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“You figured out a way, didn’t you?” Ivy finally asks quietly.

I lower my voice so no one inside will hear me. “We’ve exhausted all ways of getting Aerin out. All except the most obvious that puts her at the least risk of coming to harm.”

I feel Ivy look at me, so I turn to study her.

“You walk in and walk her out,” she says.

I nod.

She says nothing for a couple of seconds. “She won’t thank you for putting yourself at risk, and neither would Connall. And, since you’re family now, neither would I.”

“But?”

She squeezes my arm again. “Good night, Mack. Be careful.”

I watch her walk inside and close the door shut, then I hear her walk up the stairs.

And I turn to look into the distance, at where Aerin must be.

15

AERIN

As the door handle slowly turns, I reach for the bottle of water from my tray and sit up.

I don’t so much as blink as I stare.

Running to slam that door shut is not an option. I’m too pregnant to make any fast movements.

All I have is the element of surprise.

I’m on my feet, inches from the door with the bottle of water in one hand, when the door opens the rest of the way.

I throw it as hard as I can. The man growls as he recoils, water dripping from his face. That’s when I grab the handle and slam the door shut.

Then I start yelling.

I don’t care what I yell.

Anything that will attract attention to this man who was sneaking into my room.

And I hold the door shut closed so he can’t try to force his way in anyway.

I yell for so long that eventually, a few doors away, someone angrily shouts back. “Shut the fuck up. I’m trying to sleep.”

A door slams.

Someone else screams something, and I fall silent as I stare at the door, not sure if the man I flung the water at has left.

It was the same man from before.

Now that my heart is no longer pounding as hard as a gazelle running for its life, I know it had to be that same man from before.

I don’t think Franklin told him to bring me anything at all.

I think he heard Shane had died, and he was fabricating a reason to come to my door and make sure I was here, alone, before he came back to do something worse to me when he thought I’d gone to sleep.

That’s why his steps were so much heavier when he was walking away from the door than when he was returning.

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