It never stopped being disorienting—glancing in a mirror, expecting to see the same person you saw every single day . . . and seeing someone different. My reflection was as strange to me as my relationship with Kieran had become, even though I’d been catching glimpses of this stranger in mirrors for nearly two years now.
My ice-blue eyes were what people noticed first, and were a dead giveaway to anyone who knew Mickey or had known me. To pass as anyone other than Lily O’Sullivan, I hid them by drawing attention to them.
Hidden behind non-prescription thick-framed glasses and hazel-colored contacts, my normally bare eyes were now accentuated with shadow and liner, my lashes dark and full. My blonde hair that usually sat high up on my head in a messy knot was falling to my waist in waves.
In just over half an hour, I was a different person. One who would be gone with some makeup remover.
I’d only glanced in the mirror long enough this morning to acknowledge the stranger looking back at me before I’d ducked my head, grabbed my old purse filled with some cash, as well as everything required to create and erase the stranger in the mirror, and hurried out the bathroom window since it faced away from the main house and Soldier’s Row.
I hadn’t lingered.
I never did.
And I’d left Holloway property . . . as I did every Monday morning.
Now as I sat in a café booth downtown, a twenty-minute walk from Holloway, I found it hard to look away from the stranger staring back at me in the wall of mirrors off to the side.
The makeup alone was a big enough change since I never wore any . . . but the eyes and the glasses. The length of my hair. All of it combined was fascinating and horrifying to look at.
Whether ordering it under Beck’s name and card or having Conor buy it one item at a time . . . I’d spent the better part of six months stashing money and gathering everything I would need to slightly change my appearance for when Kieran and I ran from Holloway and North Carolina.
But when that dream had become nothing more than shattered promises, everything had remained untouched until two years ago when someone came looking for me . . .
And then I’d been thanking God for the plans that had led to what was hidden away in the crawl space in our closet, because it’d created this familiar stranger who found herself in this same diner every Monday morning.
Kieran may have decided he wanted us to stay here. That didn’t mean I didn’t plan to leave.
In order to continue on with my life and to prepare for a future with or without him, I had to leave the property.
So I did . . . I do.
There’s something thrilling in sneaking away unnoticed from a property filled with mob members, many who are sworn to keep me hidden from the outside world.
Something exhilarating in breathing air that doesn’t feel tainted with every bad memory from my life.
Something addictive in possibly putting myself in proximity with my biggest nightmares, and hoping I’ll be as invisible to them as they’ve always been to me.
The first time hadn’t felt nearly as gratifying as I’d thought it would. In fact, it’d been terrifying. I’d been so sure the moment I set foot on the road outside the main house that a Borello would be waiting for me. Or at any moment, Beck would wake up and realize I wasn’t there.
That fear hadn’t vanished over the last two years, but it had lessened . . . morphed into excitement thrumming in my veins each time I slipped out of the house and crawled back in without alerting anyone.
Sneaking out at night would’ve been easier since Conor guarded the outside of the house and rarely came in, but Kieran was too unpredictable. He knew the dark made it easier for people to move around undetected, which was why he tried so hard to get home at night. He needed to assure himself I was still alive and safely hidden away.
Save Lily. Protect Lily. Hide Lily. Cage Lily.
That never-ending, maddening cycle.
Even though Beck was inside the house with me during the day—unless he was sent somewhere—he typically slept until noon. That came with the territory of selling on the streets until early hours of the morning. Therefore, mornings were my chance to leave.
Most importantly . . . the person I left Holloway to see only had a small window of time each week to meet up with a girl who was supposed to be dead. And Brooks Street Café in Wake Forest was where we met without fail.
I looked around expectantly for her, then realized a few moments later that my gaze had left the front door and was slowly working across the diner, lingering on the places I usually saw him . . .
My heart betrayed me by increasing in speed at just the thought of him.
His knowing eyes and unrestrained smile.
The way he seemed to demand attention so casually . . . just as he had demanded mine for two years, even spilling over into dreams.
The current of energy that hugged my skin whenever he was near, a feeling so intoxicating and foreign . . . and, yet, there was a hint of familiarity. So much so I had to restrain myself from closing the distance between us to see if it grew. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I knew him, because that buzz had remained constant over the years rather than fading.
