5. The Warden
THE WARDEN
“ W elcome home, hummingbird,” I said as I pulled the car to a stop in front of Ava’s mansion. But the words felt hollow in my throat, a cover for the nerves clawing at my chest.
I hated this place—not the house itself, but what it stood for. What it had become.
My brother had stamped himself all over it, all over her . Ciaran had filled it with his memories, his presence, memories that I couldn’t erase. A past I couldn’t rewrite.
Ava’s gaze shifted to me, her voice quiet but piercing as she asked, “Why do you call me that?”
Her question threw me. For a moment, the nerves receded, replaced by a flicker of hope.
She noticed. She noticed my nickname for her.
She might not want to talk about us —about what happened between us at Blackthorn Hall—but she cared enough to ask about my nickname’s meaning. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
Maybe I was delusional, but I couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t care, if there wasn’t a part of her—no matter how small—still tethered to me.
Still mine.
“Maybe one day I’ll tell you,” I said, letting the words hang between us like a promise.
I leaned in, closing the space between us, drawn to her like gravity itself demanded it.
The air shifted, charged and heavy. Her lips parted slightly, her pupils dilating just enough for me to notice. It was instinctive, unconscious—her body betraying the pull she felt even if her mind was fighting it.
Her lips were soft and inviting, parting on a soft gasp, and for a heartbeat, I forgot everything else as I closed the distance.
She didn’t pull back. She didn’t turn away.
Her breath hitched, her gaze locked on mine, beckoning me closer.
Her hand pressed against my chest, firm enough to stop me. It hit me harder than any shove could have.
She pulled back, and her gaze dropped, avoiding mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words laced with something I couldn’t place. Guilt? Regret? Pain? “But I’m with Ciaran. I… love him.”
It was like a knife to the soul, ripping me open, but I didn’t flinch. Not outwardly. I couldn’t show her how much her words destroyed me.
Her eyes were clouded, her expression unreadable. “You and I… we’re just friends. Best friends. It was just… therapy. And now it’s over.”
I felt the lie in every word she spoke.
Therapy ?
Friends?
No. That wasn’t what we were. It had never been that simple. The way she’d submitted to me, touched me, clung to me—it wasn’t clinical. It wasn’t just recovery.
She felt it too, the pull between us. She might not be ready to admit it, but I knew.
I stayed silent, my hands tightening on the steering wheel.
She didn’t want me to call her out. Not yet. She needed to believe her lie for now, to convince herself she was doing the right thing.
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 be you in 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 always the 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 was my fault.
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 have seen .
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 fucking busy with the debate team, science club, the fucking fencing team.
I should have been home instead. Protecting Ava. Instead of sneaking into her bedroom at night after I got home. Offering her stolen comfort for her nightmares when I should have been stopping her nightmare all along.
I should have been there to protect her. To shield her from the monster in our house.
If I’d known, I would have killed our father myself.
But I hadn’t.
And because of that, Ava had been forced to act. To brew that tea, to poison. She’d had to deal with it herself because I hadn’t been there for her when it mattered most.
It was my fault. And so now I would pay.
With a sigh, I closed my eyes.
But now with me in prison—with me carrying out my penance—I couldn’t protect her. The thought of Ava out there, vulnerable, without me to shield her—it was unbearable.
I didn’t beg, least of all beg my brother, for anything. But for Ava I would.
“I know you don’t like her,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “But please, for me, Ci, promise me you’ll look out for her.”
“Ty!”
“Please,” I begged, cutting his protests off, my voice raw. “She’s got no one else. You don’t have to talk to her or even let her know you’re watching over her. Just… please, until they release me, you have to protect her… for me.”
He was silent for a moment, too long, and I felt something sharp twist in my chest .
“Okay.”
Relief flooded me, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet.
“But swear,” I said, my voice cracking, “swear you won’t touch her.”
Ciaran’s voice was a mere whisper. “I promise I will never touch her. She’s yours, Ty.”
Ciaran had kept one promise.
And broken the other.
He hadn’t just protected her—he’d taken her. Stolen the one thing I couldn’t bear to lose.
In the car Ava turned away, her fingers reaching for the door handle. She was slipping through my fingers again, and I hated how helpless I felt. How powerless.
But I wasn’t done. Not yet. Ava could lie to herself, to me, even to Ciaran. But she couldn’t lie to her heart.
I wouldn’t give up. Not until she was mine again.
As Ava moved to step out of the car, my hand shot out, wrapping around her arm, stopping her.
