Page 81 of While You Sleep

“He won’t answer,” Conor said.

I tapped his number anyway. It rang and rang, and then his deep voice echoed down the line telling me to leave a message.

“Sorry, darlin’, but it’s over,” Conor said and closed the space between us, ushering me out of the room and down the hall. The house was silent, felt empty. I looked into my office as we passed, everything except the heavy furniture was gone.

I walked down the stairs, and Conor strode to the door. He opened it, and I turned back, looking up when movement caught my eye. Cillian stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at me. He said nothing. I wanted to run to him, to make him talk to me, to make him believe me, but the look on his face told me he wasn’t going to listen.

My legs shook, and my heart broke, but I forced myself to turn away—

Thunder exploded beside me, blood spraying from Conor’s shoulder, hitting my face. I screamed and spun around. Seamus stood in his pajamas, the gun in his shaky hand aimed at Cillian. “No!” I ran at Seamus without thought, colliding with him as more shots exploded around me. We hit the ground. My ears rang, my hip and arm throbbing from the way I hit the tiled floor. Seamus was utterly still beneath me. I scrambled back and my hand slipped. Blood, so much of it.

He was dead, a shot through the head.

I spun around to check that Cillian was okay. He was striding toward us as Danny and several of his men ran in.

“Are you hit?” Cillian snapped.

I looked down at myself. I was covered in blood but none of it was mine. “No.”

His jaw was tight as hell. “Get Conor to the hospital.” He turned to Danny. “And get Sophia cleaned up and out of here.”

What? “No. Cillian…”

“You can’t be here,” he said through gritted teeth, his gaze slicing back to Danny. “Get her out of here, now.”

Danny grabbed my arm and dragged me from the room. We went out to the pool area, and he ushered me into the small bathroom out there. Then ordered one of the other guys to grab me a change of clothes from my bags before giving me another light shove toward the bathroom. He turned his back to me but didn’t leave.

I dragged off my blood-slicked clothes and numbly got into the shower. I didn’t remember any of it. I dried myself and took the clothes Danny had set on the counter. No underwear, a pair of pants that I’d only worn once to a funeral, and my pajama top. I pulled them on, wrung out my hair as best I could, and let Danny guide me around the side of the house.

There was no sign of Cillian now, but I guess he had a body to deal with. He’d just shot and killed his father.

“Take me to Cillian,” I said to Danny.

He shook his head. “He wants you off the property.”

“When can I come back?” I asked when he opened the door for me.

“You can’t, Soph. I’m sorry,” he said, the same look of pity on his face that Conor had given me.

“Are you going to kill me now?” I asked.

“You gonna tell anyone what happened?”

“No.” I didn’t want to think about it, there was no way I’d tell anyone about it.

“Then, no,” he said.

I wasn’t really afraid for my life. Cillian may be kicking me out, but he’d never let anyone hurt me. “Will you let me know how Conor is?”

“Yeah,” he said and shut the door after me. He got in and turned to me. “There any place you can go?”

I wasn’t going home. My father was dead to me. “No.”

“What about your friend, the loud, flirty one?”

Fiona’s was an option, but if she saw me now, I’d fall apart. I quickly searched my phone and found an Airbnb close by that had a couple weeks available. I booked it for the next day. “Just take me to a hotel, any will do, I have something arranged for tomorrow. I’ll text you the address and you can have my stuff delivered there tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

Danny nodded, started the car, and we drove away.

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