He looked at me as if he could see straight through to my heart, and see every hope and fear that lie there. He seemed to understand me even though we’d never spoken a word to each other. And this connection . . . it felt as if my soul was screaming—begging—for me to recognize its mate was within reach, and I was keeping myself from him.
But soulmates . . . they couldn’t be real.
And though his written words were exhilarating and I was dreading when they would end, I spent so much of my time consumed with guilt for being intrigued by someone who wasn’t Kieran.
“My future ex-wife has returned.”
I jolted, pulled away from my musing by the booming voice.
“God, Ethan.” I huffed, a breath of a laugh tumbling from my lips as I finally regained some of my composure. “You scared me.”
Ethan gave me a wounded look and sighed exaggeratedly. “How could I scare you? I am your love. You are mine.”
Ethan was the kind of guy who kept up an endless stream of teasing words, just waiting for someone to smile back at him—to laugh at his jokes.
Like a golden retriever waiting to be petted. In a way, it was almost endearing.
“My lovely lover,” he continued when I didn’t offer anything, “I haven’t seen you in years. Where have you been? I thought you’d decided to leave me.”
“It’s been a week.”
He gave me a dopey smile. “A week can feel like a lifetime, future ex-wife. So, what can I get you on this now perfect morning?”
“Um, I . . .” I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. “I’ll just have a coffee for now.”
He stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes for long seconds before murmuring, “If I knew you were boring, I wouldn’t plan our entire future every time I see you.”
“Ethan . . . I start off with the same thing every time.”
“And it kills me every time.” He clutched his chest as though my order was literally killing him. “I’m waiting for the day when I walk up and ask what I can get you, and you say, ‘You, Ethan. I’ve been waiting for you.’ My heart can’t take that you aren’t here for me.”
I rolled my eyes at his dramatics but forced a smile. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m divorcing you before we can get fake married.”
“Is the divorce taking place before or after coffee?” I asked warily.
“Depends,” he mused, then leaned down so he was closer to my level. “Let me take you out to dinner sometime, and maybe I’ll reconsider divorcing you.”
I started to smile for his sake but froze halfway. I was dumbfounded when I realized that—for once—Ethan wasn’t joking.
It’d been Kieran and me for as long as I could remember—since long before either of us knew how to flirt.
None of the other guys of Holloway had ever flirted.
None of them had ever crossed a line with me sexually.
If any of them had ever been remotely attracted to me, I hadn’t had a clue because they all valued their lives.
The most attention I’d ever received from another guy had been Ethan’s jokes and a stranger’s notes . . . so I didn’t know how to handle someone asking me on a date, when I’d never expected another man to have the nerve to.
“I’m sorry . . . but I—”
“What do you say?” he asked, cutting me off. “I know a place that—”
I shook my head and hurried to stop him. “I’m sorry, I can’t. Thank you for the offer, but I have a boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Ethan stared at me, then dropped his gaze to the table. He shrugged and forced a smile that wasn’t nearly as charming as usual. “Well, hey, coffee’s on the house today . . .”
“That isn’t necess—”
“I insist.” He held up a hand as he began backing away and gave me a look that made me once again think of him as a golden retriever. “Boyfriend or not, I have to take care of my future ex-wife.”
Unsure of how to respond to him, I mumbled, “Thanks, Ethan.”
I sucked in a quick breath when electricity trickled over my skin like a dance. Everything I’d been hoping and waiting for earlier but knew I needed to avoid. As if compelled, I turned toward the source of that addictive, unexplainable feeling, but stopped when I saw a girl walking toward my booth.
Teagan.
The corner of her lip curled in a smirk when she saw me, but she didn’t speak until she got closer.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“You’re not, I just finished ordering coffee. How are you?” I asked as my eyes darted over her face and arms, my words getting lost in the noise of the café.
She lifted a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Hungry.”
I sent her a look that she ignored, but really, I didn’t know what other response I expected from her.
