I shakily looked over my shoulder at Teagan, her face pinched with an apology, but the same betrayal and fury burned deep in her eyes.
“What did you do?” I asked, the question no more than a breath.
She lifted her chin high and clenched her jaw. “He needed to know.”
“He would’ve found out anyway, Teagan, but he shouldn’t have found out from you!”
I jumped, staggering back when a crash sounded from in front of me, and found one of the new replacement lamps shattered on the floor by the wall.
Kieran was gripping his hair, his chest moving roughly as he tried to calm himself. “There should’ve been nothing for me to find out.”
“Kieran, I—”
“There should’ve been nothing for me to find out!”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen, I—”
“He’s a goddamn Borello, Lily,” he yelled, like that fact had possibly been lost on me until that very second. “He’s the guy who wants to end your life.”
“I know—”
“You’ve been saying ‘what about us,’ and this is what you’ve been doing?” He swung his arm, slapping a vase off the end table. “Fucking what about us?”
“You left me,” I screamed. “You broke my heart and your promises, and left me here. There was no us left.”
Kieran looked dumbfounded. “Everything I’ve been doing has been—”
“Oh my God, don’t,” I pleaded. “Don’t say that again. Not one thing has been for me. I told you, Kieran, I’ve been telling you I’ve been here needing you and begging you to see me, and you were never here. You left me for Mickey. You’ve been doing things that are completely unforgivable. And I know that you’ve been working with—”
“Ah-ah,” Beck cut in loudly. “Don’t.”
The look on Kieran’s face as his gaze darted from me to Beck was truly frightening.
“Take Teagan somewhere safe,” Kieran growled. “She has everything she needs.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to leave you two—”
“Go.”
Beck ground his jaw, and after a few seconds finally nodded.
Once he and Teagan were gone from the house, Kieran looked at me.
The rage and anger were gone and replaced by a hurt so deep that I wanted to fall into his arms and cry.
“Why?” he asked after minutes spent in agonizing silence.
“Kieran, I never planned to even speak to him. And I think it all happened without ever saying a word to him or knowing his name.”
“What all happen—?” He grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaw working under the pressure.
A sob burst free at the agony that crossed his face. “I’m sorry.”
“Lily, how? We had plans—we’d planned our future.”
I leaned against the wall and shakily sank to the floor, cradling my head in my hands. I don’t think Kieran would ever understand, no matter how many times I told him.
It was like Beck said.
I was Kieran’s priority, and he’d been trained to put his all into his job. And, according to Kieran and Beck, he’d been doing this job for me. So he’d never done anything wrong.
“I wanted that future. I wanted those plans. I’ve been begging you to make them happen. After so many years of being brushed aside, I realized I was the only one who wanted it. I realized I was the only one who wanted us to work.”
“Brush you aside? Lily, I’ve been working my ass off for—”
“God, Kieran!” I dropped my hands and lifted my head to look at him. “Instead of telling me you’re doing all this for me, why don’t you explain it to me?” I gripped my stomach and said, “Do you know how disgusting it feels for you to tell me you’re involved in the middle of a human trafficking ring for me? That you’re helping Mickey start one for me? Or the very men you’ve been protecting and hiding me from for years, you’ve been working with . . . for me?”
His face fell. “Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter. Whenever you say these things, it makes me sick. It feels like you’re punching me in the stomach. You were trained to be a murderer, Kieran. That’s a truly horrifying thought, but it’s something I came to terms with so long ago because I know who you really are. I know you hated that side of you and hated your dad for making you into this. And because I knew you wanted to escape it. But the way you’ve embraced this life—”
“I fucking hate this life,” he ground out as he slowly closed the distance between us. Once he was in front of me, he dropped to a crouch and caged me in with his hands pressed to the wall. “I hate your dad. Aric found out what Mickey was doing with this human trafficking ring a long time ago, and started digging deeper to try to put an end to it before it could get too far along. I only did the minimum because I was about to get us out of here. We kept hitting roadblocks because your dad knew every move we made, so I reached out to someone I knew Mickey would never suspect.”
I sucked in a sharp breath when it hit me. “Dare.”
That anger slowly started creeping back in the moment I said his name. Kieran’s breaths grew rougher, his green eyes became harder, but even with me sitting here in front of him, the beast inside him stayed locked up.
“Right. Dare. He didn’t want to pass up on an opportunity to take down the guy who killed his dad . . . and then Aric died and Mickey killed Dare’s fiancée.” Kieran searched my face to see if he was telling me anything new, and continued when I didn’t react. “Mickey got more involved, and so did we. We knew he didn’t have to only be shut down, he needed to be put in the ground. But with how far into the process he already was, it wasn’t as simple as killing him. We needed to destroy his business, Holloway, and stop the ring from happening, which takes time. Longer because he wants me by his side for every single thing. He didn’t like that Aric was pulling away and had members looking into why he was. He expects me to be like my dad.”
I nodded, remembering how Mickey was never seen without Georgie. He wasn’t just Mickey’s advisor, he was Mickey’s bodyguard and best friend.
