36. Ava
AVA
E bony grabbed my jaw tightly and I yelped when her long, pointed nails pierced my skin. She roughly shook me as I choked on her Chanel No. 5.
“Don’t embarrass me, Ava,” she snarled. “No daughter of mine will take the easy way out. You’ve made your bed, now lie in it with whichever brother fucks you best.”
“Get your hands off her,” Ty shouted, lunging forward, earning him a hard crack of a gun butt to the back of the head.
He lurched as they yanked him back and when his hand came away from his head, there was blood.
Ty’s eyes met mine and for once, feeling blazed in them, a reflection of my own—fear, conflict, pain, and utter hopelessness.
“This one, then?” Ebony laughed as she pointed my chin toward Ciaran. “Fast on the keyboard, fast on the clit? Does his rage excite you, Ava? Or will it consume you like it’s consumed him? Will you two fizzle out just as fast?”
Ciaran’s eyes burned like embers beneath ash, a tempest of restrained emotions threatening to break free. For once, he wasn’t the fiery storm I was used to, all fury and heat laid bare.
Instead, there was a quiet, agonizing depth to his gaze, a raw vulnerability that he wouldn’t dare voice but couldn’t entirely hide.
I felt the weight of his silent plea pressing into me, heavier than the air in the tomb.
Pick me. Love me. Save me.
I tried to wrench my chin away from Ebony’s claw, but she held me like iron. The more I struggled, the deeper she sank her nails.
“Or this one?” Ebony asked, jerking my attention toward Ty. “Did prison carve the soul out of him, or did he lose it willingly? Are his broken pieces enough to satisfy you for the rest of your life?”
This time, Ty’s mask cracked. His anguish shone through, raw and unguarded, his eyes blazing with a storm of emotions he couldn’t contain—pain, love, and a resignation so deep it nearly brought me to my knees.
I love you. Forget me. Let me go.
“Please,” I begged, my voice raw and broken, sobs strangling my words. “I can’t choose. Please, Ebony, don’t make me.”
Tears poured freely, scalding my cheeks, blurring my vision. Ebony hated weakness—especially mine—but I couldn’t stop the flood. It was like the anguish was being ripped from my chest in waves, each one more violent than the last.
“Pathetic,” Ebony muttered, her voice sharp enough to cut. Her hand shot out, shoving me back so hard that I slammed into the altar’s unyielding stone, pain lancing through my spine, stealing my breath.
“You bitch!” Ciaran roared, his voice a weapon hurled across the room, every syllable drenched in fury and desperation.
Ty fought against the guards holding him back, his teeth bared in a snarl, his body straining as if sheer force of will might be enough to break their grip.
“Take me instead!” The words burst from me before I could think them through. “I’ll stay with you. Let them go. Please—just let them both go!”
Ebony laughed, the sound cold and hollow, echoing off the tomb walls like the cruelest mockery. Her pale eyes gleamed with something as dark and unfeeling as her voice.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Ava? They’ll come back for you. But once one has you all to himself, there’s no way in hell they’ll risk coming back for the other.”
She turned her gaze to Ciaran first, her icy scrutiny peeling back his anger like layers of armor.
His features contorted in a snarl of hatred, the slightest flicker of anguish breaking through.
Then she shifted her attention to Ty, who met her stare with quiet defiance, his emotions raw and bleeding for all to see.
Her certainty solidified like steel, her posture straightening with cruel resolve. Ebony looked back at me, trembling and crumpled on the altar, my face streaked with tears.
I hated that she could see me like this—weak, broken—but I had no strength left. Her impossible choice had bled me dry .
“No, you cannot stay,” she said, her voice devoid of mercy. “Choose now. I’m growing tired of this game.”
The guards stepped closer to Ty and Ciaran. The sight of gun muzzles pressing against their skulls made bile rise in my throat.
I hid my face in my hands as my body racked with sobs, and I screamed, the sound primal, ripped from the depths of my soul, a cacophony of fear, grief, and helpless rage.
Nothing had prepared me for this. Nothing could have.
The tears came harder, hotter, until they blurred into a haze of despair.
The weight of the decision—of their lives—crushed me, suffocating every ounce of reason I had left. I braced myself for the inevitable crack of gunfire, for the end to come.
“I love you both,” I choked out between sobs.
I couldn’t bear to look at them. I couldn’t let their faces—marked with anger, fear, and love—be my last memory of them. So I closed my eyes and went elsewhere.
I went to the Darkmoor library in the moonlight, to Paris bathed in the soft glow of dawn.
I retreated to the safety of my childhood bathtub and to my bed where Ty had held me, whispering promises he couldn’t keep.