Teagan was as tough and stubborn as Kieran, but as caring as Beck. She was the one who found me hidden on the back of the property two years ago, and the only reason I continued to risk leaving it. She was also the source of half of my information on Mickey, Bailey, and Finn, and vice versa . . . and the day I left Holloway, she was coming with me.
She’d been one of the very few friends I’d had growing up, her dad being a member of Holloway, but we’d wanted different lives.
Teagan had wanted all the mob had to offer, and was terrified of being pushed out when she got older . . . so she’d made sure that wasn’t a possibility by marrying Finn a year after they’d faked my death. A marriage that became her biggest regret when she discovered how cruel the family she married into could be, and how abusive her husband was.
Something she’d finally confessed to me a couple months ago when a bruise had been too hard to explain away, and only because she knew I couldn’t share the information with anyone else since I wasn’t supposed to have seen her in four years.
Like all the women and children within Holloway, Teagan had been told I’d been killed the night of Aric’s death. While the men swore to protect me and I mourned Aric’s death and my relationship with Kieran, she’d grieved my death.
But Finn had a drinking problem and loose lips, and one day during a meeting I’d managed to evade, she’d shown up at the guesthouse with tears streaming down her cheeks, screaming accusations and grabbing me in a hug that lasted forever and ended too soon.
It was in that short time with her I realized nothing about Teagan had changed, yet everything was different.
She was still stubborn and tough and loving . . . but I could see something was breaking her from the inside. I could see something was making her hate the mob as much as I always had.
I snuck out for the first time the next morning to meet her, and I hadn’t missed a week since.
We traded secrets learned from Holloway men. We plotted. We reminisced. And we spent countless mornings pouring over a memory in the form of a nightmare, trying to figure out what I was missing from that night.
Teagan’s attention caught on the journal resting on the table before sliding back to me, her mouth forming a perfect O.
Ever since the first nightmare, I’d written down what I remembered, adding to it as more of it came to me.
“Was there more?”
I gently placed my hand on the journal before she could snatch it away, my voice uncertain. “Do you think maybe my mind is just adding more? That I’m not actually remembering more of that night?”
“No.” Her response was immediate and sure. “I wondered that a long time ago, but if it ever changes, it’s when you get a new piece. I’ve researched it, it’s common for people’s minds to block a traumatic event and for them to regain pieces over time.”
My mouth twisted with doubt, but I nodded and slid the book toward her, waiting patiently while she opened it to the page where I’d rewritten the dream while I’d waited for her, adding the new parts.
“One of the other rooms?”
“No. He said it was in here somewhere.”
Teagan slanted me a glare as she reached across the table for the pen. “Someone must’ve zoned out while writing again . . .”
I swallowed thickly, looking away when she began furiously crossing out the Borello symbol I must’ve drawn. “Sorry.”
The book slammed shut less than a second before Ethan crooned, “Well, fancy meeting you here again.”
I glanced up as he slid the coffee onto the table, his eyes never swaying to Teagan or even acknowledging her presence. Shaking my head, I grabbed the mug and creamer Ethan had just set down. “I think I’m ready—”
“Finally. My love. I’ve been waiting for you for an eternity.”
“—to order.”
Teagan snorted and slid her menu Ethan’s way, never once having looked at it since we already had it memorized.
Once we’d both ordered, Ethan grabbed the menus and took a step back. “Offer still stands,” he said coolly. “Boyfriend never has to know.”
“Ethan . . . I’m sorry, but—”
“Sorry, future ex-wife. Didn’t catch that. You’re gonna remember that the offer stands?” He winked, that charming grin making another appearance on his face as he backed away. “Perfect.”
Knowing it was pointless, I just lifted my cup at him in thanks, and looked at Teagan.
“Ethan,” we murmured at the same time.
“He asked me on a date today.” Teagan began laughing, but stopped abruptly when I added, “A real one.”
“So that was what . . .” She nodded to herself, and tried to bite back a smile. “Got it. Better not let Kieran know.”
“Ha. Right.” I glanced around the café, searching without realizing until Teagan cleared her throat.
“I know what you’re doing. You need to stop.”
