Page 57 of Bound By Blood and Lies

“To Roman, sweetheart,” I swallow a gulp as I stare at her reflection in the mirror. “He hasn’t stopped looking for you.”

The love that flows over me is overwhelming. For weeks I’ve been clinging to the fragile hope that he wouldn’t give up on me, that somewhere out there Roman was still fighting to find me, but hearing the words spoken out loud by her makes the reality of it crash through me.

He never stopped.

My eyes burn and the tears start falling again, sliding hot and fast down my face. I press a hand to my chest as my heart struggles to keep pace with everything flooding through it at once. Relief. Love. Gratitude. Hope. All of it tangles together so tightly it feels unbearable. The radio crackles softly as Fiona turns the volume up a little and ‘Let Me Hurt by Emily Rowed’ begins to play as the road stretches endlessly into the dark ahead of us.

London blurs past the window. Lights smear into streaks of gold and white across the glass. Robyn’s fingers tighten gently around mine and I turn my head toward her, managing a small, shaking smile in return. For a moment we just look at each other. Really look. As she takes in the changes in me the same way I’m taking in the hollow shadows beneath her eyes and the way her shoulders curl slightly inward like she’s still bracing for something that isn’t there anymore.

Then it hits me.

Hard.

A crushing weight settles on top of my chest. It feels like a boulder. Heavy and immovable as it presses down harder and harder until I can barely breathe around it. My ears begin to ring and my bottom lip starts to wobble at the realisation of what is waiting for me on the other side of this drive.

Roman wanted the Fae I wasbefore.

Before the baby.

Before his father.

Before Fisher.

My thoughts start to spiral faster, tripping over each other as the memories come flooding in. I never told him I loved him. I shouted at him before I left. And now I’m coming back carrying a baby that probably isn’t his.

It isn’t fair.

My chest constricts harder as a sob tears its way out of me.

It isn’t fair.

I had someone whofinallychoseme. Someone who saw all of me and wanted me anyway. And now… now it’s ruined. The relief of being free should feel like air rushing back into my lungs after weeks of being underwater, but instead it feels like I’m drowning. This freedom doesn’t erase anything that happened to me, it highlights it. And suddenly it doesn’t feel quite as exciting as it should.

CHAPTER 17

ROMAN

It’s been a hard week. Hard in the kind of way that settles into your bones and refuses to move no matter how much sleep you get or how much whisky you pour down your throat. Atlas didn’t just find a microphone in the underground six days ago; he found cameras too.

We tore the place apart the second we realised we were compromised, ripping at loose bricks, pulling panels from the walls, turning the entire space upside down until we started finding them. Every time we thought we’d reached the last one, Atlas’ software flagged another signal buried somewhere deeper in the room. They’re tiny things, carefully tucked into corners and beams where no one would ever think to look. He nearly traced the source too. We were seconds away from having something real when his entire system locked up without warning. Whoever is watching us didn’t simply shut the programme down; they reached straight through the firewall and burned everything.

I swirl the whisky slowly in my glass, watching the amber liquid catch on the dim kitchen light as the ice knocks softly against the sides. I just stare at it before tipping the rest back. The burn slides down my throat but barely registers anymore.

The radio hums quietly in the background and the first notes of‘Turning Page by Sleeping At Last’drift through the kitchen. My nose scrunches immediately. The piano presses straight into something raw in my chest and irritation spikes through me as I lean forward across the island, grabbing the open bottle. The glass lands back on the counter with a clink as I pour myself another generous measure and the music continues to play behind me like some cruel reminder of everything I’ve been trying not to think about.

The house has been quiet all week as well and I hate it. It’s not the peaceful kind of quiet that settles over a place at the end of a long day, but the heavy kind that hangs in the air like someone died and no one quite knows how to talk about it yet. Even the boys are subdued, which is saying something. Riggs hasn’t made a proper joke in two days, and the few comments he does say falls flat. Atlas barely leaves his laptop, hunched over it for hours as he tries to piece together information that keeps slipping through our fingers. Victor sits by the windows more often than not, watching the drive and the gates like he expects someone to appear at any second. Felix hasn’t slept and all I’m consuming these days is whisky.

I swirl the glass in my hand again and stare at the dark liquid inside it, realising distantly that the bottle has become a permanent fixture on the kitchen island this week. I never thought I’d see the day I’d complain about silence, but right now it is unbearable. For once I need something loud enough to drown out the thoughts running through my head.

She’s not dead.

I would feel it if she was… wouldn’t I?

Something that big couldn’t just happen quietly. It wouldn’t slip past me unnoticed whilst I sit here drinking whisky and pretending the world hasn’t tilted off its axis. If Fae was gone there would be a cosmic explosion tearing straight through myribs and stealing the air from my lungs before I even understood why. I wouldn’t be breathing normally. The universe would have to stop, the ground would split open beneath my feet, because losing her would be the kind of thing that doesn’t happen gently.

It would shatter everything.

I exhale and lean my weight back against the counter. The kitchen lights are dim, the only real glow coming from the lamp over the table where the boys are scattered around with half-finished drinks and empty plates.