Page 86 of Ruthless Reign

“I did. Though I think it’s worth pointing out that you are not, in fact, dead, so there’s that. Where is Rebecca?”

As he asked the question, I rose to my feet and his calculating eyes slid to where I was half concealed in the shadows under the back stoop of the house.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d show,” I admitted, stepping down into the dim glow from the solar lights in the yard. I staggered down the last step and caught myself on the railing, using it to support my weight. It’d been a few days since the hospital, but it still hurt to put my full weight on the injured leg.

I could walk all right, but I didn’t think I would be running any time soon.

Aodhán lips parted in mute horror as he took me in.

“Wow. That bad?”

He moved to step toward me, but Kaleb and Hardin blocked his path, the latter with his teeth bared and a don’t fucking test me look in his eyes.

A muscle in Aodhán’s jaw flexed as he lifted his gaze back to mine through the gap between my guys. “My father did this to you?”

He fixated on the cut on my cheek. The butterfly closures were gone now, but it was still an angry red line, healing slow. His eyes widened as he squinted to find the bruises on my collar. They’d started a dull shade of barely there yellow but now they were an angrier color. Hues of blues and purples and sickly green.

“He did.”

I swallowed, fighting to keep my composure as I added, “And he…”

I choked before I could get the last words out.

He killed my friend.

…and Kate wouldn’t even speak to me. I wasn’t welcome at the apartment or at work anymore, and I didn’t even blame them. I wouldn’t want to be near me, either. Everywhere I went, pain and death seemed to follow.

It was better if Kate hated me. Easier.

I wiped a tear from my eye and tried again, my insides twisting as I spoke. “He killed Toby.”

Aodhán recoiled from the words as if I’d slapped him.

It seemed Daddy was keeping secrets from him. If it’d been nearly three days and Aodhán hadn’t heard a whisper of it, it could only be because Séamas was holding the information back.

Was he worried what his precious son might do if he found out?

Or was it something else? Was he biding his time for the perfect moment to expose Aodhán as a traitor and make a spectacle of his punishment?

I wouldn’t put it past him. I knew his type.

“I…” Aodhán trailed off and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he took in the barely restrained urge to break out into fresh sobs likely written all over my face. But crying wouldn’t bring him back. There was only vengeance for his death and I intended to exact it on his behalf. “I’m so sorry, mo mhuirnín, I didn’t know.”

I could tell he was wondering why that was.

Which meant Séamas hadn’t let on yet that he knew his son had betrayed him.

I didn’t like it. Any of it.

It couldn’t mean anything good. For Aodhán or for any of us.

“Well, now you do,” Kaleb said as he lowered his weapon. “Your psycho killer Daddy needs to be put down.”

Aodhán didn’t speak to defend his father. He said nothing. But as he took in my wounds again, I could see something in him shift. A hardness stole over his features and his gaze narrowed as he laid it on Kaleb and Hardin.

He’d made a choice.

I just hoped he made the right one, because if he didn’t, Hardin would end him here and now and I wouldn’t say a word to stop him.

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