Page 117 of Vicious Hearts

Tears begin to pour down my face as I shake my head violently side to side. Through the blur and the screaming in my head, I turn to look through the window, seeing Cillian suddenly racing as fast as he can for Hope House.

“Stay strong, Una. And stay the course. You’re so close to—”

“YOU’RE. NOT.REAL!” I scream, my voice breaking as I ignore a horrified Sister Angela swinging the door open.

“Wait until the blood starts to flow,” my father’s ghost hisses, just as Cillian crashes past Sister Angela, his face lined and determined.

“Then you’ll see how real I am.”

Cillian yanks the phone away, just as I hear the click of the line going dead. I collapse, sobbing and shaking, as he drops to the floor next to me, scooping me into his chest.

“Una—”

“He’s alive,” I choke.

“What?”

“He’s alive…”

Tears of terror stream down my cheeks as I shudder and curl into a ball against him.

“Una,who—”

“My father.”

Cillian goes still as I lift my tear-streaked face to his.

“My father isalive.”

25

CILLIAN

She’ssilent on the drive home, her face stony as her blue eyes lance through the window into the night.

At some point, my hand slides from the shifter over to her lap, my fingers lacing through hers. She doesn’t turn my way, but she squeezes my hand tightly, like she’s afraid she might float away if she wasn’t tethered like this.

I want to tell her that she’s not going anywhere. That I’ve got her, and I won’t let her go. I want to scream into the night so fucking loud that whoever that was on the phone hears me andweepsin fear.

Because when I find them, I will redefine the words pain and suffering for what they did to her today.

He’s alive. My father is alive.

I don’t know who that fucker was on the phone. But it sure as hell wasn’t Seamus O’Conor. My foot presses down on the gas, sending the car lurching forward over the Verrazzano Bridge.

Ghosts aren’t real. But even if they are?

This one will learn to fear me.

* * *

Back in Brooklyn,at the penthouse, I lead a still dazed looking Neve over to the couch and make her sit. I pour a couple of drinks and slip a glass into Una’s clenched fingers. She shivers, looking up at me with wide, terrified eyes as she takes a sip.

“You don’t believe me.”

It’s not that I don’t believe that she thinks she heard her father. It’s just that that’s fucking categorically impossible.

“Una—”

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