Page 130 of Vicious Hearts

I grin as I yank the dusty shoebox out from under my old crappy bed, in my old crappy apartment. I wish I could say I have fond memories of my time when I was pretty much squatting here, but that’s not true at all.

Those days were filled with fear, and the unknown. Of worrying about, and looking for, Finn. Those were the days of the eerie phone calls from Apostle. Of ahit liston the wall of what is now my de facto adopted family.

I scowl.Screw you, Castle.

I might not have known them all very long. But I’ve neveroncefelt accepted into something so quickly, so warmly, and so wholeheartedly as I have with the Kildare family; the Drakos family, too, for that matter. Well, some of them, at least. Callie is awesome, and Kratos has said a few kind things to me in passing. So has their tiny grandmother.

Ares is standoffish, but that’s fine. And I get that, given his personal history with my father.

Hades still looks at me like he wants to make pushing me into oncoming traffic his new hobby. But, whatever. He’s also an arrogant, pretty-boy dick, so yeah, screw him.

But as for Neve and Eilish? We might barely know each other. But they’re some of the nicest, most genuine people I’ve known in…well, possibly ever, other than Finn. I’dneverhurt them, or betray them.

The same goes for Cillian.

I shiver, grinning a little as I sit on the edge of the bed.That’sbeen an interesting development the last week or so: every time I’m away from him—or, hell, evenwithhim—I get all…moony.

Tingly.

Needy, and achy.

And flushed and flustered, in this ridiculous schoolgirl crush way. Which is a hard thing to wrap my head around. Number one, because Cillian is not a “crush” type of person. You get crushes on the boy next door. The doctor at your OB clinic with the ridiculously charming smile and the cute British accent.

You don’t get crushes on a sadistic, dangerous, more-than-slightly unhinged monster who forced you to marry him.

I mean, you’re notsupposed to.

But also, number two, because despite our…physicalrelationship, Cillian and I aren’t “real”. Not when there’s a date approaching a few months from now when all of this will change.

When we’ll fake him killing me, and I’ll disappear for, hopefully, the last time. That’s a thought that’s getting increasingly bitter to think about with every day I spend in this new adoptive family of mine.

But I shake all of that from my mind as I open the shoebox and look inside. The little photo album is still there, and I feel my lips curling into a fond grin as I slip it from the box.

…Just as there’s a soft knock at the door.

My heart leaps into my throat, fear strangling me as my eyes fly to the door. When the knock comes again, I set down the album and grab the iron fire poker sitting against my bedside table—a weird dumpster find I always liked to keep there, given the sketchiness of the neighborhood.

Gripping it tightly, I move to the door and open it a crack, leaving the chain in place.

My brow furrows at the older woman with graying dark hair in a quirky, wide-brimmed hat, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and a fairly plain yet professional knee-length blue dress.

“Can I help you? I think you have the wrong address—”

She stiffens, her eyes widening as she stares back at me.

“I…yes is this…” She swallows. “Una?”

A cold sensation creeps up my back.

What the fuck.

“Una, is that you?” Her voice is so hopeful as she suddenly pulls the hat off and looks right at me.

Holy shit.

I put the poker aside, undo the chain on the door, and swing it wide to come face to face, for the first time in almost thirteen years, with Dr. Gail Thompson.

She smiles quietly and nervously. “Hello, Una.”

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