“Go,” he repeats, softer now.
I close the door halfway and lean my forehead against the wood for three slow breaths I don’t deserve. When I open my eyes, the room is small and clean and impersonal, exactly what I need. I set the duffel down and lock the window. Then I sit on the edge of the narrow bed and let the calm come like a tide I can’t stop.
Just a few hours. Then the tide turns.
CHAPTER 25
AN ACT
Caitríona
I wake to the thrum of my phone trying to crawl off the nightstand. I gasp, my heart catapulting up my chest. For a second, I don’t know where I am. The ceiling is too clean, and the air too still. Then the safehouse snaps back into place: old brick, new locks, and a silence that feels like it’s suffocating.
Pushing myself up off the stiff mattress, I pick up my phone. The screen is a stack of notifications.
Donal (12 missed calls)
New messages flood in before I can swallow.
Donal: Answer your phone.
Donal: I found Sean.
Donal: He says you’re running. He says you were packing to bolt.
Donal: I don’t believe him. Tell me why, Cáit.
Donal: Where are you? I’ll come get you.
Donal: You’re not safe.
Donal: Tiernan is on a rampage. Doors are getting kicked in.
Donal: If you don’t call me back in five minutes heads will roll. Literally.
Donal: I won’t be able to stop him.
Donal: Call. Me. Now.
My thumb hovers over the call button. Love is a neat word until you measure it against men like Tiernan. I set the phone face down like it can’t ring if I don’t see it.
They can take care of themselves, I tell the ceiling. Da and Donal have been wading through blood since before I had any teeth. They don’t need me to hold their hands now. They’ll be fine. I need to take care of myself.
I finger the locket, warm and familiar, then press my palm over the orange blossom beneath my shirt.Livia. Just once, the way you test a wound to make sure it’s still there.
Hushed voices leak through the door. Low. Male. Matteo. And someone else.
What the hell?
I slip to the door and press my ear to the wood.
“—two blocks out. No uniforms.”Matteo. “If Ale asks, you never saw her. If anyone else asks, you never saw me.”
A reply I can’t make out through the door, and then him again.
“Yeah, I’ve got her here. She’s still sleeping. I’ll hold until you get?—”
My chest ices over.I’ve got her here.I’ll hold until you get—Who? The Rossis? Geminis? The thought explodes through me so fast I almost laugh. Of course. Of course, the safe place comes with a lock.
