Page 12

AVA

C iaran, dressed in a navy IT guy’s uniform, closed the door behind him and paused. His sharp eyes flicked between me and Ty, lingering just a moment too long. Suspicion darkened his features, his jaw tightening as if he were trying to piece together a puzzle.

“What’s this doing here?” Ciaran asked, snatching something off the floor and holding it up.

The wooden spoon.

Fuck.

A wave of guilt and shame crashed over me, sharp and unforgiving. That stupid, innocuous piece of kitchenware had become the symbol of something I couldn’t take back—our forbidden kiss.

I hadn’t started it.

But I had wanted it. I’d been about to kiss Ty back, caught in the moment, before Ciaran had interrupted us.

The air in the room grew heavier, thick with unspoken tension. Ciaran’s gaze lingered on me, unreadable, and my stomach churned as the silence stretched taut, threatening to snap.

I crossed the kitchen quickly, a bright, forced smile on my lips as I snatched the wooden spoon out of his hand and wrapped my arms around him.

“Scáth. Hi,” I said, my voice a little too breathy, too eager.

His hand came up to cup the back of my neck, his fingers threading possessively into my hair. His lips crashed into mine, the kiss deliberate and claiming.

The force of it stole my breath, and I melted against him, my heart racing for reasons that had nothing to do with passion and everything to do with fear.

Fear that this display—this obvious declaration—would hurt Ty.

But Ciaran didn’t let me go. His grip was firm, almost defiant, as though he wanted to prove a point.

To Ty.

To me.

To anyone who might dare to question that I was his .

I kissed him back, pouring everything I could into the moment, trying to drown out the unease rising in my chest.

His touch was familiar, grounding, and I wanted to lose myself in it. In him. In us.

But the thought of Ty standing mere feet away made it impossible to sink fully into the moment.

Ciaran pulled back just enough to brush his lips over my ear, his voice low and possessive. “Missed you.”

My breath hitched, and I nodded against him, unwilling to look over my shoulder at Ty.

“Missed you too,” I whispered, even as Ty’s gaze burned across the back of my neck .

Ciaran’s gaze flicked briefly over my shoulder before returning to mine, his expression softening just slightly. But his body remained tense, his arm still wrapped protectively around my waist as though he were daring Ty to challenge his claim.

I knew what this was. A declaration of war. Not with me, but over me.

Even as I leaned into him, I couldn’t ignore the knot of guilt tightening in my stomach. I’d made my choice, but I couldn’t deny the ache that came with the thought of hurting Ty, the man who had bared his soul to save me.

The man who, despite my best efforts, still held a piece of my heart.

Ty slammed the bowls onto the low table in the living room with more force than necessary, the sound rattling through the tense air. His expression was tight, his anger barely contained as he barked, “Dinner is served.”

I glanced at him, catching the way his jaw ticked, but before I could say anything, Ciaran cut in smoothly, taking control as always. “We can watch the footage while we eat.”

Without waiting for a response, Ciaran moved to his fancy wall-mounted TV—the one he wouldn’t let anyone else touch—and he plugged in a small USB drive.

He made a point of sitting down between Ty and me. He pulled me into his side, his entire leg firmly against mine as he settled in, his body language radiating possession.

Ty’s eyes flicked toward the movement, his mouth tightening, but he said nothing as he sat stiffly on the other side of the couch, his bowl untouched.

I shifted forward, holding my own bowl in my lap as the security footage began to play .

The screen flickered with grainy black-and-white video of The Vault’s dimly lit gothic dungeon-like interior, the bar where Liath was last seen.

My earlier swirl of conflicting emotions dulled, replaced by a sharp focus as I spotted Liath weaving through the dark tables dripping with ruby candles to the dark wood bar.

My heart tightened. This was the last that anyone saw her alive.

Liath sat at one of the high red velvet stools and ordered a drink from the guy behind the counter—I recognized him as the bartender I talked to when I went asking questions about Liath.

She seemed shaken. And she kept glancing around.

I remembered the voice message she left me that evening.

“I’m being followed. He’s stalking me. Ava!”

