus Christ, we created monsters.”
I drag a hand over my mouth, trying to wipe the grin off, failing hard.
My girl just fooled an entire room of killers while her heart was probably hammering out of her chest.
Fuck, I’m proud.
Declan’s mansion rises ahead of us, black against the pre-dawn sky, every window lit like a warning. Our men line the walls, rifles glinting. I’m out of the SUV before it fully stops, boots hitting gravel hard enough to jar my spine. All I can think about is her scent, her skin, the way she curls into me when the world gets too loud. For one heartbeat tonight I thought I might never feel that again.
I take the stairs two at a time, shoulder shoving the front door wide.
The living room is quiet except for the soft turn of a page. Viviana sits curled on the couch, legs tucked under her, reading like it’s just another Friday night.
“Firecracker.” Declan’s voice cracks. He crosses the room in three strides, hauls her up, and crushes her to his chest. The book hits the rug with a dull thud. His mouth finds hers, hard, desperate, one hand already sliding down the curve of her spine.