Her eyes widened, startled, but I held firm.
“You’ve always belonged to me,” I said, my voice low and unyielding. “And I will prove it to you.”
Her expression faltered for just a moment—just long enough for me to catch the flicker of guilt in her eyes. But then she drew in a breath, steadying herself, and when she spoke, her voice was soft but unwavering.
“Maybe if I had fallen for you first,” she said quietly, the words landing like a blow, “things would be different. But… it’s always been him.”
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Her words hit harder than I thought anything could. Harder than all the abuse I suffered in prison. Harder than learning my own flesh and blood had been abusing her.
It’s always been him .
The truth of it slammed into me, dragging me into the past, to the moment everything shifted. I remembered the change in her, the way she began to look at Ciaran differently. Like she saw something in him she couldn’t find in me.
I remembered the day I climbed into our treehouse to find it empty of her, her scent of jasmine a ghost in the air, and to spot her out the window riding away on the back of his motorbike.
I never found out what had happened between them, but now I knew for sure.
Somehow, some way, Ava had fallen for Ciaran.
I had lost her five years ago.
And it seemed I was doomed to keep losing her over and over again.
The McKinsey mansion was unnervingly quiet, like a stage waiting for its actors to take their marks. It was the kind of silence that wrapped around you, pressing in, making every creak of the floorboards feel louder than it should.
I leaned against the doorframe of Ava’s bedroom, watching her pace.
She was nervous—flustered even. She kept glancing at herself in the mirror, brushing her hair back into place, her hands fidgeting with invisible wrinkles in her clothes.
I didn’t have to guess why .
She wanted to see him . Wanted to greet Ciaran alone, to reunite with him.
The thought twisted in my chest like a knife, jealousy threatening to rise. But I forced it down, hardening myself against it. I’d learned how to bury those emotions. I’d had to.
Ava wasn’t mine anymore. Not yet.
“I’ll be fine,” she shot back, trying to push me out of the doorway.
I didn’t budge.
“What if the Society’s men show up?” I argued.
She rolled her eyes and reached down beside her bed to pull out a small bat. She held it up with a smirk, the wooden handle snug in her grip.
“You taught me to defend myself, remember?” she said, her nervous tension giving way to her usual fire. “Let them come. We’ll follow their rolling heads straight back to whoever sent them.”
Her confidence was almost enough to make me smile. Almost.
“Cute,” I said, my tone sharper than I intended. “But I’m still not leaving you alone.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue—when I heard it.
A sound. Faint, deliberate. Someone was here.
I shushed her, my ears straining against the oppressive quiet. Another noise followed, soft and careful, coming from the balcony.
My muscles coiled, every nerve on high alert.
“Stay back,” I said under my breath as I slipped into the shadows of her room .
Ava ignored me, of course. She turned toward the balcony, gripping the bat tightly, her jaw set.
The lock jiggled, the faint metallic rattle sending a ripple of tension through the air.
Then the handle began to turn.
From my place in the dark, I braced to strike.
Ava raised the bat, her knuckles white against the polished wood.
The door opened, and a tall dark figure stepped through.
Ciaran.
Ava’s reaction was instant and visceral. She froze, her eyes widening as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
The bat clattered to the floor, forgotten.
Her entire face lit up, love and relief flooding her expression in a way that hit me like a punch to the gut.
Ciaran crossed the room in two quick strides, grabbing her and pulling her into his arms.
“Ava,” he breathed, his voice raw with emotion. “Is it really you?”
And then he kissed her, his arms crushing her to him as his mouth claimed her.
I couldn’t look away, no matter how much I wanted to. I watched as her body softened against his, her frame molding to his as if it belonged there, their lips moving together like they’d done this a hundred times before—like she was his .
The faintest sound escaped her, a breathless, almost inaudible sigh, and it was like a knife to my chest.
My world narrowed to that single moment, every other sound and sensation fading into the background. Jealousy flared hot and sharp, but deeper than that was the ache—the unrelenting, bitter fear that she would never kiss me like that.
I cleared my throat, stepping out of the shadows.
Ava jerked back, her eyes wide as she turned toward me, as if she only just fucking remembered I was here.
Ciaran reacted just as quickly, pulling a knife from his belt and spinning to face me, his stance defensive and ready.
For a moment, I stared at him, at the mirror image of my own face. My twin. My family. My rival.
“Hello, brother,” I said, letting a faint smirk curve my lips. “Did you miss me?”