Page 17 of Claiming Pretty

The memory of Ciaran’s promise came rushing back, unbidden, sharp and taunting.

“Ty,” he hissed, his voice going in and out on the crackling line, “it shouldn’t beyouin prison.”

I’d closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the hard metal edge of the phone box.

Ciaran sounded on the edge of a breakdown, his emotions always so volatile. “I’ll tell the cops that—”

“You’ll not say a fucking word,” I snarled, gripping the phone so hard the ancient plastic cracked.

There was silence on my brother’s end.

I tried to breathe evenly, aware of the officer watching my rounded back. I couldn’t lose control like that again. In this cursed place, it could prove fatal.

I needed to ensure that my brother didn’t do anything stupid. So I had been forced to call Ciaran instead of who I really wanted to speak to: Ava.

I missed out on my last chance to speak with her. To tell her goodbye. To tell her I loved her.

I knew it would haunt me for years to come, but I was alwaysthe one who had to do the hard things. Make the sacrifices. Be the fucking “good guy.”

But it would be worth it if she was safe and protected.

“Listen, Ci.” It was a struggle to speak as the emotions choked me. “You are going to let me take the blame for Ava or—”

“Ty—”

“Or…” I hissed, “you’ll join our father. Do you understand me, brother?”

He was silent, my threat hanging over us.

Maybe he was stunned. Maybe he didn’t recognize this version of me—cold, unyielding, capable of saying something so dark. But he needed to understand. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for Ava.

Nothing.

Besides, this wasmyfault.

I couldn’t believe it when Ava told me she’d killed our father.

“I killed him.” The words had shattered something inside me, left me grappling with the truth of what she’d done and why.

And when our butler had entered the room to find his master dead and raced for the phone, Ava ran out into the garden.

I had tried to go after her. But Ciaran held me back.

And then he had told me.

Our father’s twisted, sick little secret. A truth he’d only just uncovered himself, but one I should have known all along. One I should haveseen.

The revelation had stunned me into silence, a heavy, suffocating silence that felt like it would bury me alive.

My father had been hurting Ava. He’d been drugging her—and hurting her.

My Ava.

And I—I hadn’t been there to stop it.

The guilt clawed at my chest, relentless and cruel. I should have known. I should have known.

But I was too fuckingbusywith the debate team, science club, the fucking fencing team.

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