My eyes snapped to Teagan, shamed heat filling my cheeks. “I’m not—”
“Elle,” she began, her voice low as she used the name we’d agreed on two years ago. “I’m not stupid. Whenever he’s in here, your eyes drift to him. Whenever he’s not, you look for him. It’s one thing to let Ethan fall in love with you every week because he’s pathetic and harmless. But this guy? You’re walking a dangerous line—”
“I’ve never even spoken to him,” I hissed.
She lifted a brow, studying me. “Yeah? Then tell me something. Imagine your life wasn’t what it is and you were allowed to be out having breakfast with me. If Ethan was standing at our table and the guy you can’t stop staring at—”
“I don’t stare at him,” I interjected softly.
“—was sitting in his booth, and Kieran walked in . . .” Teagan’s mouth pulled into a knowing grin when my head jerked back and eyes widened. “That’s what I thought. You were afraid of Kieran seeing either guy, and I’m going to take a wild guess it wasn’t Ethan.”
“You’re making this into something it’s not,” I finally said, even as my hand slid to rest on my bag beside me on the bench. As though to hide the notes I’d poured over too many times to admit to even myself. “He’s just a guy who is consistently here. Like Ethan. It’s weird when he’s not.”
“Elle . . .”
“Kieran came for Bailey at yesterday’s meeting,” I said quickly, trying to change the subject.
From the way Teagan’s eyes widened to the point of looking comical, I knew I’d accomplished what I’d set out to. I hurried to tell her all that had happened, thankful to take her mind from the mystery guy in question.
But his absence felt physical, and I hated that—hated that I noticed at all.
“He left him whole?” Teagan whispered once I was finished, barely concealed rage dripping from her words.
“According to Beck, and he doesn’t have a reason to lie about this. There has to be a reason Kieran didn’t touch him. You know as well as I do Bailey’s going to get himself a grave.”
“Yesterday should’ve been the start of it,” she replied through gritted teeth as she opened up the journal again.
“Mickey’s biding his time. It’ll happen.”
Bailey and Finn’s greed was one of the reasons Teagan wasn’t running from Finn or his family. She knew if she left, Finn would just find another wife to hurt. She also knew Bailey and Finn were going to get themselves killed trying to take over Holloway—and she wanted to be there when it happened.
After a few minutes, Teagan closed the journal and slid it toward me. “All this time we’ve been trying to figure out why they were there . . . only for whatever it was to be gone.”
“I know.”
“And you still don’t know what Aric was saying to you before he fell?”
I straightened after I slid the journal into my bag. “No, but there’s something else I noticed this time and have been trying to figure out, and I forgot to mention it in there. Aric didn’t seem surprised the men were there.”
Teagan’s brows pinched, her head shaking subtly. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know, trust me.” I worried my bottom lip, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “But the way they were yelling at him . . . it was like they were accusing Aric of something, and he didn’t bat an eye at them until he noticed the guy touching me.”
“Elle.” Her face pinched, like she was worried about me. “That’s—that can’t be right. Maybe you just saw it wrong that night because you were panicking.”
I grabbed for my coffee. “Yeah, maybe.”
A slow shiver raked over my skin again, the feeling so sudden and exhilarating that my lips parted with a shaky exhale.
It felt like that first anticipated touch that finally comes in the dark.
Soft and powerful and sensual.
If I hadn’t been surrendering to this sensation for two years now, I would’ve been sure someone had just stepped up beside me to gently caress me. Even still, my gaze darted to the mirrored wall, looking for the source . . .
My eyes locked on a pair of dark ones as he walked through the café, and my heart thundered mercilessly.
Everything faded away when he was near—the café, Teagan, Kieran—and I knew Teagan was right. I was walking a dangerous line.
My breath caught in my throat and I sank back against the cushioned booth when I realized he didn’t stop at his normal booth and was coming toward us.
In all the times he’d slipped me notes, it had only ever been before Teagan had shown up or if she was in the bathroom.
But Teagan was here. And I didn’t know what to say or where to look when my body was calling out to him, begging to touch the man who’d silently tormented me for years.
I finally forced my stare down in time to watch Teagan’s mouth slowly fall open when the guy stopped at our table and wordlessly placed our food in front of us.
