My chest tightens with guilt.
I should have just gone to her the moment I finished reading the letter, not curled up on the couch and passed out like the drunken idiot I am.
I need to find her before she decides to take back her words in the letter and call it quits.
I go to stand, but my legs feel like lead, and my head swims to the point of having to grab onto the back of the couch to stop myself from falling flat on my face.
Maybe it’s a good thing if Riley has gone to bed. She shouldn’t see me like this.
Despite what has happened between us, I am still about to be a father, and I’m not exactly painting myself in a responsible light.
I tuck Riley’s letter into my pocket and move toward the kitchen to get some water. I find my phone on the kitchen table next to a discarded plate of crumbs.
Fuck. The screen is cracked. I must have dropped it at some point. But of course, I don’t remember.
As I tap the screen, it floods with light.
It’s almost two in the morning.
It’s ridiculously late. Could Riley still be on the patio?
She must be.
The French doors are cracked open, letting in a cool breeze.
In a few hours, the sun will be beating down over the stretch of manicured lawn just beyond them but for right now, all I can see as I look through the glass is my own pallid complexion.
I pull the door wider and stick my head out, expecting to catch sight of Riley curled up on one of the loungers, fast asleep.
But what I see has my stomach turning to lead.
“No,” I breathe as I throw open the door and sprint out onto the patio.
I must still be drunk because there’s no way that I’m looking at dozens of dead bodies littering the lawn. There’s just no way.
But as I stand there, staring at the dark outlines, I know there’s no denying what I see—men I knew and trusted are now bullet-riddled and bleeding out before my very eyes.
The world narrows around me.
For a half-second, I stand still, completely frozen.
Then a raw animal sound rises from somewhere I don’t recognize, builds in my throat, and suddenly I’m yelling.
“Ronan! Get the fuck outside!”
My throat feels as if it’s being sliced open, but I don’t stop yelling.
It would be quicker to go inside and find him, but I can’t seem to be able to move or to look away from the scattering of bodies before me.
If I do, I have to be ready to face what this means.
Somewhere behind me, a door slams.
I blink out of my trance.
I need to move. But I don’t even make it back to the French doors before Ronan appears, already fully dressed, his face a mask of cold fury that falters just a fraction when he looks past me toward the lawn.
“What the?—”
