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My pulse kicks up."Don’t insult me."

"Then don’t make me question your loyalty."

I go still, my body locking down around the anger tightening in my chest.

"You don’t have to question me."

"Are you sure about that?"Cian’s voice carries a mocking lilt designed to peel back my defenses.

"Yes," I answer without hesitation.

A beat of silence stretches between us before he exhales sharply."Good," he says, voice clipped."Then I expect you to make it happen."

"I’ll get back to you by tomorrow," I say, each word measured, leashing the fury tightening in my chest.

A beat of silence.Then, the slow, deliberate drag of his breath through the speaker.

"Don’t keep me waiting, Aoife.You won’t like what happens if you do."

The call cuts out.I let the phone fall onto the bed, the sound sharp in the silence, and draw in a slow, fractured breath.

I need a plan.

Now.

Cian is impatient.Ruairi is oblivious.And Eamon has tangled himself through my blood, my bones, and my breath in ways I don't have time to untangle now.

I shove the thought aside, push everything aside except the gnawing truth clawing at the edges of my mind.If I get this wrong, one, or both, of the men I care about will die.

Because of me.

That’s why I kept Ruairi in the pit longer than I should have.

Not for cruelty.

Not entirely.

Once I realized Cian meant to kill him, I needed to keep Ruairi contained.There, in the pit, he was helpless.

He was mine to guard.

Mine to punish.

Mine to save—or not.

And somewhere deep beneath the layers of loyalty and love, in the place where anger rots into something unrecognizable, I wonder if a part of me wanted him there.Wanted him afraid.Wanted him to know what it felt like to drown and beg and break.

Because maybe he deserves it.Maybe he deserves worse.

The thought festers, black and hollow inside my chest.

I don't want to look at it.

I don't want to know if it's true.

But it's there, whispering in the spaces between my heartbeats.

Let him drown