Page 189 of Override

Not really.

But it's six in the morning and I'm tired, my eyes hurt, and I'm about to get yelled at again.

I slip through the bedroom door and close it quietly behind me before answering the call.

"Good morning." Silence greets me.

Then Callum's voice comes through the phone. "What the fuck did you do?"

I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes.

Apparently, I'd underestimated how quickly the shit show would begin.

"Good morning to you too, Callum."

Chapter 39

Maeve

I wake up and have no idea where I am.

For one disorienting moment, I lie perfectly still beneath unfamiliar blankets, staring at a ceiling I don't recognize while my mind struggles to catch up with the rest of me.

The room is quiet.

Morning light filters through the narrow gap between the curtains, casting a thin line across the wooden floor. The air smells different here. Clean and faintly like pine instead of the expensive candles the housekeeper lit every morning because Ronan preferred the house to smell a certain way.

My heart begins to race. Then I see the pillow on the floor. The folded blanket beside it. And I remember.

Running through the darkness with my hand wrapped around his.

A laugh catches in my throat.

Taibhse. Keaton. I finally met him.

The thought shouldn't make me smile as much as it does.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling again, allowing the memories from last night to move through me more slowly this time.

He came for me.

I don't know how long it will take before I can think those words without something inside my chest pulling tight.

He came for me. No one told him to.

Apparently, judging by the way his team had shown up and the expression on Badger's face, everyone had specifically told him not to. And he'd done it anyway.

My smile grows. Completely insane. All of them.

I still have questions about the names. A lot of questions.

Movement sounds somewhere beyond the bedroom, followed by the low murmur of a man's voice.

His voice. I smile again.

I have never heard Taibhse speak before last night, and now there's something strangely comforting about hearing Keaton's voice carrying faintly through the house.

It makes him real.