Her name was Chrissie.

She had a way of kissing that made me think she was already picturing eating me alive. Since I was in the mood to forget every damn thing, I just sat back and went along for the ride.

It was one hell of a ride too.

The problems didn’t start until later—much later.

I probably managed to get a few hours of sleep in before the nightmares started. Even when they did, I knew I was dreaming. I always knew when I was dreaming anymore.

The last time I’d seen Isabel alive, it had been as she looked at me through the windshield and smiled at me. The beautiful smile that had caught my attention from the start, back when we’d met in New York.

But she didn’t smile at me in the dreams.

This time, as she started to walk away, she looked back at me and half turned, walking backward with her hand outstretched. “Stop me,” she said. “Help me, Sean. Don’t let me die. I don’t want to die!”

I tried to reach her, stretching out my hand, but she was too far away, and my feet wouldn’t move. It was like they’d been set in cement, and I couldn’t do anything but struggle futilely, straining to reach just a little bit farther.

Then she was way too far out of reach and standing by the car.

Tears filled her eyes. “So, you’re just going to stand there?” she asked, her voice breaking. “You’re just going to let me die?”

“Don’t get in the car,” I begged her.

“It won’t matter.” She shook her head, the tears an endless fall down her face. Then she was inside, and the explosion hit.

I could move again, but instead of being able to rush toward the car, I was thrown back.

But I wasn’t deafened like I had been during the explosion, and I wasn’t knocked half-senseless for the first sixty seconds either. She was screaming. I could hear her.

Scrabbling to my feet, I ran for the car only to have Cormac grab me around the waist from behind and hurl me down, grinning at me as he loomed over me. Before I could get up, he hunkered down over me, one knee on either side of my torso as he began to slam one merciless fist after another into my face. “It’s your fucking fault, you sorry sack of shit,” he said in a cheerful voice. “She’s dead because of you. They all are.”

He finally got up. Because it was a dream, there wasn’t really any pain, just that sense of helplessness. As I turned to see what he was staring at, dread gathered in my gut, and I tried to rip myself out of the dream. But it wasn’t happening.

“They’re all dead, because of you, because of me…we’re all just sorry sacks of shit,” Cormac said, still smiling a little as he stared at the bodies laid out in front of us like they were on display in some creepy show. I saw them, one by one. My father, my brothers…Briar.

I lunged for him.

He actually laughed.

The minute I caught the front of his shirt, I woke up.

Panting, I lay there, staring at the ceiling, disoriented and feeling out of place.

A soft sighing sound came from next to me, and I jerked up warily. A heart-shaped face, framed by short, spiky dark hair lay on the pillow, angled in my direction. Memory crashed back into me and reality snapped into place. Chrissie. She’d all but jumped on me in the elevator, and by the time we got to my condo, I was too focused on sex to think about anything else.

Like the fact that I’d started to sober up, and I either needed a drink or some of the weed I’d picked up.

I hadn’t done either, and now I was dealing with the aftereffects of another lousy dream.

Swearing, I grabbed the pants on the floor and pulled them on. That done, I moved over to the sliding glass doors and stared outside.

Dawn was coming. It was still dark, but the faint lightening of the sky off in the east gave me some idea what time it was.

At least I’d gotten four or five hours of sleep. That was actually decent for me.

My head hurt, a dull ache that made it clear it was probably best that I hadn’t had anything else to drink, even if the effects had started to leave my system by the time we got inside my condo. I pressed my fingertips to the telltale throbbing under my right eyeball, then headed into the kitchen. Over the past ten months, I’d become a veritable student in the art of hangover management. The best thing to do was try to get on top of it.

There was a white bottle in the cabinet by the fridge, and I opened it, shaking a few pills into my hand. There was no cure for hangovers, but if I replenished the electrolytes I’d lost, plus some sugar and fluids, and did something to fight the inflammatory-like effects of the headache, I’d feel better faster. Not good, but better.

I popped the pills into my hand and downed them with one of those sodium-laden vegetable drinks. Under most circumstances, I avoided them like the plague, but I was dying of thirst, and the salty concoction hit my parched throat like a spicy elixir.

After I finished it, I also downed two glasses of water.

I’d end up pissing half the fluids out shortly, but within ten or fifteen minutes, the worst of the headache would start to fade.

My stomach growled, so I popped some bread into the toaster. I wanted more, but it would be stupid to eat until the headache eased a bit

The chill in the air finally penetrated the fog of exhaustion, and I rubbed my arms, heading back into the bedroom. Chrissie’s naked, curvy form stood by the window. And she was going through my wallet.

“Drop it,” I told her flatly.

She jerked, clearly caught off guard. The wallet fell from her hands…and so did some cash and a couple of my cards.

“Nice.” I hit the switch on the wall and eyed the loose bills and cards. “Funny, I don’t remember my cards ever coming out so easily.”

“Hey, funny, huh?” She stared at me, cheeks bright red and her eyes glassy. Her eyes darted to the door, and I could all but see her calculating the distance.

She was still naked as a jaybird too.

Somehow, I managed not to snort. “You going to take off out the door naked?”

“You going to call the cops on me?”

“No. Get dressed. Get the fuck out.”

She took one step forward, and something about the way she moved, how she held her hands made me suspicious.

Taking a step toward her, I asked, “What’s in your hand?”

“Nothing.” But she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Maybe I will call the cops,” I decided, lingering near the door long enough to grab the doorknob, slowly starting to close it.