I let myself drown in the fragments of a life that had already slipped through my fingers.
I held on to those moments, desperate and fleeting, as the seconds ticked down, knowing that whatever came next would shatter me completely.
Ebony sighed, the sound almost bored. “Enough of this. Guards—”
“I’ll stay. ”
The words hit like a thunderclap.
My hands fell away from my face, and my eyes flew open to see Ty staring down Ebony, his expression as calm and resolved as I’d ever seen it.
Ebony’s lips curved into a mocking smile, first directed at me and then toward Ty, as though his offer was an expected gift she was pleased to receive.
“No.” Ciaran’s voice cut through the air, sharp and unyielding.
Ebony paused, her attention flicking between the twins, and to my horror, she chuckled. “Well, this just got interesting.”
“No one is staying,” I said, my tears momentarily dried by a surge of desperation. I stood, trembling but firm. “Ebony, let all of us go or kill us all. No one is getting left behind.”
But Ebony didn’t so much as glance in my direction. She smirked, her arched eyebrow a silent taunt.
Neither Ciaran nor Ty acknowledged me either. Their gazes locked on each other, a silent war waging between them.
Ciaran’s voice, tight with emotion, shattered the silence. “You did your time. You’ve made your sacrifice. It’s my turn.”
“No,” I whispered, my head shaking instinctively as the words clawed out of me. “No, no, no.”
But I was invisible.
“Please,” Ciaran said, his eyes never leaving Ty’s. “I have to do this.”
“No!” I screamed, the sound raw and echoing off the damp, unfeeling walls of the tomb .
Neither of them flinched.
Ciaran and Ty seemed trapped in a world of their own, a space where only they existed, where only their history mattered.
Ty’s voice cracked as he whispered, “Ci, I can’t let you—”
“Remember what we promised each other,” Ciaran said, his words a quiet plea, heavy with meaning I couldn’t grasp.
Ty’s eyes widened, the pain in them deepening, a silent argument spilling between them without a single word spoken aloud.
I looked between their faces, frantic, desperate, trying to unravel the cryptic exchange.
Their expressions were mirrors of anguish, love, and resignation.
“What are you talking about? What is he talking about?” My voice was a thin thread, shaking with fear.
But neither of them answered.
I didn’t exist in this moment. It was theirs.
And whatever they had promised each other, I could feel the weight of it looming over all of us like the edge of a cliff I was about to be pushed off.
“Let me make this right, Ty.” Ciaran forced a faint smile, though his voice carried the kind of resignation that made my stomach churn. “I owe you this.”
Ty looked like he might argue back.
But then his lip stopped trembling, the fire in his eyes extinguished as stone hardened over his face, his mouth, his jaw, his very soul locked tight behind a cold and unfeeling mask.
He nodded, his voice hollow and resigned. “Okay. ”
“No!” The word ripped from me, raw and jagged, as my legs moved on instinct.
I barely made it two steps before a guard grabbed me from behind, his grip like iron bands locking me in place. I writhed and kicked, but his hold didn’t falter.
Ebony barely spared me a glance as she raised a finger at me to shush, a patronizing gesture that cut through me like a blade.
Her attention snapped back to the twins. “We have an agreement, then?”
“Yes,” Ciaran said immediately, his voice steady even as I saw his knuckles whiten at his sides.
I held my breath, clinging to the hope that Ty would refuse. That he wouldn’t let this happen.
But Ty didn’t meet my eyes. He kept his gaze locked on Ciaran, as if the rest of the room had ceased to exist.
“Ty,” Ciaran urged, his voice dropping, low and imploring.
Ty finally broke, his voice quiet and firm. “Deal.”
The word echoed in my mind, shattering everything inside me.
I stared at them both, my vision swimming with tears, unable to comprehend the betrayal I felt—by them, by the world, by the very air around us.
When Ebony clapped her hands together, the sharp sound snapped through the chamber, but I didn’t flinch. I was too numb, too stunned to react.
“Wonderful,” Ebony cooed, her voice dripping with satisfaction.
She turned to Ty, her expression as gleeful as a predator’s. “You have twenty-four hours to leave Ireland with Ava. And you will never return. Otherwise—and please don’t test me—I will kill your brother. Slowly and painfully. Understood?”
Ty inhaled deeply, his chest rising and falling as if to steady himself, and then said, “Yes.”
No.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
Ebony waved her hand dismissively, and the guard holding me released me. My arms dropped to my sides, limp and useless, as Ty approached me.
