“Hey—what the fu?—”
My fist connects with his face before he can finish the sentence.
And it’s glorious. Angels should be singing Hallelujah behind me, because I have waited so long to mess up his face.
The crack of bone against bone echoes sharply across the courtyard.
Ronan hits the ground harder than I thought he would. Blood immediately pours from his nose as he scrambles backward on the cobblestones, staring up at me in shock.
Good.
Fear is the correct response here, buddy.
I grab the front of his blazer and yank him halfway off the ground again.
“You don’t follow her,” I tell him quietly.
My voice stays low, but every word carries enough threat to let him know I’m gonna fucking kill him when we’re not in direct view of St. Killian cameras.
He opens his mouth like he’s dumb enough to actually try to reason with me, but I shake him out of frustration and grit out, “Don’t you dare even look at her again.”
His eyes dart toward the path where Livy disappeared only seconds ago like he actually wants me to bash his head on a rock and put him out of his misery.
I tighten my grip and say, “Look at me.”
He does.
And whatever he sees in my face makes the color drain out of his skin.
“Leave her the fuck alone,” I continue, leaning down slightly so there’s no chance he misses a single word. “Or I’m going to shove that little rowboat of yours up your ass and send you out to sea.”
For a second he just stares at me, and then he nods quickly.
Too quickly.
Pathetic.
I shove him backward and straighten my blazer like I didn’t almost kill this fucker.
Kozlov doesn’t say anything else, and neither do I.
My attention has already shifted back toward the path where Livy ran off and disappeared from my sight.
I spot her almost immediately and take off to watch her more closely.
She hasn’t gotten far. She’s walking quickly toward the main quad, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
For a second I think she’s crying, and my chest tightens hard enough to hurt. But when she lifts her hand to her forehead, almost as if she’s trying to feel if she has a fever.
She’s not crying, but within seconds of watching her she’s coughing, turning slightly away from the wind as a few gusts blow from between the buildings.
I watch her shoulders rise and fall with the motion.
Last night she looked exhausted when she finally climbed into bed. I watched her toss and turn for nearly an hour before she finally fell asleep, curling into herself like she was trying to fight something off.
I noticed the cough then, too.
It was soft at first, but it kept coming back throughout the night.
