Ailish
I came out of the shower to an empty room and a shirt folded on the arm of the sofa.
That's what I remember. Standing in the doorway with my hair dripping, holding a towel closed with one fist, looking at a black T-shirt squared off at the corners like a man had ironed it, and understanding that he'd waited until the water was running to go.
I remember pulling it on. I remember lying down because my legs had stopped being interested in the argument. I don't remember deciding to sleep.
When I finally wake again, the room has changed.
It’s quiet. The rain has stopped. The light through the window is faint—morning or afternoon, I can’t tell. Everything inside me is heavy, like I’ve been stitched together from bruises and exhaustion.
The blanket pooled around my legs smells like cedar and starch and a hint of Declan’s cologne. A smell I shouldn’t know this well. A smell that now sits on my skin like a confession written in invisible ink.
My head throbs. My ribs ache when I breathe in too deeply. But it’s not the physical pain that hits hardest. It’s the empty room.
Declan is gone.
There are two men in the stairwell instead. I hear them before I see them, the particular quiet of people trying not to wake someone, and when I open the door one of them straightens off the wall and says ma’am like I’m cargo he’s been assigned to.
No jacket over a chair. No mug on the counter. No boots by the door. He erased himself before he stepped out and left staff behind.
A strange numbness settles over me. Then, under it, something sharper. Something like humiliation.
He left without a word after everything that happened last night. After the attack, the fear, the adrenaline, the way we collapsed into each other like we were the only two people left breathing—he still left.
He didn’t even leave a note.
I swallow against the tightness crawling up my throat. My hands clench the threadbare blanket reflexively, knuckles whitening.
What did I expect? Some explanation? A truce? I shove the thought away before it can take shape. Before it can hurt.
Slowly, I swing my legs over the side of the sofa. My clothes—ripped, dirty, half-ruined—are in a heap on the floor. I gather them, not bothering to fold anything, just needing to move, needing momentum before the silence crushes me flat.
There must be something I can wear.
I check the bathroom first. Nothing. No spare linens, no forgotten shirt draped over a chair. The place is Spartan, almost militaristic in its emptiness. A base of operations, not a home.
I go back into the main room and open the small closet in the corner. Inside, three hooks hold a single coat and two empty hangers. Beneath it, a locked metal case sits flush against the floor.
I try it anyway.
Locked. Of course.
“Why would he leave?” I mutter under my breath, annoyance flaring hotter by the second. “Why would he lock everything behind him like I’m an intruder?”
The anger feels steadier than the hurt. Anger gives me spine. Anger keeps me from falling apart in this suffocating silence.
A drawer beside the kitchenette catches my eye. I pull it open. More nothing.
The second drawer holds a stack of black T-shirts, all folded with the kind of precision that seems aggressively male. Impersonal. Uniform-like. But wearable.
I grab the top one. It smells faintly like detergent and steel. But it’s clean and whole, which is more than I can say about my blouse. I pull it on. It hangs long on me, brushing mid-thigh, but I don’t care. It’s better than walking out covered in dried blood and torn seams.
The only other option is one oversized sweatshirt shoved in the back of the drawer, worn to softness, with a frayed cuff. It must be old. Older than the other shirts. Something Declan kept even though it doesn’t match anything else about this flat.
I hesitate. It feels too personal. Too intimate. Too much like acknowledging last night happened. So I stick with the black T-shirt.
Once dressed, I push my hair back, wincing as my fingers brush the tender spots at my scalp where the attacker yanked me by the roots. I swallow down the memory, force my breath slow, and move to the door.
Declan’s gone. Fine. If he doesn’t trust me enough to stay, then there’s no reason for me to hide in his safehouse. I’ll find my own way.
Call Liam. Call Kellan. Hell—call a taxi and get home before the next shadow tries to pull me off the street.
I unlock the door and step directly into the chest of a man built like a brick wall. I stumble back. “What the—?”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even take a step. His expression doesn’t change from the impassive guard neutrality I’ve seen a hundred times in Liam’s house.