“Fine!” She flung her hand out. A hundred-dollar-bill, one credit card, a picture of Isabel, and my driver’s license fluttered from her fingers. “There, you happy?”

Staring hard at the picture of Isabel, I waited until the roaring in my ears started to ebb, then I looked up at her. “Get the fuck out, and don’t ever let me see you again.”

I didn’t bother trying to go back to sleep.

By noon, my eyes were gritty, and fatigue pulled at me. I was tired enough to nap, but if I gave in to the urge now, I wouldn’t sleep tonight. I’d much rather sleep the night hours away than grab a nap during the day.

I headed into the gym I’d put up in Isabel’s studio a few months earlier. For the longest time, I’d just stand in the door and brood, staring at the barre that ran the length of the wall, thinking…remembering.

I didn’t know why I’d let Declan talk me into putting in the weight bench, then the punching bag. But bit by bit, I found myself using the set up more and more, then adding on to it.

On the nights when the noise in my head was too much, I came in here and climbed on the treadmill or attacked the heavy bag or set into a grueling weight workout until my muscles felt like nothing more than mush. It didn’t always quiet my mind, but sometimes, it made me tired enough to sleep, and that was what mattered the most.

It probably wasn’t the ideal thing to do as tired as I was, but I couldn’t concentrate on TV, and I’d long since given up trying to read to kill time. It had been months since my dad or brothers had attempted to talk me into coming back to work.

Not even twenty-five years old, and I already felt like I was over the hill and useless.

Ten minutes into my run, someone knocked on the door.

I ignored it.

Two minutes passed by on the treadmill. Two more knocks came and went. Whoever it was must have given up.

Good.

“Sean?”

I half stumbled, then righted myself, hopping off and turning just as Briar came into the gym.

Tension slammed into me. I couldn’t help it. Anytime I saw her, the clock seemed to wind back, and it was that day all over again. Cormac was holding me back as I struggled to get to Isabel.

Only days before that terrible evening, that very same man had rushed into my father’s office and shouted about a bomb. We’d only barely gotten clear of the patio outside Dad’s office before an explosion had rattled the very foundation of the big old house.

The two events were tied together—Cormac and Isabel were tied together.

And Briar was tied to Cormac.

But she was my sister, and I knew she loved me, so I didn’t bite her head off and ask her what the fuck she was doing there. I already knew.

“Hi,” I said shortly. Turning away, I grabbed the towel from the bar on the treadmill and swiped the sweat from my forehead. “What are you up to?”

“Oh, just out running around.” Briar’s tone was light, but I wasn’t fooled. My big sister rarely did anything without having a purpose. “I’m off today, taking care of errands and such. I was in the area and thought I’d come by and see you.”

Throwing the towel down, I picked up my water bottle and took a drink. “Okay.”

Her lids flickered. Briar was too…contained to show hurt, but I knew my sister, and despite the fact that I couldn’t quite let myself warm up to her, even knowing she still loved that bastard after he’d been spying on all of us, I hated myself a little more for hurting her. Again.

She didn’t let it stop her. She came farther into the gym and put her purse and coat on the weight bench closest to her. “Any chance you’d like to shower? Maybe go out and get some lunch?”

Fuck.

“I already ate,” I lied. “About an hour ago.”

“Oh.” She smiled and shrugged. “Guess I should have called.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Yeah.” She moved over to the big window that filled the entire eastern wall, showing a panoramic view of the city. “Are you going to join us for Thanksgiving?”

What a loaded question.

I took another drink, buying myself a few seconds. When I lowered the sports bottle, she was watching me, her dark blue eyes big and solemn…and knowing.

She already knew what I was going to say before I said it.

“I haven’t thought one way or the other about what I’m going to do,” I said, sidestepping the question.

A humorless smile curled her lips. “You’ve never been a good liar, Sean.” Pinching the bridge of her nose, she stared off at nothing, then looked back at me with a gaze that held a mix of frustration, grief, and anger.

I knew the anger was partially directed at me.

“Would it make it easier for you if I didn’t go?”

I scowled at her. “If I want to have dinner with my family, I will, Briar.”

“And having Cormac there makes you not want to do it,” she retorted. “But I’m not giving up the man I love because my brother can’t yank his head out of his ass.”

I threw my water bottle down.

She pointed a finger in my direction. “Don’t,” she warned me. “Don’t you give me that aggrieved, wounded, victimized look. All of you better remember one crucial detail…I got sucked into this mess because of the lives you all chose to lead. And I’m trying to make the best of it. But I will not give Cormac up.”

“It’s nice you got the fucking choice,” I snarled.

She grabbed her coat and pulled it on, staring at me with a weary expression. “You all had lots of choices, Sean. When it comes to this shit, I didn’t have any, except the ones I make now. So, stop it with the guilt trips. Cormac did not kill Isabel.” Her lower lip trembled for a few seconds before she got control. “You selfish son of a bitch. She was my sister-in-law, and I cared about her. Even if you don’t think much of Cormac, I would have thought you had some modicum of respect for me.”

Her words hit home, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. She turned and walked out. My legs were numb, every part of me frozen, and until the door slammed, I couldn’t break the strange spell of indecision.

By the time I did, I got to the hall just in time to hear the gentle ding as the elevator doors closed.

“Fuck,” I muttered, collapsing against the door frame.

Was there anything in this world I didn’t screw up?