I tried to take a bite of the pasta, the rich aroma of garlic and herbs filling the room, but I could barely taste it. My stomach churned with unease, my appetite disappearing entirely as I leaned forward, my eyes scanning every corner of the screen.

Then something caught my attention.

“There!” I said sharply, my voice cutting through the quiet. “Pause it.”

Ciaran reached for the remote, pausing the footage just as I directed. I pointed toward the edge of the screen, my pulse spiking as I spotted him.

A man.

“He’s watching her. Look at him. He’s not just looking—he’s studying her. ”

He was standing partially hidden in the shadows, his gaze fixed on Liath. He didn’t move, didn’t interact with anyone around him. His attention was solely on her, his posture unnervingly still.

The way he stared at Liath, as though she were the only person in the room, sent a chill down my spine.

Ciaran leaned in, his arm brushing against mine as he studied the screen. “Who the fuck is that?”

I squinted but I couldn’t make out his features from this angle.

“Can you get a better shot of his face?” Ty said.

Ciaran picked up the remote and flicked across what appeared to be several camera angles.

He landed on one from a different side of the bar, facing the man.

Something tickled my memory. I grabbed Ciaran’s knee. “Can you zoom in?”

With a press of a button, he did, the man’s face filling up the TV.

He was handsome, perhaps in his mid-thirties, with sharp cheekbones and an unsettling intensity in his expression.

I gasped.

“France!” I yelled out and was met with blank stares from both brothers.

God, it was unnerving to have them both sitting side by side and looking at me with the same expression.

I explained, my words tumbling out in a rush. “I was with Liath and the girls in the south of France at this sailing thing. This guy was staring at her all night at this club we went to. We were trying to get her to go talk to him ’cause he was cute. But…”

My words faltered, the memory of our last holiday together flooding my mind like a cruel specter.

It had been the last time I saw Liath.

My gaze locked on the man’s face frozen on the screen, and a shiver coursed down my spine.

“I swear that’s him,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the tension in the room.

Images of that holiday flashed through my mind—laughing with Liath, teasing her about her obsessed crush. We’d joked about him, made light of the way he seemed to linger just out of reach, his attention glued to her.

But it hadn’t been funny. Not really.

The icy realization hit me like a blow to the chest. He hadn’t been a crush—he’d been stalking her. Watching her every move. He’d followed her to France and then back to Dublin; there was the fucking proof.

He had been stalking her for months and she hadn’t known it. Not until it was too late.

He had taken her.

My stomach twisted violently, the weight of guilt crushing down on me as I stared at the screen.

If only I’d known.

If I’d looked closer, paid more attention, I could have stopped it. I could have done something.

I turned to Ciaran. “Can you run his face through, I don’t know, facial recognition or something? Find out who he is?”

Ciaran frowned, leaning closer to the screen. His jaw tightened, the hard lines of his face softening just slightly as he glanced at me.

“I can try,” he said, his voice low, almost apologetic. “But don’t get your hopes up. The image is super pixilated.”

“Chances are,” Ty added, “even if we could get a name, he’s likely a Sochai henchman and knows nothing.”

“We have to try, though,” I said quietly, glancing back to the dark man on the screen. “We have no other leads.”

Ciaran let out a sharp yelp, startling me so much that I almost dropped my fork. Before I could ask, he bolted out of the living room and disappeared down the hallway into his bedroom.

“What the hell?” I muttered, glancing over at Ty.

For once, his usual unreadable mask was replaced with genuine confusion, his dark brows furrowing as he followed the sound of Ciaran rummaging around.

Ty shrugged.

Ciaran reappeared moments later, waving a manila folder in the air like a trophy. His chest was rising and falling like he’d run a mile, but the grin on his face was boyish, triumphant.

“I can’t believe I forgot I had this,” he said, his voice tinged with exhilaration.

I frowned, a mix of curiosity and apprehension settling in my chest as I stared at the folder. “What is it?”

He threw it onto the low coffee table in front of me and gestured dramatically. “Go on. Open it.”

