12

AELA

AFTER DECLAN’S call in the early hours of the morning, where he’d laid down the law, it wasn’t a surprise to open the door and find Conor and Brennan there. But welcoming them in felt odd.

Like I was conceding defeat on a battle that had yet to be fought.

Of course, I had enough battles going down around me, so I needed to pick which ones to fight.

My house was a crime scene. There was yellow tape around it, and my bedroom was being processed by forensics, so I’d grabbed all the stuff Seamus and I had been packing with the intention of taking it to New York with us, and had checked us into a hotel instead.

How they’d known ab