Page 56 of King of the Dawn

“Have you talked to her about it?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because she feels like she owes me,” I said on a sigh. “Because she might be scared of being alone, even though there’s nothing she can’t handle.”

She had killed Brock all by herself. She could take care of herself. She didn’t need me anymore. She had her stupid fisherman…

I pushed off the glass, staring out at the balcony where the two birds perched, looking at me as if they were questioning my judgment too.

I’m projecting my feelings onto stupid, fucking birds… I have sunk to a new low.

“Because it’s what’s best for her.”

My sister didn’t say anything immediately. For once, I think, she was contemplating what I said with the level of seriousness it deserved. It didn’t happen often. My smart ass sister always had a witty jab, and quick retort at my expense. But she was capable of great wisdom once in a while.

“Isoveli,” she sighed. “If you think that the only way for her dreams to come true, is for you to step out of her orbit, then…”

She took in a ragged breath. I knew she was no longer talking about me and Eve. She was talking about herself, and someone else.

“Then that’s the right thing to do, even if it hurts.”

And that was exactly why I called her, and not my daughter. Rose believed in happy endings, and grand gestures. She believed in the obsessed, selfish love that she and Alastair shared. But Yuliya and I were destined for other things. Maybe it was our bloodline - something Rose was spared. It was the curse of our father, or the curse of fratricide. Happiness was not meant for us.

“We do the right thing.” My sister was saying it more for herself than me. “We do the right thing, no matter what.”

I heard a sniffle on the other end. Was she crying? I didn’t want to pry… she wouldn’t want me to. But it broke my heart.

“Even if it hurts, isoveli.” She sniffed one more time, before she coughed. “Anyway, we always have each other.”

“That’s right,” I said with a sad laugh.

It was me and my sister to the moon and back.

When we hung up, I was finally able to find the strength to leave.

I dropped the apartment keys on the table, dissolving my final ties with the woman with fiery hair, and walked out the door, shutting it firmly behind me.

She was safe.

She was saved.

It was time for me to get back to work.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Aoibheann

I saw a familiar face in the crowd. Unlike the rest of the pale faces of the native Irish, her deep tan and plump lips gave her away. She caught my eye because she looked like Rose. So much so that I almost cried out my stepdaughter’s name in my desperation.

“Lea, right?” I asked her, as she flipped through the newspaper, her ankle crossed at her knee.

“I told him it wouldn’t work,” she sighed. “You know exactly what I look like. I was at your wedding, for fuck’s sake.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“He put me on your security because he wanted you to ‘have the best’.” She mocked Jericho’s deep voice and his authoritative tone with the last phrase and I wanted to laugh. She continued her mockery. “Twenty-four hours, Lea. I mean it, Lea. You’re in charge, Lea.” She shut the newspaper. “Ugh, he’s insufferable.”

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