“Ms. Ailish,” he says, voice flat and formal. “You’re not permitted to leave.”
The words hit me like a slap. “I’m sorry—what?”
He doesn’t blink. “Orders are that you remain inside.”
Cold irritation slides through me. “Whose orders?”
“Declan’s.”
A hot, painful flush rises up my throat. He didn’t trust me. Not even enough to leave me unmonitored. Not enough to assume I wouldn’t run straight back to Liam or blow the location or make some emotionally compromised mistake.
So he stationed a guard outside the door. Like I’m a flight risk. Like I’m a liability. Like I’m someone who needs to be contained. The humiliation is so sharp it borders on nausea.
“I’m not your prisoner,” I say.
“You’re under protection,” he replies evenly.
“Funny,” I snap, “that’s not what it feels like.”
He doesn’t respond. That stoicism—maybe loyalty—had always made me respect Declan’s men before. But now it makes me want to scream.
I look over the man’s shoulder. The hallway is empty. The stairs are three steps to the right. Freedom so close I could reach for it—
“I wouldn’t recommend trying,” the guard says quietly. “Declan will know.”
I freeze. I don’t ask how. I look up instead, and it takes me four seconds to find it. The smoke detector at the end of the hall has a lens where the test button should be, and the housing is a shade too clean for a building like this.
It isn’t new. It has been there a lot longer than I have.
“Does it record, or just alert?”
The guard’s eyes don’t move off the middle distance. “I couldn’t say, ma’am.”
My stomach drops. The humiliation deepens into something harsher. Something like betrayal.
Last night—whatever it was—whatever passed between us in fear and desperation and exhaustion—it wasn’t trust. It wasn’t closeness. It was a lapse. And now I’m being managed like a loose thread that might unravel everything.
I step back into the flat and slam the door shut before the guard can say anything else. The silence inside feels sharper this time. Colder. Maybe lonelier.
I press my back to the door and let out a shaky breath that cracks on the way out.
“This is ridiculous,” I whisper, choking on the heat in my throat. “I’m not a child. I’m not some… pawn he gets to hide away while he plays hero.”
I pace the room, running my hands through my hair until it hurts. Every few steps I catch myself clenching my jaw so tightly it aches.
I hate feeling cornered. I hate being controlled. And I hate—more than anything—that the person doing it is Declan.
He didn’t even give me the dignity of choosing to stay.
I stop pacing and go straight to the mismatched cabinet by the kitchenette. Somewhere in the back, beneath a thick stack of old papers and manuals, I find exactly what I’m hoping for.
A burner phone. Small. Cheap. Feet of duct tape still clinging to the side. Declan probably kept it for emergencies.
Well—this is one.
I open it. There’s no lock screen. No SIM. Just the shell.
I grab one of the unmarked SIM cards from the metal box under the sink—Declan keeps supplies everywhere, like he’s preparing for twenty emergencies at once—and slot it into the phone.
The screen flickers to life. I sit on the edge of the sofa, take a breath I can’t seem to fill, and dial the number I’ve had memorized for years. Mackenzie’s personal line. The one that bypasses her security teams. The one she gave me when we were younger.
The phone rings once. Twice. I hold my breath. On the fourth ring she picks up and says nothing at all.
That’s how I know she’s really Costello now. Three years ago she’d have said hello.
“Mack. It’s me.”
The change in her breathing is instant. “Where are you? No, wait.” A pause, the sound of a door. “Okay. Go.”
The dam inside me cracks. “Mack,” I whisper, and my voice sounds broken. “I—I don’t know what to do.”
There’s rustling on her end. Sheets. A lamp switching on. A door opening. “Oh God,” she breathes, all sleep gone now. “What happened?”
I press the heel of my palm to my eyes. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Ailish—”
“I’m safe,” I say. “I think. But I don’t know. Things just—last night, something happened, and Declan brought me somewhere, and I woke up alone and now there’s a guard outside and I…”
The words dissolve. My throat closes.
