28. Declan
DECLAN
I hear Rian’s voice before I see him. It’s low and clipped, the tone he only uses when he’s talking to him . Our father.
I step in quietly, barefoot, and catch sight of Rian hunched over the counter, phone pressed to his ear, fist clenched like he’s holding back something sharp. Kellan watches silently, hip against the counter and arms folded, hair still sweaty from all that we’ve just done with and to Caroline.
Rian listens, jaw ticking. Then: “She did what you asked.”
A pause. Then a growl, quiet but filled with venom. “So what the fuck do you mean she still hasn’t proved herself?”
I step onto the tile and pour myself more water from the fridge, watching Rian’s conversation silently. I don’t like what I’m hearing.
Rian turns, phone still pressed to his ear, and meets my eyes. There’s something cold in his face, something calculating. “Yeah,” he says into the phone. “He just walked in. I’ll tell him.”
He hangs up without a goodbye.
“What was that about?” I ask.
Rian tosses the phone onto the counter like it burned him. “ Da thinks she needs to do more.”
“More?” I echo. “The girl was shaking like a leaf after the last job. I wasn’t sure we’d get her back.”
“He says what she did was…well, you saw it. She was forced. He wants proof she can follow orders.”
I stare at him. “He’s giving her an assignment.” The word sticks in my throat. It doesn’t belong in the same sentence as her. Caroline should remain untouched by his world. I run my tongue over my teeth as my mind races.
Rian nods. “A real one. He says it’s time she gets her hands dirty on purpose. Torture, smuggling, maybe even a kill order. He wasn’t clear.”
I rub the back of my neck, trying to force down the bile rising in my throat.
“And if she refuses?”
Rian twists his lips. “Then she’s not worth keeping.”
“And if I want to keep her, whether she’s worth it or not?”
Rian’s eyes go dark. “You know he won’t let you make that choice forever. Eventually, he’ll show you what happens when you choose someone over him.”
The kitchen is too small for three grown men and this much tension.
Kellan moves to the fridge and pulls out fruit to slice like he’s in some goddamn baking show, and Rian returns to cooking eggs.
Off to the side, I see burnt remains of earlier attempts.
So this conversation has been longer than what I saw.
I grip the edge of the counter until my knuckles go white. “She’s not ready.”
Rian doesn’t look up from the pan. “You don’t know her.”
“And you do?” I snap.
Kellan throws a strawberry top into the sink. “Of all of us, I know her the best, and I think she could get through this. Last week was the hardest part, and she’s past it.”
That makes Rian glance up. “You know her best? What makes you think that?”
And just like that, we’re off track. Bickering like boys fighting over the last match to light a cigarette.
I drag a hand through my hair. “Enough,” I say firmly, my voice booming through the small space.
“Forget it,” Rian snaps.
But I don’t forget it. I clock every look, every soft tone he uses when he talks to her. And Kellan’s not innocent either. Bringing her tea, adjusting her blankets, sitting up in the hallway like a damn guard dog.
Even I’ve changed. It’s not something I can see when I look in the mirror.
People have told me “it’s in the eyes” before, so I’ve held my eyelids up and looked back, and there’s nothing different that I can tell.
But I don’t want to hurt her, and I don’t want anything else in the world to hurt her either.
I don’t want those boys to suffer, but it’s not just about them, as much as I keep trying to push that narrative.
I look at my brothers, at the way they both flit around each other in the kitchen. A couple of clucking hens. It embarrasses me to see them act like teenagers over this woman who was reduced to crying on the shower floor over a trigger pull.
It embarrasses me that I know I feel the same way they do.
This isn’t just sex or Stockholm syndrome.
“We can’t all be in love with her,” I say flatly.
That shuts them both up.
Rian clears his throat. “No one said anything about love.”
Kellan drops the knife into the sink with more force than necessary. “ Yeh , but now that you’ve said it, maybe we should talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I growl.
“Isn’t there?”
“She’s not one of us. She’s leverage. She’s…”
Kellan finishes for me. “She’s the mother of our children. She’s one of us. That’s what all of this is, isn’t it? Making her one of us?”
“Not the mother of our children,” Rian corrects, and it hangs in the air. “They don’t belong to all of us.”
Silence again. The kind that buzzes under the skin.
I look between them, seeing the same thing I feel reflected back. Guilt, want, confusion. Excitement.
I drag my hand over my face and then lean forward, resting my forehead on the counter. Finally, I stand up straight, my face still in my palms. “ Da is expecting this. He wants her hardened. He wants proof that she’s loyal.”
Kellan scoffs. “Loyal? You mean useful.” Rian and I look at him in surprise.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by this new attitude he keeps bringing around.
I saw the way he hesitated with that knife behind our father’s neck.
But it’s so unlike him, like seeing a glimpse of an entirely different personality.
He chuckles and eats a strawberry. “What? Why are you guys always so surprised that I have independent thought?” He rolls his eyes.
I shake my head. “Loyal or useful—it doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing, as far as he’s concerned.”
Rian interjects, “I saw something change in her. After. Not all bad. Let’s just tell her the truth, so she’s ready. No more tricks.”
I stare at him. “You think trauma made her better? Jaysus , Rian. That’s dark, even for you.”
“Even for me ? Didn’t you just say that Dadaí picked you to kill Mamaí because you were a fucking child psychopath?”
My nostrils flare, and he’s right, because even though he’s blood, I have an image in my mind of twisting his neck until I hear it crack. Of smashing his skull against the corner of the counter until I’ve dented it in and I can see brains.
I take a deep breath and say, “She can’t be readied. Let’s just drop her off and tell her when we get there.”
“How do you expect her to trust us if you don’t keep her in the loop about anything?”
My eye twitches. I hate that the two of them consider themselves a different breed of human than me. It’s clear they think I don’t know anything about relationships, that I’m some bumbling oaf. An animal. “I expect her to trust us because she’s alive,” I growl back, simmering under the surface.
Footsteps echo down the hall.
We all turn.
Caroline stands in the doorway, hair pulled back, boots laced, face set like flint.
“I trust you,” she says. “And I can do it. Whatever it is. Just tell me what needs to be done.”
She doesn’t flinch when she meets my eyes.
And God help me, I almost want to stop her, to tell her to take her kids and run far away from us again, that she had the right idea four years ago.