I want to close the distance.
I want to touch her.
I want to claim her in ways I have no right to even imagine.
The thought alone sets my whole body ablaze.
We stand there, two storms in one too-small space—her anger and grief colliding with my obsession and guilt. What’sforbidden between us, what’s inevitable, presses in tight, suffocating, electric.
My body aches for her.
My mind begs for restraint.
And still, with a terrifying certainty, I know nothing she says, nothing she does, will stop me from needing her—wanting her—in ways I can’t, and shouldn’t, name aloud.
Chapter 29
Age 20, London
The city blurs around us as I sit between Cora and Owen in the back of the car, her clammy hand clutched in mine. My stomach twists into knots, each pulse a warning I don’t understand. Half asleep, and uncaffeinated, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t still dreaming when Jonathan called. I didn’t even know he had my number but I wasn’t going to question his clipped instructions.
Liam drives us through the early morning traffic in silence, but it’s heavier than words. The quiet presses on me, growing unbearable with every passing block. My mind races, trying to imagine what awaits me—Jonathan and Helen? The whole inner circle? Confrontation? A warning to stay away from Matt? Or…something worse? My throat tightens and my hand presses to my knee, sweaty and trembling.
Before I’m remotely ready for what lies ahead, Liam has parked the car and is holding Cora’s door open. She gently tugs my hand when I remain frozen in the backseat, and in silence we head for the lift. As we climb up to the penthouse, my head starts spinning, the urge to run screaming at me. But there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. The second the doors open, Helen is in front of me, wringing her hands with Jonathan at her side.
“What’s… happening?” My voice is barely more than a whisper.
Jonathan swallows, opens his mouth, then closes it again. Helen bites her lip, glances at him, then back at me. Fear and regret swim in her eyes. I reach out toward her instinctively, and for a brief moment, she clasps my hand, offering me more comfort and support than my own mother ever has, but then the lift dings again, shattering the moment.
Ciaran storms in first, scowl carved into every line of his face, hands tight into fists at his sides. Brennan follows, eyes blazing, every inch as furious as his twin, and then Matt appears behind them, calm in a way that makes my chest seize.
I haven’t seen him much since Abbie and Logan’s honeymoon a few weeks ago, and our texts have been scattered at best as I keep trying to tell myself to do the right thing, to shut this down before things escalate even further… but the sight of him hits me like a punch to the gut, and my breath snags. Want claws through me, sharp and painful, even as danger hums around his edges.
Even dishevelled—five o’clock shadow, bags under his eyes, and messy hair—he steals every drop of air from my lungs. But when he refuses to so much as look at me?
My stomach caves in, the walls tilt, and the whole damn room shrinks down around me.
Cora steps slightly in front of me, small but fierce, Owen mirroring her at my side.
“Lily had nothing to do with this,” she says, voice shaking but sharp.
“Silence,” Ciaran snaps, glaring so harshly I flinch.
“Mind your tongue,” Jonathan bites out. “That’s my daughter you’re talking to.”
Jonathan takes a step closer to my stepdad, placing him in the middle of the room. The imagery of him being stuck between his family and his men has a rock lodging its way somewhere behind my ribs. What the hell is going on? I risk a glance in Matt’s direction, but he’s too busy looking at the floor where he’s scuffing his shoe against the hardwood. His folded arms and slumped shoulders do little to reassure me things will be okay.
“You saw the emails, Johnny, she’s just as guilty as Jen. That mother of hers was recruiting girls for that bastard’s sex trafficking ring and she fucking knew. She’s theirasset,” Brennan sneers, his glare pinning me in place. My mind whirls at a million miles an hour trying to process what he’s saying, but the picture he’s painting is so distorted I can’t even begin to fathom it.
I stagger back, mouth dry as what he’s implying sinks in. “No… no, that’s not—”
“Don’t you dare try and lie to us, girl,” Ciaran snaps, his voice like steel as redness creeps up his neck. Seeing his tightly leashed furry aimed at me, makes me stumble back a step, only Owen’s hand on my shoulder and Cora’s threaded through mine keeping me from running.
“You’re trash,” he snarls. “Just like that bitch. And if I had my way, you’d meet the same fate as her.”
The words hit wrong—flat and sharp, like a blade to the ribs.
Same fate.
