Page 115 of Wicked Ruin

Unlikely.

“The face doesn’t quite match, and now this account’s gone quiet. She has the little blue checkmark, verified.” Bronwyn pulls up her phone, taps on the socials, and it pops right up. “Look at this.”

I squint at the phone. “What’s that, a tag or something?”

“Yes. Her friend tagged her.” She gives me a knowing look.

“I don’t understand the significance of your look right now.”

“In Bali. Yesterday.” It probably slipped through the radar of whoever is running this.

“Well, she’s not in Bali; she’s here. That’s my point.”

“That woman,” Bronwyn says, pointing in the vague direction of Ballyhock, “the one who’s supposedly marrying Declan.” She looks at me. “That’s not the real Valentina.”

“What?”

“Will you believe me now? We have to prove it, and I think we need to get Erin involved.”

I nod. I think so too. Then we’d be dealing with the exact science of research, and there’s no one better for the job.

“Right, then, I’m going home.”

“We need to bring this to Cavin,” I say.

Bronwyn shakes her head. “Look, I tried. He said it's”—she pauses to make air quotes—“confirmation bias. That we don't like her, so we're looking for reasons.” She pauses. “He's not wrong that we don't like her. But he's wrong about the rest of it.”

She's right, and nobody's going to believe us until we have something they can't dismiss. Which means we need more. “Mam is a bit out of it since Da went to the hospital, and I want to make sure she’s eating and going to bed and such.”

“How is he?”

“Better,” she says with a smile. “Thanks to you.”

She gives me a huge hug before shutting the door.

“Hey,” I whisper at the closed door after she leaves. “I’m pregnant, Auntie Bronwyn.”

I collapse on the bed, my eyes heavy.

When my phone buzzes with a text, I look at it with one lazy eye, thinking it’ll probably be him, offering me another crumb when I want the whole goddamn meal.

But it’s not him. It’s Erin.

Erin: I have something to tell you. Tomorrow, at the McCarthys?

Chapter Thirty

DECLAN

I hear Cavin's car on the gravel before I see it, and it's not a good sign. Cavin didn't call ahead. He didn't text. It's one of those things I've always privately found a little funny about him, the way he always checks in. But this time, the absence of a call means the courtesy has run out.

Shite.

I set down my glass. He slams the car into park, punches his door shut, and jumps up the stairs toward my flat, two at a time. Then he fills my doorway for a moment, taking in the room, taking in me, standing at the kitchen counter. I’m bracing for impact.

“You fucking arsehole,” he says, and then he lunges.

He crosses the kitchen in four strides and hits me so hard my head snaps sideways, and I fall against the counter. The glass falls off the edge and shatters on the floor. I straighten up, touch the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand, look at the blood on my knuckles, then stare at Cavin, who stands in the middle of the kitchen, breathing hard, with his fist still half raised.