Page 13 of Claiming Pretty

I bolted after Ty.

The rain hit me the moment I burst through the mansion’s front doors, cold and slicing, soaking through my thin dress. Red and blue lights painted the sprawling lawn, illuminating the gravel drive and the blackthorn trees lining the estate. I felt like I was drowning in those lights, the colors spinning and blurring as my bare feet skidded against the wet gravel.

“Ty!” I screamed, my voice hoarse, almost swallowed by the storm.

Ciaran’s strong arms wrapped tight around my shaking body, holding me back.

I saw Ty in handcuffs, fighting against the officers who were trying to drag him toward the police car.

Ty shouted at me, eyes wild like a trapped animal, but all I could hear was the roar of blood rushing in my ears.

The crack of the officer’s knuckles against his cheekbone brought sound crashing back in.

I heard officers shouting and rain splattering. For a moment his head hung heavy between his shoulders, most of his weight supported by the men dragging him backward.

But as they opened the door to the police car to shove him in, he lifted his head and found me with his gaze.

His eye was already swollen from the knuckles of the police officer’s brutal fist. But the pain etched across his face was deeper than the darkest bruise.

He screamed, “I love you more!”

“Wake up, Ava.”

A soft nudge pulled me from the depths of sleep, and I blinked groggily, the world outside the car window a blur of dark shapes and scattered lights.

“We’re almost there,” Ty said, his voice low, smooth, and calm in the quiet hum of the car.

I sat up straighter, my heart stuttering in my chest as I looked out the window.

The familiarity hit me like a punch, sharp and disorienting.

The neat rows of grand old Victorian mansions stretched along either side of the street, set back from the road, their facades steeped in history, their wide, sweeping drives flanked by towering birch and oak trees, their heavywrought-iron gates gleaming in the soft light of gas-style lanterns lining the cobblestone sidewalks.

My stomach twisted, nerves churning as I tried to process the flood of emotions rushing through me. Anticipation, dread, hope—it was all tangled together, suffocating.

It all looked exactly the same. Like nothing had changed in the three months since I was taken.

Buteverythinghad changed.

I was a murderer.

I had killed Ty’s father—Ciaran’sfather.

I hadn’t meant to. God only knows, I hadn’t. I just wanted him tostop. The tea was supposed to make him sleepy, nothing more.

But I must have put in too many flowers. Too much oleander. Too much poison.

And Ciaran—poor, clueless Ciaran—had taken the tea to his father, unaware of the deadly concoction he was handing over. He didn’t know he was delivering a death sentence.

But I did.I did this.

Did that makemea monster?

The question twisted in my mind, sharp and jagged. I hadn’t planned to kill him. But when I’d thrown up that drugged hot chocolate, I had been too awake.

I had remembered.

And then he’d taken me to the hospital… left me alone for a week.

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