She had ash on her face, her lips dry, and that thin little nightgown showed too much skin.
I ordered the staff to move her to a private room. It took ten minutes; after that, I cleaned the ash from her skin myself, covered her up and sat in that room while she slept like nothing ever happened.
The air is getting colder, or I am getting angrier and hotter as we walk to the SUV. Kaden stays quiet; that’s why we get along like brothers. He knows me, reads the shifts in the air. Knows when to speak, when to stay silent.
The smoke still lingers when we get there. Not just in the sky, but in your lungs. The kind of smoke that clings to your clothes and coats the back of your throat. The fire’s out, but the building reeks of melted plastic and soaked ash.
Connor’s snapping pictures, methodical. Kian’s up ahead talking to a couple of firefighters, his stance tense.
The apartment block is still standing. Only the top floor and hers burned through. The crews saved the first and second. For what it’s worth.
“Flynn!” Kian calls out. I turn. He’s already heading toward me with Connor.
“Do they know what happened?” My voice stays calm, but there’s a sharp pull in my chest I can’t ignore.
“The landlord used cheap polyurethane foam insulation,” Kian says, the disgust in his tone loud enough. “Put it in years ago during some roof leak renovation. Never updated it. That shit’s toxic. Once it catches, it spreads fast. Like fucking petrol.”
“Fuck,” Kaden mutters, low. He already knows this ends with someone bleeding.
“They still don’t know how it started,” Connor says. “The apartment’s been empty a few weeks. It was supposed to go on the market next week.”
“Who’s the owner?” I turn to him. Connor hesitates. Eyes shift to Kian. I step forward. “I asked you a question. Who the fuck owns it?”
He swallows, then lifts his chin toward a smug bastard in a shiny, oversized suit talking to the police.
I move to go for him, blood already boiling, but Kian’s hand lands on my arm, tight.
“Not here. Not now.”
I start to snap at him, but he tilts his head left. TV cameras still rolling.
“We’ll get him,” he says. “Just not here.”
He lets go and steps in front of me to block the view. I hold his eyes. My rage isn’t loud; it never is. It coils beneath the skin, patient, waiting for its moment.
“Send me his name and address.” I clap his shoulder once and head for the SUV.
“I’m guessing I need to choose a warehouse,” Kaden says, voice like frost cutting through the heat.
“One far out,” I tell him. “Where no one will hear him scream.”
Sitting in my office, I can’t focus. The shipment paperwork’s in front of me, but my eyes haven’t moved past the first line.
Autumn was released two days ago, and she’s staying at the Callaghans’ mansion now. She’ll be safe there. No one gets past the level of armed security Declan keeps around that place.
Still, it doesn’t sit right. I know the fire spread to her apartment because of the landlord’s cheap, illegal bullshit, but what I don’t know is how it started. That place upstairs was empty. So how the fuck did it catch fire?
Declan thinks it was an electrical issue. Says she doesn’t need protection. That I’m being paranoid. Overprotective.
Maybe he’s right.
There’s something about her I can’t shake. Something that pulls at me, even when I try to let it go. She makes me feel. And I don’t feel. Not like this. It rattles something inside I don’t have a name for, and that’s what makes her dangerous.
If anyone finds out, she’ll be a target. A weakness. She’s already too close, already too deep in this world without even knowing it.
That’s the other problem. She could protect herself better if she knew the truth. If she knew who we really are. But the rule is clear. No one outside the Irish Consortium knows the full picture. You’re either in it or in our pocket. Autumn is neither.
She’s Viviana’s colleague, nothing more on paper. But lately, they’ve been acting more like sisters. That alone is enough to put a mark on her.
