My chest tightens the way it always does now when someone mentions my father. Not fear. Not anger. Something in between that I haven't figured out how to name.
My father is recovering. The throat wound healed cleanly, and his voice is back, deeper than before, rougher at the edges. He knows about Reilan. All of it. William sat with him for two hours in the hospital and told him everything my brother had done, and when it was over, my father asked for fifteen minutes alone, and when the door opened again, his eyes were dry, his jaw was set, and he asked about the alliance.
That's my father. Break his heart, and he'll fold it into strategy before the blood dries.
"He can come," I say. "The guest room is ready."
William looks at me over the rim of the mug. "Are you?"
"For my father?" I lean against the counter. "I'll manage."
He sets the mug down and reaches for me. His hand on my hip pulls me closer until I'm standing between his legs, where he's leaning against the counter, and his other hand is on the back of my neck, and his forehead is against mine.
We stay like that. Breathing.
I think about Reilan. I think about him every day, and I hate myself for it, but I think about him anyway. William told me he got on a plane. London first, then somewhere in Europe. No contact details. No forwarding address. My brother is out there, somewhere, alive because I begged for his life, and the space where he used to be is a wound that doesn't close.
I don't talk about it. William doesn't ask. But sometimes at night, I lie awake in the dark beside him, and I think about the corridor outside Reilan's room. The light under his door. The sound of my palm against his face. And I wonder if he's sleeping or if he's awake too, somewhere, thinking about the sister he tried to save by burning down everything around her.
William's thumb traces the line of my jaw. "You went somewhere."
"I'm here."
"You went somewhere," he repeats. Patient. Not pushing.
"Reilan," I admit.
His hand doesn't tighten. Doesn't withdraw. Just stays where it is, warm against my skin.
"I know," he says.
That's all. He doesn't tell me it'll get easier. Doesn't tell me I made the right call. Just holds me and lets the name exist in the space between us without trying to fix what can't be fixed.
The morning passes. William takes another call in the sitting room. I unpack a box of plates that arrived yesterday and find places for them in cupboards that are still mostly empty. The house is full of these small gaps. Shelves with nothing on them.Walls with no pictures. Rooms that echo because the furniture hasn't caught up with the space. It'll take time. We have time.
Just after noon, the doorbell rings.
William is in the kitchen before I am. His hand goes to his waistband. Habit. The gun is there. It's always there now.
"It's Aidan," I say, checking the time. "He's early."
"Aidan's never early." William's hand drops from his waistband, but doesn't relax.
He crosses the kitchen, and I follow him to the front door. Through the glass, I can see Aidan's car in the drive. Raven is beside him, stretching as she steps out. Behind them, a second car. Matty.
William opens the door.
Aidan comes in first. He looks at the hallway, the new floors, the fresh paint. Something moves across his face that might be pride or might be grief for what was here before. He claps William on the shoulder and walks past him into the house.
Raven stops in front of me. She looks good. Color back in her cheeks. Her dark hair pulled back, a sweater that covers the scar on her arm.
"You owe me wine," she says.
"It's in the kitchen."
She grins and follows Aidan.
Matty comes last. He pauses at the threshold and looks at the house. At the stone. The windows. The new door.
