I sit beside her, watching her chest rise and fall. My brothers are here. Quiet. Present. The weight of what just happened is still thick in the air.
“What the hell was that?” Marco’s voice breaks the silence.
“She was ready to kill herself,” Milo says, like he still can’t believe it.
I swallow hard, still staring at her.
“She said they were going to kill her,” Marco mutters. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. My voice cracks. “But I believe her. She didn’t care what was going to happen to her.”
They don’t speak, they just sit in the room with me. Watching. Waiting.
My eyes never leave her. I almost lost her. I was ready to fall off that fucking cliff with her. And I’ll do it again in a second if it meant I can keep her safe, and I’ll burn the world down to keep her that way.
Aoife’s breathingis soft now, her body curled in my sweatshirt like she’s trying to disappear into it. Her damp hair clings to her temple, and every now and then her lip twitches like her mind’s still at the edge of that cliff.
The place she jumped.
Because of them.
Because of this fucking war.
Because we can’t be together.
My fingers drag through my wet hair; it’s like my body still hasn’t processed the fact that I almost lost her tonight. Not to a bullet or betrayal. But to herself.
I take a long drag of my cigarette, lean my head back, stare at the ceiling, and think about what the fuck my next move should be.
One thing I do know, she’s not dying.
“She’s asleep?” Rosa’s voice is barely above a whisper. She stands at the edge of the bed now, her face unreadable as she watches Aoife. Marco and Milo flank her, both of them have stayed quiet, faces hard with concern they aren’t used to showing. The last time any of us were this worried about something was with Rosa.
I nod once. “She cried herself to sleep.”
Rosa moves closer, kneels beside the bed, brushing a stray tear off Aoife’s cheek with the back of her hand. “I know this look,” she says softly. “I wore it once.”
Silence swells between us. Heavy. Unbearable.
“Is she okay?” Milo finally asks.
I shake my head. “No. Not even close. She threw herself off a fucking cliff.” My voice is shredded, I still can’t believe it’s got so bad for her, she fucking did it. I look at them, the three people who’ve always had my back through hell and worse. “She said they planned her death.”
Marco curses under his breath. “This is more than just arranged marriage bullshit.”
“She wasn’t fucking bluffing.” I glance down at her again, hand resting lightly on her leg beneath the blanket. “And Conor? He’s in on it. The way she spoke, like she’s already counted the days she’s got left.”
No one speaks.
“She wasn’t just playing to see how I would react,” I whisper. “She chose it. That moment on the cliff, she meant it.” I squeezemy eyes shut. “I fucking let myself think I could stay away. After the last trial, I told myself to pull back, that we couldn’t have this. But I ran like hell the second I thought she’d actually do it and when I grabbed her hand, when I saw her eyes…”
“Matteo, you jumped to save her,” Marco says quietly. “If you’d missed her, you would’ve died. For her.”
Rosa walks toward me and lays a hand on my shoulder. “You love her.”
I laugh, dry and bitter. “I’m not allowed to love her. Father would kill me,” I whisper the last part. I sigh and sit on the edge of the bed again, glancing at the clock. “Trial starts in an hour.”
“Matteo…” Marco says, warning in his tone.
