Page 80 of Claiming Pretty

His lips tightened, his polished exterior cracking for a fleeting moment. Fury flashed in his eyes, but then his gaze flicked toward the nearby receptionist. The mask slipped back into place, but I could see the cracks forming beneath.

“I will find out who took my boy from me,” he said, his voice low and simmering with barely contained rage. “And I will make them pay.”

My skin prickled, but I held my ground, refusing to let him see me falter. “I’m sure everyone involved will get exactly what theydeserve.”

His blue eyes, so like his son’s yet so much colder, bored into me—a parting threat.

“Hopefully, he’s just sailing around the Mediterranean, having the time of his life and forgot to charge his phone.” I let out a patronizing laugh over my shoulder at him as I walked away. “Boys will be boys. You remember the Majorca incident last summer…”

His nostrils flared briefly, but he forced his lips into a tight smile. “Be careful, Ava.”

I blinked up at him, pretending not to catch the menace beneath his words. “Excuse me?”

His voice was light, almost kind, but his gaze chilled me. “Well, you know… a good many students seem to be disappearing lately. I’d hate to see anything happen toyou.”

I forced myself to hold his gaze for a moment longer, letting my smile widen as though I hadn’t noticed his threat.

I turned and walked away, my pulse hammering in my ears, his threat lingering behind me like a shadow, and I knew two things for sure.

They were onto me.

And this was far from over.

The lingering echo of Foley Senior’s grip still burned on my arm, the veiled threats of the three powerful men—suspected Sochai members—clouding my thoughts all day like a mist.

Even now, as I walked through the Darkmoor campus library’s history section, I couldn’t shake the weight of their words—or the implication that I was already caught in their web.

The faint smell of aged paper and leather might have comforted me on another day. Tonight, it only reminded me of the old, suffocating power of the men who ruled this place.

Even the shadows between the towering shelves felt heavier, darker, as if I were walking into the mouth of a beast I’d never come out from.

My fingers brushed along the dusty spines of the library’s ancient books, their titles barely visible in the dim light. But my focus kept slipping, wavering between therows of forgotten histories and the heated argument brewing just behind me.

“It’s simple,” Ciaran said, his voice low and sharp. “We kill them. All three of them.”

Ciaran’s hands gripped my shoulders, his fingers digging in just enough to demand my full attention.

His blue eyes blazed, raw and untamed, as he leaned in closer. “They don’t deserve to keep breathing after what they’ve done to you.”

I froze under the intensity of his gaze, every nerve in my body pulling tight. The sheer force of his anger clashed with something deeper—something primal and protective that twisted my heart in ways I didn’t want to admit.

He was wrong. Killing them wouldn’t solve this. But the ferocity in his eyes, the unrelenting promise to keep me safe at any cost, sent a pang of love through me so sharp it almost drowned out my disagreement. Almost.

Before I could find the words to respond, Ty’s voice cut through the moment, calm and calculated, the stark opposite of Ciaran’s heat.

“It’s not that simple, Ci,” Ty said, his voice carrying a cold precision that made me shiver. “Just killing them doesn’t solve the problem. It just makes more noise. And noise attracts attention we don’t want.”

The tension crackled between them, an invisible storm brewing in the air. Ciaran’s glare snapped to Ty, his jaw tightening as if the mere act of restraint might shatter him.

I felt the moment splinter and took the opportunity to slip from Ciaran’s grasp, my gaze focusing on a book title that made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

“Are you fucking serious?” Ciaran’s voice rose, his frustration breaking past the tenuous restraint he’d managed to hold on to. “You’d rather sit on your fucking hands while they threaten Ava?”

Before I could answer—or before Ty could retort—the librarian’s stern voice cut through the tension like a whip.

“Quiet. Or take this elsewhere,” she said, her glare cutting over the top of her glasses as she peered at us from the end of the aisle.

I shot Ciaran a warning glare, gripping the edge of the nearest shelf to keep my growing frustration in check.

---