Page 119 of Shattered Hearts

I cast him a sideways glance. “What were you doing there?”

“Where?”

“At my apartment. That day.”

The car accelerates around us, and that vein in Cian’s jaw jumps again.

“I’m not suspicious of you!” I hurry on, worried my question offended him. “I’m grateful you were there. I wouldn’t be here right now if you hadn’t been. But…how did you happen to be there?”

He sucks in a breath he doesn’t release.

Then he grinds the words out. “I do a couple sweeps a day. Just in case she shows up there.”

She.

Harper.

My eyebrows rise. I slow blink at him while dozens of follow-up questions race to my tongue.

“I ran into her a few nights before the big day.” Cian’s voice deepens when he talks about Harper. “She was drunk at a bar in Midtown. She told me she couldn’t go through with it.”

The thought of Harper drunk and alone at a bar somewhere, struggling under the weight of our world, sends guilt twisting through my heart.

While she tried to drown her woes over an apparently unwanted engagement, I was cursing her for having the nerve to marry Finn.

Somehow, I know Cian edited a lot of the story. He exhales as though he already regrets sharing as much as he has.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I promise him. “She missed a check in day with me, and now my texts get bounced. I’m worried.”

Cian gives me a sidelong glance. The concern in his eyes mirrors the same horrible, eerie sensation writhing in my gut.

The car growls to a halt at the gated entrance to the Gallagher estate. As the automatic ivory-covered wall pulls slowly apart, we share an silent, ominous exchange.

Then, like a curse, Cian’s phone shrills.

Rory.

Cian takes the call in silence. Two seconds pass before his eyes flash up like he’s been suckered in the gut.

Wide-eyed and enraged, Cian shifts back to me. “They’ve got Finn.”

Something snaps inside me. My heart crashes all the way to my toes and shatters.

Chapter 31

Finn

Whoa. My head.

Rough hands snatch the hood up and over my face.

Optic white interrogation light accosts my eyeballs.

In the center of this spotlight, I find myself strapped down. The cold metal chair beneath me almost feels wet. My ankles are zip-tied to the icy chair legs tight enough to prevent blood circulation to my feet, and my wrists have been given the same treatment.

Ahead of me, the only thing visible is a shadow. I have the view of an audience from the eyes of a performer on the brightly lit stage.

My mind is alert, but my senses sway, compliments of the drug cocktail swimming through my veins.

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