Mackenzie goes still on the other end. I can feel her listening. “How bad?” she asks softly.
I drop my head, breath shuddering. “Bad enough that I’m questioning if I can trust anyone anymore.”
“Oh, Ailish…”
“I don’t know if I’m heartbroken or just done,” I choke out. “I don’t know what I feel. Everything’s wrong. Everything’s slipping out from under me. Liam’s doubting me. The Russians are hunting me. Nadia’s terrified her friend is part of it. And Declan—Declan—”
My voice cracks again.
Mackenzie waits. She always waits. She’s the only friend I have who doesn’t fill my silence with assumptions.
Finally, I manage, “He left me here. With a guard. Like I can’t be trusted. After we… after last night.”
“Ailish.” Her voice is firmer now. “Listen to me. Declan is reckless, not stupid. If he put a guard outside, he thinks you’re in danger. He’s not trying to cage you. He’s trying to keep you alive.”
“Then why leave without telling me?”
“Because he’s Declan,” she says. “Because he’s a blunt instrument who thinks protecting people means hiding them.” A short pause. “Because he’s terrified, and Declan O’Donnell doesn’t know what to do with fear.”
I let out a rough, bitter laugh. “So he just disappears?”
“He’s probably going after whoever hurt you.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know,” she says gently. “But it makes it understandable.”
I collapse back against the sofa cushions, staring up at the cracked ceiling. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to sit in this damn apartment while everyone else decides things for me.”
“I know,” she repeats. “But running will only make things worse.”
Silence stretches. “Ailish,” Mackenzie adds softly, “are you hurt?”
The tears I’ve been holding back spill, hot and humiliating. “I don’t know. I think I’m okay. Physically. I just—” I shake my head. “I can’t think straight.”
She exhales into the phone, steady and warm. “Listen to me carefully. You’re exhausted. You’re traumatized. You’re trying to make sense of things while you’re still bleeding emotionally.”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” I whisper.
“You’re not,” she snaps—then softens. “You are never a burden to me.”
My chest constricts.
She sighs. “All right. Here’s what I’m going to do.
” Her tone becomes brisk—Mackenzie in strategist mode.
“I’ll watch for the right moment. I’ll talk to Liam.
I’ll explain just enough. I’ll try to negotiate so he doesn’t freak out, doesn’t escalate, and doesn’t start a war with Declan because that is the last thing we need. ”
My breath catches. “Mackenzie—if Liam thinks I’ve vanished, he might—”
“I know.” Another sigh. “That’s why I’ll handle it. Carefully. Quietly. Without revealing your location and without pissing Declan off. I know how to thread that needle.”
A choked laugh escapes me. “God, I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” she says. “You sound like you’re sitting on the edge of falling apart.”
“I am.”
“Then you’re allowed to. You’re human, Ailish. Let yourself break down. Let yourself feel it. Then we’ll put you back together. I promise.”
That promise hits harder than I expect. I swallow. “What should I do until then?”
“Stay put,” she says gently. “Stay alive. Rest. And whatever you do—don’t run toward Liam or call him from that phone. Not yet.”
I nod, even though she can’t see. “Okay.”
“And Ailish?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not alone,” she says. “Even if it feels like it. You can call me anytime. I’m here. And I’ll get you out of this. One way or another.”
A trembling breath leaves me. “Okay.”
We end the call.
The room is quiet again. But something inside me has shifted.
I set the phone down on the table and curl my knees up to my chest. My body aches everywhere—bruises, muscle tension, the ghost of fear. But beneath all that is a new ache.
From Declan’s absence. From the way he left without telling me. From the way he still doesn’t trust me enough to treat me as anything but a risk.
A liability.
I bury my face in my hands and let the tears come—quiet, shaking, impossible to hold back anymore.
Mackenzie is right. I’m exhausted. I’m traumatized. And I have no idea what comes next.