The buzz of anticipation in his voice was infectious, but it didn’t do much to settle the nerves twisting in my stomach. I set my food aside and flipped the folder open .

The world narrowed, the edges of my vision dimming as my focus locked on the papers inside.

My adoption papers.

The papers he’d stolen from me at the library.

The room felt too quiet as I scanned the documents, an unsteady feeling settling in my stomach.

Two sets of adoptions, one from when I’d been adopted by the Donahues and another from when Ebony had taken me in.

My eyes landed on two names that had haunted me in my dreams. My real parents.

Johnny and Molly Carey.

My vision blurred as tears welled up, the letters on the page smudging together. My chest ached, emotions crashing over me in a wave too powerful to fight. I barely had any memories of them, so it felt silly to cry over people I never really knew.

A hand touched my arm, warm and steady. Ty had shifted closer without me noticing, his face soft with concern.

“Are you okay?” His voice was low, almost gentle, the way it had been back at Blackthorn.

“Get your hand off my girlfriend,” Ciaran snapped, his icy glare directed straight at Ty.

The tension in the room thickened in an instant.

Ty didn’t flinch, didn’t even acknowledge the venom in Ciaran’s voice. He kept his gaze on me, his hand steady. “Settle down, asshole. This isn’t about you. Ava?”

I gently pulled my arm free, the movement deliberate, and I wiped the tears from my eyes. The last thing we needed was a full-on brawl in our living room .

“I’m grand,” I lied, the words shaky. “Just… I’m grand.”

I took a steadying breath and forced my attention back to the papers, ignoring the palpable animosity radiating between the two brothers.

But my focus quickly shifted as my eyes landed on something else. A name that was all too familiar.

The Hallowstone Adoption Agency.

They had been the same adoption agency who brokered Liath’s adoption to the Byrnes. The same adoption agency who brokered the deals for the other missing girls. The other daughters .

My breath hitched. The weight of the discovery settled heavily in my chest.

“That’s the same agency,” I said, my voice almost inaudible. “They placed Liath. And the other girls. They’re working for the Society.”

My words broke the icy standoff between Ty and Ciaran. Both of them turned their attention fully to me, their expressions shifting—Ciaran’s to calculation, Ty’s to something more unreadable.

“We have to get into their records,” I continued, sitting up straighter. “Find out who owns it.”

Ciaran rubbed his hands together, his confidence returning in full force. “That’s where your genius boyfriend comes in. Sit back and watch the master at work.”

He sat down next to me but didn’t stop there—he pulled me onto his lap, making a point to wrap an arm firmly around my waist.

I let out an annoyed yelp, fully aware of his intentions. “Scáth, surely this isn’t comfortable. ”

His grip tightened slightly, and he smirked against my ear. “You’re my good luck charm, baby.”

He set a keyboard on my lap and began typing, his arms caging me in as he used the TV as a monitor.

The warmth of his body against mine should have been comforting, but I was hyper-aware of Ty sitting next to us on the couch, his stare boring into me.

Minutes ticked by, Ciaran’s fingers flying across the keys, his focus unbroken, then he let out a humph.

“What?” I straightened. “What does humph mean?”

“As far as I can tell, they’re a nonprofit owned by a private company,” he said, his voice tight with concentration. “Ownership records aren’t public.”

His fingers resumed their tapping, but I could feel the tension mounting in his shoulders.

I shifted in his lap, trying to get comfortable.

“You shouldn’t keep doing that,” he warned, his voice low.

“Doing wha—?” And then I felt it.

His cock hardening against my ass.

Oh .

My cheeks flamed hot, and I stilled immediately. “Sorry.”

Ty leaned back on the couch, his arms crossing over his wide chest. “Should I give you two the room?”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Ciaran said at the same time.

Several tense minutes passed before Ciaran cursed under his breath, his hands falling away from the keyboard.

“I can’t get into their servers,” he admitted. “They must be offline and on-site. ”

“What does that mean?” I asked, trying to keep the disappointment from showing in my voice.

“It means,” Ty said, “if we want to find out who owns Hallowstone… we’ve got to break in.”