Page 99 of Ruthless Claim

The same low rolling weight, the same sensation of something being wrong that I can’t locate.

Nothing important.

But it’s the way he said it. It wasn’t a fast or guilty-quick answer of someone caught off guard.

It was like he’d already thought about what he’d say if I saw him.

I close my eyes.

Stop it.

I breathe and I stare at the inside of my eyelids.

I keep tell myself to stop it, but I don’t stop it, and eventually I fall into a shallow unsatisfying sleep that fixes nothing.

It gets worse.

Not all at once.

There’s no single thing I can point to, no moment where I could say: there, that’s it, that’s proof. It’s more like—one Wednesday he takes a call and steps out to the balcony instead of the study, sliding the door shut behind him.

I’m in the kitchen making tea and I can see him through the glass. His back is to me, one hand braced flat on the railing, shoulders up around his ears.

He’s not pacing, instead he’s very still, which with Cillian is worse than pacing.

He stays out there for eleven minutes, which I know because I watch the clock on the oven.

He comes back in and slides the door shut. His face is impassive.

“Tea?” I offer.

“I’m good,” he says and goes to the study.

He does it again two days later and it’s like déjà vu.

He goes out to the balcony, and there’s the same rigid shoulders, same eleven-ish minutes on the phone.

With my tea going cold, I watch him through the glass and he doesn’t turn around once.

A day later, he texts at two in the afternoon: handling something for Connor, don’t wait up.

I try to, since I don’t like taking orders from anyone.

Unfortunately for me, I fall asleep on the sofa somewhere around ten with a gallery report on my lap.

I wake up at midnight to find the lamp still on and Cillian in the armchair across from me.

He’s still in his jacket and his elbows are on his knees as he leans forward slightly.

He’s looking at me with an expression that I catch for maybe one full second before his eyes register that mine are open and his face closes off. But I see it.

He looked—wrecked.

He looks tired in a way that goes past physical tired, something tight and worn around his eyes and his mouth.

There’s also something that looks like guilt, too. But then it’s gone and he looks impassive again.

“When did you get back?” My voice comes out thick with sleep.