His face was devoid of emotion, a blank mask that made him seem almost inhuman. He reached for me, his hands steady as if this wasn’t tearing him apart as much as it was me.
“No,” I sobbed, shaking my head as I swatted at him like a cornered animal. My tears blurred my vision, but I could still see the shadows of the guard’s weapons poised and ready to end everything.
“Go, Ava,” Ciaran said, his voice cracking as I saw the agony he tried so desperately to hide. His jaw was clenched so tightly I thought it might shatter, his lips pressed into a thin line.
His eyes—those brilliant blue eyes that had always burned with intensity—were dim now, veiled by a pain so raw it stole the air from my lungs.
He was crumbling, and I could see it, the cracks in his armor spreading with every breath he forced himself to take. I knew the weight of this moment was too much for anyone to carry, even him.
For all his attempts to stand strong, he couldn’t stop the truth from bleeding through—the unbearable grief of a choice he’d made to save me, to save his brother, the sacrifice he believed he had to make.
Because behind it all, there was love. Not just for me. But for his brother. A love so fierce it broke me all over again.
“Take care of her for me,” he said to Ty, his voice cracking.
“Ciaran!” I cried, his name catching in my throat.
Ty managed to get a grip on my upper arms, his hands like iron, and even though I clawed savagely at the backs of his fingers, digging my nails into his skin until I felt the warmth of his blood, he didn’t flinch.
He pulled me into his arms as if I weighed nothing at all, his grip unrelenting, his arm locked around my waist as he hoisted me over his shoulder like I was baggage.
Tears blurred my vision, mixing with strands of my damp hair plastered to my face.
“Ty, let me go!” I screamed, my voice raw with desperation as I punched and kicked out, but he only grunted and shifted my weight.
“Ciaran!”
I saw him—my Scáth—just as Ty turned toward the passagetomb.
Ciaran’s jaw tightened, and his head dipped, turning away as if hiding the agony he couldn’t keep contained, his hand flexing uselessly at his side. He wouldn’t even look at me, and that hurt more than anything. It was as though he’d already resigned himself to his fate.
The jagged doorway of the tomb loomed closer. Each step Ty took brought me farther from Ciaran, farther from the brother he’d sworn to protect, and I lost myself in my panic. I kicked harder, screaming his name with everything I had left, but Ty’s grip didn’t falter.
“Stop it, Ava,” Ty muttered, his voice hollow, like he couldn’t even bear to hear the sound of his own words.
“No!” I thrashed, clawed, and shoved against his back, but it was like hitting stone. I begged him, cursed him, accused him of cruelty, of heartlessness.
“I’ll never forgive you, Ty! Let me go! I hate you!” My voice broke on the word, a sob tearing from my chest.
Ty flinched under me, his step faltering for the first time. The smallest crack in his resolve.
And it shattered me. I knew, deep down, that he wasn’t heartless. He was just as broken by this as I was.
I knew my words hurt him, cut him as deeply as a blade.
But I had no other weapon, no other way to fight back, so I wielded my grief and rage against him, hoping—praying—it would be enough to stop him.
But Ty was stronger, his grip like a vise as he carried me through the doorway and up the slick stone stairs, one determined step at a time. Each one echoed in my ears like a death knell.
With every step, Ciaran’s figure grew smaller, swallowed by the dark of the tomb.
“Scáth!” I screamed, my voice breaking as I reached for my shadow, who was already vanishing from me.
Ty kept climbing, his pace steady despite my struggling.
My fists pounded uselessly against his back as my world narrowed to the doorway—the one that would seal my fate. The one that would leave Ciaran behind.
My heart shattered when he appeared one last time in the fading light of the tomb, guards holding him back .
“Ava!” His scream echoed in the passage, raw and filled with every ounce of love and anguish he felt. “I love you!”
Something inside me broke at those words. A fury I hadn’t known I possessed burned through me, blinding in its intensity.
No. I wouldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t. I would not condemn another brother to prison, to pain, because of me.
Before I could think, I drove my knee into Ty’s stomach with all the force I could muster.
He grunted in pain, faltering as the air rushed from his lungs. His grip loosened, just enough for me to slip free.
I hit the stairs hard, the jagged edges biting into my skin, but I scrambled to my feet before Ty could recover.
“Don’t shoot her!” Ebony’s voice rang out, sharp and panicked, as the guards lifted their weapons toward me.
I didn’t care.
All I saw was Ciaran, his bloodshot eyes locking on mine, his expression a mix of anguish and love so profound it felt like it would break me.
I lunged for him, my hands outstretched—
And then came the pain, sharp and blinding, as something struck the back of my skull.
Before I even hit the ground, darkness consumed me.