CHAPTER 15: DECLAN'S TABLE II
766 Words
Valentina
"Don't."
My voice came out too fast.
Declan looked up.
I curled my fingers around the napkin in my lap.
"Do not talk about him like you knew him," I said, quieter.
"I knew enough."
"You knew what he found."
Cillian shifted in his chair.
Declan's face gave nothing away. "Do you have his files?"
"No."
"That was quick."
"It was the same answer yesterday."
"Answers change."
"Mine hasn't."
It had. There were copies on the drive in my emergency bag. Or there had been, before men searched it and left everything behind. I did not know whether the drive still held anything useful.
Declan let the silence stretch.
Hospital administrators did the same thing when they wanted nurses to confess to staffing problems management had created.
I drank water.
The silence lost interest before I did.
Seamus asked about Thomas.
A normal question. Almost.
"The bullet missed the bone," I said. "He should keep full use if the wound stays clean."
Patrick asked whether the boy would need therapy.
"Physical, probably. The other kind would not hurt."
Finn snorted. "For a gunshot?"
I looked at him. "For being seventeen in this house."
That one came out before I could stop it.
Nobody laughed.
Better.
Ronan asked if Luna had eaten.
"Half her dinner. Then she tried to attack the curtain."
"She is settling in."
"Do not say that. She can hear you."
The conversation limped along after that. Warehouses. A driver arrested in Indiana. Somebody called Niall who had lost a shipment and, judging by the way everyone avoided saying what happened next, probably more than a job.
I barely followed.
Every few minutes, I caught Cillian looking at me.
Not constantly. That would have been easier.
He did it when I reached for my glass. When I tucked my hair behind my ear. When I pressed my ankle against the chair leg because it had started throbbing.
Attention in small doses.
Worse than staring.
Each time his eyes landed on me I felt a low pulse between my legs, as if my body had already decided that the man who threatened to take my cunt was the only one allowed to look at me like that.
Finn noticed too.
"Where did they put you?" he asked.
I looked up. "What?"
"Your room."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "East wing, isn't it? Near Cillian's rooms."
My fork slipped against the plate.
Cillian's face went still.
"Finn," Ronan said.
Not joking. Warning.
Finn kept looking at me. "New clothes. Guard outside the hall. Must be comfortable."
"It has a bed," I said. "Most rooms do."
"And cameras?"
My throat tightened.
He knew.
Maybe everyone knew.
"Enough," Cillian said.
Finn looked toward him, then away.
Declan had not said a word.
He was watching his sons, not me.
Dessert arrived. Cillian took one bite and pushed it away.
I stared at the plate.
Then at him.
He knew what was coming and looked tired before I spoke.
"Eat another few bites."
Finn glanced between us.
Declan did too.
Cillian's jaw worked once. "I am not hungry."
"I didn't ask if you were."
The words sounded sharper than I meant them to.
I tried again.
"You lost blood. You have barely eaten. Please."
The please changed the room more than the order had.
Cillian picked up the fork.
He ate.
Only three bites. Still.
Heat crawled up my neck because everyone had seen him listen.
I hated that it mattered.
When the plates were cleared, I stood.
My ankle protested. I hid it by gripping the chair.
"Sit," Declan said.
I froze.
"I need to check the transfusion site."
"Later."
"No, now."
My voice wobbled on the last word. Barely. I heard it anyway.
Declan leaned back. "You leave when this table is finished."
I looked at Cillian.
Not asking him to save me.
Just needing to know which side of the sentence he occupied.
"She has been working since before dawn," he said.
Declan's eyes moved to him.
"She can survive ten more minutes."
I could.
That was not the point.
"I am going," I said.
I stepped away from the chair.
Finn caught my wrist.
His fingers closed too hard, too fast.
Pain shot up my arm.
The grip was nothing like Cillian's. Cillian had held me still and made me wet. This was just pain and ownership from the wrong man, and my body knew the difference immediately.
"He told you to sit," Finn said.
My body went cold before my mind caught up.
The knife beside my plate was three inches from my free hand.
- Writer