“Most of my week is spent working for Mickey, which only leaves me a few hours to work on taking him down because Beck has to continue selling, and I can only rely on Dare so much. And not only has there been a damn clock ticking over my head to get this done before Mickey can make things happen, I’ve been working longer hours and days to get it done faster so I can get us the hell out of here. But this was something Aric and I started before he died, and I know it’s important to you. I know you hate Mickey and Holloway as much as I do, and I know you want to see it destroyed. I’ve been destroying it, Lily. It just takes time. And now that I’m days or weeks from being done, I find out you’re . . . fuck, I find out I’ve lost you because of it?”
I wished I could tell him he was wrong. “Why didn’t you just tell me what you were doing? Why did you shut me out?”
Again, that baffled look.
He had no idea he had.
He rocked back to sit, and drove his hands through his hair again and again. “What was I going to tell you, Lily? I’ve never told you about a job. You made me swear when we were younger I would never tell you.”
“I meant killing. I didn’t want to know about what you did as Nightshade.”
He shrugged. “There’s no difference.”
“Things might’ve been different if you’d told me why we weren’t running away. We might still be happy if you’d just told me what you were doing.”
“We can be happy,” he said sincerely. “I can make you happy, Lily.” When I began shaking my head, he reached for me. “We’ll leave. Today, tomorrow, whenever you want.”
“Kieran, the part of me that loved you is so shattered, there’s no—”
He sat forward, crushing his mouth to mine in a kiss that I’d spent a decade begging for.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life putting every piece back together,” he said against
my trembling lips, his hands cradling my cheeks. “I know you’re hurt.”
“I can’t.” I gripped his hands and pulled them off my face, my eyes blurring with tears when I did.
His hands slid back up my arms, the movements sluggish. “Lily, don’t do . . . what the hell is that?”
Before I could stop him, he grabbed for the bottom of the long sleeve on my top and pulled it up, his body going unnaturally still when he saw the bandage.
“Um, I . . .” I swallowed through the lump in my throat and forced myself to tell him the truth. “Johnny got—Kieran,” I shouted when he suddenly pushed away from me and took off for the bedroom.
I scrambled to stand and hurried to follow him. By the time I made it in there, his expression was blank and his eyes were the kind of lifeless, too horrifying to look into, and he was arming himself with knives.
“Kieran, please,” I begged as I gripped his arms. “Don’t go over there—Johnny isn’t even there anymore.”
He didn’t have to tell me what he planned to do, it was written all over his stone-like face.
“Move.”
“No, I know what you’ll do if you go there. I know what will happen if you find Dare instead of Johnny. I can’t let you go.”
The moment Dare’s name slipped from my lips, I regretted it. That beast that had stayed subdued throughout our confessions flickered to life. Kieran’s chest expanded and contracted with his breaths, each rougher than the last.
My hands began shaking, and if I was smart, I would’ve turned and ran.
But I held on.
Kieran gripped my waist and rushed me backward until I was pressed against the wall. Despite how fast we’d moved, I landed against it softly—like Kieran was still fighting against the beast to try to keep me safe.
“Kieran, you can’t go. I can’t let you.”
But with each second that passed, more of Kieran disappeared until all that stood in front of me was Nightshade.
I’d never been more afraid or destroyed in my life.
“I hate what he did to you,” I whispered.
Keeping my grip on him, I slid my hands down his arms until they were gripping his hands. With one last look at those disturbing eyes, I slowly turned my body so my chest was pressed to the wall and my back was facing him, and I pulled him against me.
And I waited.
“Lily.” His arms curled around my torso, pulling me tighter into his familiar embrace. A shuddering breath tore through him as his head dropped onto mine. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Look at me,” he begged, his voice rough.
A plea I’d waited for my entire life. A plea that was years too late.
When I glanced over my shoulder, he forced me to turn so we were face to face. His grip on me tightened and his jaw clenched, but he remained unwavering.
“I felt like I was buried alive the day they lowered those two caskets in the ground, and ever since I’ve been trying to dig myself out,” he confessed. “But no matter what I do I bury myself deeper instead. You think I don’t see that you’re drowning, Lily? My mistakes are why you are. I just didn’t know I was drowning you when I’ve been spending every day of the last four years trying to fix what I ruined.”
He’d said something similar the night he asked me to marry him, only now it finally made sense.
Kieran was destroying the world and man I hated so much. He was getting his revenge on Mickey for being the catalyst that ultimately led to Aric’s death.
So much made sense . . . now. If only he had told me long before tonight.
I stilled when I noticed my body was trembling, and I slowly let my gaze travel from his arms to his fast-moving chest to his tensed jaw.
When I met his eyes, I forced myself to hold his stare and placed my hands against his chest, putting the slightest pressure there.
He released me immediately, taking a few steps away as he shoved his hands into his hair, locking his fingers behind his head.
