25. Ava

AVA

T he predawn light crept in through the curtains, casting a soft, silvery glow over the room. I lay still, barely daring to breathe as I watched Scáth sleep beside me.

He was here.

He came back.

His face, usually so hard and guarded, was relaxed now. The sharp lines softened, and in this rare, quiet moment, he looked almost boyish, as if all the weight he carried had finally lifted, if only for a little while.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him like this—at peace.

My gaze traced the curve of his jaw, the way his dark lashes brushed against his cheek.

His lips, the same lips that had spoken so many harsh, cutting words, were now slightly parted, his breaths slow and steady.

I should have felt at peace with him asleep beside me, but instead, I was torn, a knot in my chest that tightened the longer I stared.

Last night, he had told me he loved me. Loved me.

The words had echoed in my mind ever since he’d said them, impossible to shake.

They had hit me harder than I’d expected, as if some hidden part of me had been waiting for them, dreading them and craving them all at once.

There was something about him that drew me in, something dark and twisted and yet… real.

He was dangerous, obsessive, everything I should be running from. He was my foster brother for God’s sake.

And yet I couldn’t stop this pull toward him, couldn’t ignore the way my heart betrayed me every time he looked at me.

He saw me in a way no one else did. He watched over me. Protected me.

I felt my throat tighten as I thought about it. I should be terrified. I was terrified.

But at the same time, part of me felt alive in a way I never had before. With Scáth, every moment was sharper, more vivid.

As I watched him now, peaceful, vulnerable even, I realized that I was past the point of no return.

I was falling for him, hard, and that terrified me more than anything.

It didn’t make sense—it couldn’t.

I didn’t want this. I couldn’t want this. Loving Scáth was like walking into the flames, knowing I’d be burned but unable to stop myself.

Every part of me screamed to turn away, to run before it was too late. But here I was, lying next to him, drawn in by the very thing that should’ve scared me the most.

What did that say about me? About us? I tried to steady my breath, but the fear pressed harder. Falling for him wasn’t just wrong—it felt like the beginning of the end.

Because I knew that once I admitted it to myself, there’d be no going back. And that thought chilled me to the bone.

I was falling for my stalker.

Even though he was keeping things from me.

Even though I didn’t even know his name.

As the driver fussed with the bags behind me, I climbed the stone stairs to my home back in Dublin with my head bent over my phone, staring at the stolen photo I’d taken of Scáth that morning.

Defiance had flared in me as I’d reached for my phone, as I justified it to myself. Every girl deserved to have at least one photo of their boyfriend, right?

If that’s what I could call him.

Besides, he’d stolen a photo from me.

Only fair that I stole one back.

I was so distracted that I jumped when the front door suddenly opened. I stumbled back a step, hand at my jolted heart.

“Ebony, you scared the— Ebony?”

My adopted mother, who was the epitome of class, decorum, and self-restraint, had mascara running down her pale porcelain cheeks. Her teary eyes were rubbed raw and red .

Her obvious distress was only mitigated by her obvious surprise at seeing me there on the steps.

“Ava,” she said, “my goodness. I wasn’t expecting you.”

I laughed awkwardly. “Lisa and I decided to come back early. We caught a commercial flight.”

Already the pain was melting from her features.

I reached out to touch Ebony’s arm, and she gave it an awkward pat. “Thank you, dear. But I’m perfectly fine.”

My arm fell heavily back to my side as Ebony sniffed and drew herself back into a rigidly erect posture.

Despite her being my mother now, we never shared much physical touch.

What was just a natural human instinct to comfort someone felt like crossing a line with Ebony. She was too independent, too self-sufficient.

“I must look ridiculous,” she said. “How embarrassing.”

“It’s okay,” I muttered. “Are you okay?”

She smiled and shook her head as she pulled a compact from her small hand purse.

“I’m far too experienced to let a bad surgery affect me like this,” Ebony said, blotting at her face with a compact as a black sedan circled around the drive. “It’s unprofessional. And detrimental to the good I can do, to focus so much on what I cannot .”

There was hardly any evidence left of the emotional woman I’d startled so terribly at the door.

Ebony stared over my head with a fixed determination, coolheaded and calm.

“Remember that, Ava,” she said, eyes slipping to mine for just an instant. “The greater good. ”

I was silent and Ebony took my silence with a curt nod of her chin. “I trust Paris was a welcome break.”

I nodded, shoving down the memory of the man who tried to kill me and his lifeless eyes in the shadows of Père Lachaise Cemetery.

They’d have found his body by now, I’m sure, burned to a crisp thanks to Scáth, a can of gasoline, and a match.

Fire was an excellent destroyer of evidence as it turned out.

Ebony brushed by me, her guards following on either side like I was a river stone to simply be moved past.

I glanced over my shoulder to watch them all pile into the sedan.

Ebony was already hunched over her phone, no doubt sending curt emails and blunt instructions to her herd of minions.

I sighed a little as the car eased down the tree-lined lane.

Of course I owed Ebony my life. I didn’t want to imagine how different things could be if she hadn’t adopted me.

But a part of me, perhaps a very selfish, ungrateful part of me, couldn’t help but wonder why she had to hold me like she held the world—at arm’s length.

My phone buzzed and I thought perhaps it was Scáth, messaging me that he’d landed and was on his way home.

He’d caught a different flight from us. He said he had something to do in Paris but wouldn’t tell me what.

But it wasn’t Scáth. It was Aisling.

Aisling: I’m ready to talk about Liath.

My gaze swept over the mansion across the fence, my eyes lingering on the window where my stalker kept his binoculars .

I sensed no movement at the window. I couldn’t feel him watching me.

He must not be back yet.

Which meant I had a small window of opportunity to go somewhere without him trying to stop me.

He wasn’t going to be happy when he found out.

I needed to meet Lisa to carry out our plan, the reason we’d come back early.

But first I needed to talk to Aisling.

I needed answers. Even if it risked my life.