The drizzle had turned thin and needling by the time Cole stepped out of the SUV. His townhouse sat dim against the evening, porch light haloed in the mist. Alex parked a rental car out front. Amber's car crouched beside it, dark and low to the ground, rain pearling along the black paint like sweat.
The air tasted metallic. Thick. As if something old had settled in the neighborhood while he was gone.
Behind him, car doors opened almost in one breath. Alex, Amber, and Chase hurried out, all three wearing the same unspoken fear—that if they didn't reach him fast enough, he might collapse, or vanish, or break.
Cole opened the door and stepped inside. The quiet hit him like warm air that couldn't seep into the cold inside his bones.
"Cole," Alex whispered. She stood near him, hands half-lifted, wanting to help but afraid to hurt. "Is it okay if I hug you?" she asked softly.
He nodded.
She wrapped around him. Her white sweater pressed against his cheek, her warmth slipping into him by degrees. He leaned into her without meaning to. The chill inside him didn't move, but something loosened inside him—a knot that had tied him all day.
They held on longer than adults usually allow themselves to hold. Long enough for memory to stir. Two children on the floor of a room with no lights on, hugging because the world had been too loud.
Amber watched from near the door, silent and still. Chase looked down, letting the moment belong to siblings.
"Little sister," Cole murmured, "this is Chase and Amber."
"Hi," Alex breathed, still hugging him.
He stepped back and turned to Amber. She moved in slowly, fingers brushing along his jaw. Her touch was a question, a check, a quiet counting of fractures only her eyes knew how to find.
She rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his chest, then folded him into a hug.
"Brady's flight should land soon," she said against him.
Alex blinked. "Brady's coming here?"
"Yeah. My uncle asked him to."
Alex's posture changed by a hair—barely visible, but there. Cole had seen that stiffening in her before. The Ryan surname did that to people without meaning to.
"Alex," Cole said, "could you take Chase to the office?"
"No," she said instantly. "I'm not leaving you."
He looked at her. A pleading he didn't speak showed on his face.
"Please."
She nodded, shoulders sagging. "Alright. But you text me."
"And pick up Brady when he lands," Cole added.
A slow exhale. "Okay."
Amber shot Chase an apologetic glance. "I shouldn't have snapped earlier. You were trying to help."
Chase shrugged. "It's fine. And your secret's safe."
Alex hesitated at the door one last time, torn between duty and fear, but Cole gave her a small nod, and she went.
The house settled after their leaving—air shifting, silence rearranging itself.
Amber guided Cole to the couch. Curled against him, she draped an arm, cheek near his shoulder. She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
Sometimes companionship was simply existing together in the same steady breathing.
"Do you want something to eat?" she asked quietly.
"No."
Amber nodded and stayed where she was.
Cole let time float past them. Minute after minute smudging into something shapeless. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded far away.
"What time is it?"
"Seven," Amber said.
"A whole day," he murmured.
"Yeah."
"How long has Alex been gone?"
"Three hours."
He absorbed that. The weight sank through him.
Amber shifted, straddling his lap. Not seductive—just close. Close enough to see the fissures in his composure.
She cupped his face. "May I kiss you?"
He nodded.
Her lips touched his—gentle, steady, grounding. Her emotions brushed against him in a strange, soft wave…pain, worry, tenderness she rarely let anyone see, not even herself.
The front door clicked open.
Amber did not flinch. She let the kiss linger a breath longer—enough for the newcomers to see, enough to send a message—then she rose and walked into the kitchen.
"Constantine," Brady said from the doorway.
His voice was cool, but something underneath it hummed wrong. His posture was taut. Too rigid. He was like a man who was standing where he did not want to be, and could not move.
Cole straightened slightly. "Brady."
Alex hovered behind him, tension nestling beneath her concern.
Cole drew a breath. "Alex, Amber—could you get me something to eat?"
Alex frowned. "Cole, this is not—"
"Please. I need to talk to Brady alone."
Alex hesitated, then nodded. "Alright."
Amber stepped back into view, sliding on her heels with the slow deliberation of someone holding back a storm. She moved past Brady and spoke in clean Irish—quiet but sharp enough to bite. "Ná déan dochar dó inniu. Tá sé ar an imeall cheana féin."
Brady didn't flinch. Not outwardly, but something flickered across him—a shadow crossing under skin, the hint of a duty he did not choose to tighten its grip.
