Page 116 of Unrequited

Keenan flicks his fingers at Seamus. “You. With me.” Then his eyes cut to me. “You. With the women.”

No goodbye. No kiss. No look back.

Seamus lets go of my hand and walks.

And I feel the echo of every lonely night I waited for him in that damn pub, when he didn’t show. The ache of wantingsomeone who might not want you back. But now I hear his voice like steel in my mind:You are Zoya McCarthy now.

And I know what that means.

“Come. This way, please, ma’am.”

A woman with bright eyes and a sharp ponytail leads me away without introducing herself. Hired help. Efficient. Cold.

She opens a door, and I step into a room with three women. They don’t look alike, not really, but for the eyes. Those are McCarthy eyes, just not Seamus’s.

“And you are?” one of them says, sizing me up.

She’s tall, though not as tall as Seamus, but commanding in her own way. I remember what he told me about his sisters. Bronwyn and Kyla. One sweet. One savage.

“Nice to meet you,” the tall one says, but her smile is pure venom. “How did you manage to trick my brother into marrying you?”

Well, that sorts out who’s sweet and who’s savage.

Bronwyn, the younger one with a rounder face, flushes pink as Kyla continues. “You fucked him, didn’t you? Smart girl. Use your body to get what you need, eh?”

I flinch, shocked. My mouth opens, but I can’t speak.

“That’s enough,” Bronwyn says quietly, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. But Kyla keeps circling.

I finally smile and find my voice. “Ah. You must be Kyla. Seamus spoke so highly ofyou.”

Her lips press together, and she doesn’t respond, not yet.

Her clothes scream money. Power. Precision. She’s thin, dressed in tailored designer from head to toe. And every inch of her says,You don’t belong here.

Meh.Not yet, I think.

But I sure as fuck will.

“Do you have any idea whatyou’vedone?”

“WhatI’vedone?” I blink slowly, take a breath. “It seems to me, you and I have a very different take on what happened between me and Seamus.”

“Seamus?” She spits the name like it’s poison.

She turns and looks at her younger sister, Bronwyn.

“You call him Seamus?No oneoutside our family fucking calls him Seamus.”

“Well, apparently his wife does,” I say calmly, holding my ground, squaring my shoulders like I’ve been trained for this moment my whole life. I don’t flinch. I don’t blink.

Bronwyn just smiles, like she’s already decided how this is going to end. “Oooh,” she whispers.

“If you’d care to be kind enough to me,” I say, not flinching, not folding, “you might learn a thing or two. You don’t have to throw me a family welcome party, but why don’t you at least listen to the actual story?”

Kyla glares. “I know he betrayed us,” she says bitterly. “That he took a Kopolov by name. That he’s been holed up in that goddamn house of his, and he came back and put everything at risk.”

“Did he?” I ask softly, evenly, deliberately not answering any of it. Not giving her a single piece of ammo. I can’t risk it. Not right now. She keeps circling, predator slow.