I chanced another look at him and found his dark eyes piercing mine, that perfect smile I’d thought of so often playing on his lips as he backed away to the booth not far from ours.
And then my stomach sank when I noticed the girl sitting opposite him.
I’d seen him alone, working away on books.
I’d seen him with a guy around his age.
I’d seen him with a group of men Mickey’s age and older.
But I’d never seen him with a girl.
I tried to force my disappointment away, but it lingered and grew, making me more confused than I’d ever felt before.
Because I’d been with Kieran my entire life, and this man was a stranger I’d never spoken to.
I felt like an idiot for spending so much time reading and re-reading his words to me. For spending countless hours . . . years . . . thinking of him.
“So, your ogling boy is a waiter here?” Teagan asked softly as she dug into her food.
“No, I don’t think so,” I responded absentmindedly. “He’s sitting in a booth now, and some weeks he’s walking around in the back, talking with people. But I’ve never seen him actually do any work like that. Sometimes it looks like he’s doing bookkeeping though. Maybe he owns the café. Or someone in his family . . .”
I eyed Teagan when she didn’t respond, and felt myself shrink at the look she was giving me.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing . . . how stupid you’re being?” she whispered, her tone a mixture of fear and disappointment.
“Teagan, nothing is going on. Again, I’ve never said a word to the guy.” I leaned across the table and dropped my voice so it wouldn’t carry. “Maybe you should focus on keeping yourself safe and what you’re going to do once we leave instead of worrying about my relationship. We’re not you and Finn, but Kieran and I have our own issues.”
“So what, you’re counting down the days until he’s six feet under?”
“God, Teagan. No. Of course not.”
“Are you still planning on leaving with him?” she asked, the challenge clear in her words.
I hesitated, then clarified, “I’m planning on leaving.”
“With him?” she asked again, her tone harder.
“It’s complicated, and you know that.”
“But if Kieran asked you to leave with him today, you would.”
I studied the frustrated set of her features for a few moments before I shrugged and leaned away. “I’ve spent my life loving him and planning a future with him away from here. But the last few years I’ve been clinging to a fraying rope, hoping he’ll change. And no matter how I try to repair it, it’s like he’s doing everything to make that rope snap. Doesn’t mean I’m not holding on until it does.”
Teagan nodded after a second then gestured to our plates. “The way you look at him doesn’t seem like you’re trying to hold on very hard.”
I ground my teeth so I wouldn’t lash out at her.
Growing up as one of my closest friends meant Teagan had been friendly with Kieran—and I use the word friendly loosely because Kieran didn’t let many people into his life. And although she now hated the mob, I think some part of her still saw Kieran and me as the future of what she’d always considered her home—of Holloway.
For me to be shattering that vision in any way, when all of Holloway thought that was what the future held, would be difficult for her—I knew that. But Teagan didn’t understand what had happened to our relationship, how resentment had formed and wedged itself between our love.
She knew he was always gone. She knew he’d broken promises. She didn’t know about the work he was doing or what loving a man like Kieran really entailed because I didn’t think it would be fair to tell her of our problems. Not when she was determined to stay with an abusive husband just so she could have a hand in his demise, to be present the day he was lowered into the ground so she could spit on his grave.
So she couldn’t understand this . . .
Hell, I didn’t.
There was no understanding or explaining this electricity that rushed over my skin whenever he was near—whenever I found those dark eyes fixed on me. There was no understanding or explaining the way he could weaken every defense I’d ever built with one look, begging me to expose my soul to him . . . and those looks felt more real and intimate than anything I’d ever had with Kieran.
And I didn’t even know his name.
“If that’s how you see it,” I finally mumbled.
That too familiar shiver raced down my spine. I automatically reached for the back of my neck to feel the lingering effects, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking toward him from beneath my lashes.
His brow was pulled tight as if he was trying to figure something out—trying to figure me out. But I forced myself to ignore that current dancing along my skin . . . forced myself to ignore him. Because a part of me was still clinging to that rope, and he was here with a girl.
That energy that always surrounded us buzzed. Awareness prodded, begging to search out those dark, knowing eyes.
But I never looked toward him again.
And I ignored the slip of paper peeking out from underneath my plate.