Amber looked at him for one heartbeat longer, then left. Alex followed. The door closed softly behind them.
Cole lifted an eyebrow. "Translation?"
"She told me not to hurt you," Brady said. "That you're on the edge."
Cole nodded. The words didn't surprise him.
Brady remained standing, arms crossed—not aggressively, but like a man holding himself perfectly still so nothing inside him slipped.
"You know what happened," Cole said.
"Yes," Brady answered. "Dad told me. Alex confirmed it."
"Your dad thinks the police might overreact."
"He's not wrong," Brady said, brow folding. "Jonas is grieving, and men in grief look for monsters they can reach."
Cole rubbed his face. "Ask what you want to ask."
Brady drew a long breath, then snapped, "What were you thinking? You're with Amber, and then Rowan—"
"I was unfaithful to no one," Cole cut in. "Amber and I have no claim on each other. None."
"That's not what it looks like," Brady said sharply.
"I don't care how it looks. Why do you care? Why is this your hill?"
Brady's jaw flexed. A pulse jumped in his temple. And for one moment—one brief, naked second—something old and heavy passed over his face.
A weight inherited, not chosen. Answering the summons was something he didn't want to do. A crown placed in his hands far too early.
He looked toward the door Amber had walked through, his voice lowering to a quiet, cracked whisper in Irish—words meant only for her, though she wasn't there to hear them.
"Níl rogha agam níos mó, Aingeal. Ná brú orm inniu."
Cole didn't understand. He saw only the way Brady shut down instantly afterward, as if he'd revealed too much.
Alex stepped inside carrying a paper bag. Amber followed, holding a drink.
"We heard yelling," Alex said sharply.
"No," Brady muttered. "Nothing."
Amber moved in front of Cole like a shield and rounded on Brady.
"Don't you presume to judge him," she said, voice trembling with heat. "Or me."
"This isn't judgment—"
"Isn't it?" she snapped. "Every time, Brady. Every time."
His jaw clenched. That flicker—a shadow, an inherited line of duty—crossed his face again.
Amber saw it, and something inside her twisted. "You're already becoming him," she whispered, not loud enough for Cole to understand the full meaning.
"What?" Brady asked, eyes flashing.
She didn't repeat it. Instead, she slapped him. The sound cracked like the pop of a live wire. Brady's head turned with the impact. A red imprint bloomed across his cheek.
Alex surged forward. "Enough! Both of you!"
Brady didn't lift a hand to his face. His expression didn't even change. The flicker was still there—dimmer now, resigned.
"My dad asked me to call yours," Brady said through his teeth. "They will question both of you. Jonas is grieving. Seamus didn't want the request to come from him. It would… mean something else."
Amber stiffened.
That was not a threat. It was a map drawn in the dark. Cole saw her breath falter, but he didn't know why. The shadow of her father—Eoghan—had entered the room without ever stepping inside it.
Alex disappeared into the kitchen. When she returned, she carried a plate with a fish sandwich and sweet potato waffle fries. "Amber said you like these."
Cole took the plate and sat. He nibbled, then stopped, staring at the food as if it might answer questions he couldn't form.
Amber knelt in front of him, hands resting lightly on his knees. "Sweetling. Let's take a shower and lie down. You look exhausted."
He took her hand. She led him upstairs. When they were gone, the house felt colder.
Alex turned on Brady, eyes sharp with a protective fury. "I trusted you," she said. "He's hurting. And you yelled at him."
Brady stared at the floor. The red mark on his cheek had faded, but the tension inside him had not.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Has he ever been unkind to you?"
"No."
"Then what is your problem? That he's with Amber? Why should either of them be alone?"
Brady closed his eyes for a slow blink, and the flicker appeared again—that haunted, quiet dread of a future already written for him.
"There are things you don't know about me," he said.
"Then tell me."
He shook his head once, jaw tight. "Not tonight."
Alex tossed him her rental keys. "Go check into the hotel. We'll talk later."
Brady nodded, shoulders heavy with a weight Cole couldn't see.
"I really am sorry, Alex."
"I know," she said. "Just come back better."
Brady left quietly.
The door closed.
Upstairs, the shower hummed like rain behind glass, and somewhere far away—across the city, across years of buried history—a man named Eoghan Ryan lifted his head as if he had heard something shift in the dark.