It was then I considered how Kieran always thought through every move, and that the times he’d placed himself in front of me today were intentional. He was trying to prove he could give me what I’d been asking for. Even in his anger, even in his hurt, he was trying to prove himself.
And it was wearing on him in a way I’d never seen anything.
Rubbing my hands over my face, I blew out a strained breath and looked back at the man in front of me. “I wish you would have told—” The rest of the words caught in my throat when I caught a glimpse of one of Kieran’s tattoos. It was small and irrelevant, placed on his bicep among a variety of others.
But it was in the exact spot as Dare’s, only Kieran’s was a solitary vertical line.
It was something he’d had for years, longer than I could remember, and one I’d always dismissed.
I moved toward him without realizing it, without remembering he needed space, and traced a shaking finger over the tattoo. “What is that?”
He sighed, a look of frustration settling on his face as he dropped his arms to fold them over his chest. “It’s me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said when he didn’t elaborate.
“Aric had a circle,” he said after a few moments. “When he died, Beck got the circle.”
Lines and circles.
Oh my God.
I knew what he was going to say before he continued, but it didn’t make it any less difficult hearing it.
“Dare has the four horizontal lines.”
“You’ve worked together for so long, have kept me afraid of them, and this entire time you, Aric, and Beck had pieces that made up the Borello’s symbol tattooed on you?”
“It was how we communicated so Mickey wouldn’t know. It’s who we are.”
I jerked back, my eyes widening with shock and disbelief. “You’re a Borello? When—”
“No,” he said quickly. “The Borello family was originally part of another gang way up north. There was a rebellion within the gang. Three families were involved and they used symbols to communicate. The Borello brothers were the only ones who made it out alive.”
“You’re rebels,” I whispered, stunned. I nodded absentmindedly, then shook my head. “I just—I can’t wrap my head around this. I thought you were going to kill Bailey for saying something stupid to me, so I can’t understand why you of all people would continue to work with Dare when you know he wants to kill me. I can’t understand why you would continue working with him when members of his family snuck into my room, killed Aric, and tried to take me.”
One of Kieran’s eyebrows ticked up. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Johnny’s cousin killed Aric. Dare and Johnny were the other two in your room that night.”
“One of the other rooms?” a harsh, masculine voice asked from across my room, the hushed whisper floating over to me on the breeze.
“No,” another deep voice responded. “He said it was in here somewhere.”
Oh God. I’d woken to a steady thrum dancing along my skin.
It suddenly felt difficult to pull in air.
“You knew?” I asked through the tightness in my chest and throat. “You knew and you still—he was working with both of you and he—”
“You weren’t supposed to be there,” Kieran reminded me as he gently led me to sit on the bed. “Johnny’s cousin wasn’t supposed to be there, and he got trigger happy. Dare and Johnny were supposed to be in and out, but they couldn’t find what they were looking for because you were in the room and they couldn’t use lights.”
My head snapped up. “What were they looking for?”
“Aric’s notes. Everything we’d been gathering on Mickey. Whenever he finished with them he stashed them in your room because Mickey had guys checking on him.”
“In the baseboard,” I whispered.
Kieran’s head cocked to the side, his eyes narrowing in confusion. “How’d—”
“I
searched my room, trying to find why they were there. I found the baseboard, but it was empty.”
“I got them out after everything happened. We’ve added on over the years, but Dare keeps them so Mickey can’t find them.”
The piece of the nightmare that had been haunting me . . . all this time, Dare had been holding it.
Despite Kieran’s insistence it was his fault for not being there sooner, or that it was Mickey’s for keeping him away, I’d blamed and hated the Borellos for Aric’s death for four years.
It was odd knowing the person I had hated was now the man I loved.
It was saddening.
And yet, I still wanted his arms around me to make this go away.
“You ask how I can work with him after what’s happened. How can you want to be with someone who wants to kill you, Lily?” Kieran asked, his blank expression unable to hide the pain in his eyes.
We don’t choose who we love.
Einstein had told me that, and it couldn’t have been more true.
“Probably for the same reason I was able to look past what you are,” I whispered, meeting his eyes.
A minute passed in unbearable silence before he asked, “I did this, didn’t I?”
“It just happened, Kieran. Stop blaming yourself for everything that happens. Try to continue on with life instead of trying to fix what happened, or soon your life will be so consumed with revenge you won’t realize when it’s gone.”
“It is, Lily.”
It would’ve hurt less if he’d yelled at me. But the whispered words were full of so much pain and sorrow it felt like I would drown in them.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “My life is gone.”
Kieran understood. Knew he’d lost me . . . knew he’d lost us.
I dropped my head and covered my mouth, trying to mute my sob when he turned to leave the room. I didn’t notice when he stopped, only heard his broken sigh from the far side of the room seconds later.
“I’ll love you until the world stops turning, Lily O’Sullivan.”
Even the house seemed to mourn with me once he was gone.
For what we’d had.
For what I’d done.
For every lie and betrayal, and for the life we would never have . . . my heart broke open and tears rolled, fat and heavy down my cheeks.