"You were warned," Liam says. His voice is conversational. Almost pleasant. That's when Liam is most dangerous.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? I wasn't going to hurt her. I just wanted—"
"You hit her," I say. "There's a handprint on her face."
Kyle's mouth opens and closes.
I take off my jacket and hand it to Aidan. Roll up my sleeves. Kyle starts scrambling backward across the floor but there's nowhere to go. His back hits the wall and his one good eye darts from brother to brother, looking for mercy.
There isn't any.
"Killian," I say. "Door." He locks it.
I crouch down in front of Kyle Whitfield the way I crouched in front of Nadia sixty seconds ago. Same position. Same closeness. Completely different intention.
"Last time, I broke your fingers and your devices," I say quietly. "This time, you will disappear. Completely. Permanently. No one will look for you. No one will find you. It will be as if you never existed."
Kyle starts to cry.
I stand up.
"Hold him," I say to Liam and Aidan.
And then I go to work.
Nadia
Grace drives. Iris sits in the back with me, her arm around my shoulders.
Nobody speaks for the first few minutes. The streetlights slide over the car in rhythmic pulses and I watch them pass and try to stop shaking. My cheek throbs. My lip is swollen where I bit through it, and I can taste the blood every time I swallow. My wrists ache where Kyle's fingers dug in.
"You're safe," Iris says quietly. "You're safe, Nadia. We've got you."
I nod. I can't speak yet. The words are trapped somewhere behind the shock, lodged in the same place my screams were stuck twenty minutes ago when Kyle shoved me into that car. I press my forehead against the cold window and close my eyes.
"We're going to the estate," Grace says from the front. Her voice is calm. The voice of a woman who has lived inside this world long enough to know that tonight is not the worst thing that could have happened, and that the men they left behind will make sure it never happens again. "Saoirse is waiting. She'll want to see you."
"She knows?"
"Yes. You should probably know that not much gets past her."
I imagine Saoirse receiving the call, setting down whatever she was holding, and simply starting to move. Kettle on. Blanketsout. Doors open. The matriarch preparing her home the way she always does when one of her own is hurting.
One of her own. I'm not even married yet and she already considers me hers. The thought makes my throat ache.
The Orlov estate appears through the trees. Every light is on. The house is blazing against the dark like a beacon, and when Grace pulls up to the front steps, the door is already open.
Saoirse is standing right there. The silver strands in her hair glittering in the dark, a cardigan pulled tight over her dress. She's smaller than I remember. Smaller than seems possible for a woman who raised five sons and a daughter mostly alone.
She takes one look at my face and her expression goes through something fast and fierce. Then it settles into warmth.
"Come inside, sweetheart." She takes my hand. Her grip is firm and her palm is warm. "You're home now."
She says it like it's a fact. Like this house has always been mine and I'm just late arriving.
The kitchen is warm and bright. Saoirse has the kettle on and the table is set with mugs and sugar and a plate of shortbread that nobody is going to eat but that needed to be there anyway. Because that's what Saoirse does. She feeds people. She steadies the room with simple, ordinary things until the extraordinary things shrink back to a manageable size.
Iris guides me into a chair. Grace disappears, then returns with a blanket. Saoirse stands beside me and presses her hand to my undamaged cheek, her thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
