Page 41 of Ruined Wrath
If I don’t hear from you in the next twenty-four hours, I may have to pay a visit to a certain niece of yours.
“He’s asking about the file, he…”
“Fiona,” Cormac presses.
The phone slips from my hand as the panic starts to consume me.
Cormac is on his feet, snatching the phone off the floor.
He curses as he reads the message. “This is why we need to make our next move.”
At this moment, I envy his ability to keep calm and detach himself from his emotions.
At this point, Lorcan doesn’t even need to lay a finger on Amber before I’m collapsing into a trembling, useless mess.
“Give me the phone.” I hold out my shaking hand.
To my surprise, Cormac drops down beside me on the couch, not close enough to touch, but close enough that I can smell his earthy cologne.
It’s disorienting being so near to him, and yet so far away.
“Tell him the file is gone and that you need to talk, that you have news he will want to hear.”
I type slowly, mostly because my hands are still shaking.
Cormac is watching me, his gaze heavy, assessing every breath I take.
When I’m finished, my thumb hovers over thesendbutton.
Once I press it, there’s no going back.
What if Lorcan has already figured out that I’m no longer trustworthy? What if this is the moment everything collapses?
I exhale shakily before hitting send. “It’s done.”
Cormac instantly gets to his feet and crosses over to the desk, as if he can barely stand to be near me for longer than a few minutes.
I try not to take it personally, but how can I not? It’s a far cry from the man who could barely let me walk into his office without tearing off my clothes.
“Leave the phone on the table. I’ll let you know when he replies.”
I realize this is his way of dismissing me.
I place the phone on the table and get to my feet, feeling seconds away from breaking.
This plan is all I have, and I don’t know if it will cost me my life, or Cormac, or both. But as I walk back to my room, alone, feeling like Lorcan has cast a shadow over me, one truth becomes impossible to ignore.
I might have already lost Cormac, and this plan, this dangerous and desperate gamble I’m about to make, is the last move I have left to prove to him that I can be worth saving at all.
Chapter Ten
CORMAC
A senseof normal doesn’t return all at once. It seems to be coming back in fragments, and I don’t trust it. Not for a second.
But I let it exist because Scout needs it.
I sit on the stone steps overlooking the garden with my elbows on my knees, watching as Scout plays. The fact that he’s outside feels like a victory.
