“I’m your employer,” he shot back. “And I am ordering you—”

Molly scoffed. “Orderin’ me? Don’t forget, it was only yesterday I was cleanin’ your nappies. I don’t take orders from the likes of you.”

A mortifying truth.

“I pay your salary—”

“You haven’t paid me a shilling in your sixteen years, boy. Now quite wastin’ my time. I’ve got guests arrivin’ within the hour.”

Heat swelled beneath his cheeks. “My parents hired…”

Molly looked up for the first time and only when his voice had cracked. Her stern features softened.

“Go get your clothes on like a good little lamb, eh? You’ll want to look your best.”

The hands he’d set on the counter between them balled. The whitened knuckles blurred behind the tears he’d been fighting for the better part of the day. All he kept thinking was how he wasn’t ready. He was supposed to have years before becoming the master of the McClary Organization. He didn’t know how to be an adult and that was what all those people were looking for.

“They only want to come and gawk,” he muttered. “They don’t care. None of them. He hasn’t been buried a day and the vultures have already started picking at whatever part of him they can get.”

“That’s the way of things.” Molly went to the pot and quickly stirred whatever was bubbling over the rim. “Only people who will mourn ya are the ones who have stood in the fire by your side. Your da was a good man. Plenty will miss him for that alone.” She wiped her hands on her apron and faced him once more. “Where’s the girl?”

He hadn’t seen Maraveet since the afternoon he’d come home covered in his father’s blood. She’d taken one look at him and ran from the room. He hadn’t seen her since and that was nearly a week ago.

“Still refuses to leave her room.”

Molly sighed. “Well, let her be. You go on and get out of those clothes. I want you here in ten minutes looking like your da would want.”

His feet began to take him away. He made it all the way to the doorway before remembering why he’d been there in the first place.

“You’re still fired,” he told her.

She speared a loose fist against her hip. “And you’re still not dressed. Be gone with ya before I get the spoon.”

Damn woman refused to listen to reason, but he would make her. He would get her out of that house one way or another. He couldn’t risk losing her too.

Present day…

He never could get her to leave. Even when he’d threatened her with Frank, she’d rolled her eyes and told him to stop wasting her time, or Frank’s. Damn woman had wedged herself into his life like burrs in his hair, getting herself tangled and embedded so deep that he’d given up trying. He’d reluctantly accepted her presence, had accepted that if he limited her presence in his life to one day a week, nothing bad could possibly happen to her, that she would be safe. And she had been. For twenty two years, she had walked into his home with her cloth bag of precooked meals and he had let her. He had let her because she had been his anchor, the glimmer of light keeping the darkness at bay. She had kept the walls from closing in on him and the nightmares from consuming him and, God help him, he had been too weak to say no. Now, his reckless selfishness had taken away yet another person from his life.

“Sir?” Frank’s deep rumbling tone snapped through the cold, jolting Killian back. “The backdoor is open. It looks like forced entry. Would you like us to proceed?”

Yes. It stayed lodged in the torn muscles of his esophagus, caught in the sticky paste collecting at the back of his throat, but it didn’t need to be said. Frank knew. He always knew.

Against his side, Juliette’s shoulder brushed his lightly. The quiet whisper of fabric sounded much too loud, but the subtle reminder that he wasn’t standing in the cold alone had his body shifting closer. In his hand, hers felt so delicate. The fingers little sticks of ice clinging to his. An almost absent part of him had to resist the urge to pull her into his chest and shield her from the serrated edges of the cruel wind. But he wasn’t sure he could trust himself. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go again.

In the distance, the men pushed into the house, a well-oiled machine trained by Frank himself. The pounding of their feet echoed through the distance, somehow deafening. It was several seconds later that he realized the drumming was his own heart and it had taken residence between his ears. He muddled past it, needing to focus. His eyes burned, but he refused to blink. Vaguely, he was aware of Juliette setting her other hand over top of the one she was already holding. Her body turned into his side. Still, Killian couldn’t move.

“Killian…”

Her quiet whisper was interrupted by the figure that bolted out of the house at a near run, stumbled down the steps and vomited all over Molly’s junipers. The sheer force of his stress echoed all through the street.

Killian felt his vision waver. The edges frayed to a dull gray. He struggled not to blink, terrified that he might close his eyes and find himself on the ground.

“Sir.”

There was a hand on his shoulder. A massive hand with long, thick fingers that could cover a man’s entire face. It was gentle, but the weight of it held Killian in place and he realized he’d started towards the house.

“I must insist you leave this matter to me,” Frank finished, his voice oddly distant. “I will bring you my report tomorrow.”

Killian shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

Frank knew better than to push it. He quietly accepted Killian’s decision and waited.

Juliette was another matter.

“There’s nothing you can do here,” she whispered. “Come home. We’ll call the police and—”

“We’re not calling the police.” Killian muttered, watching as his men stumbled out of the house one by one. “Clean it up, Frank.”

Juliette stiffened. “No, you can’t touch it. The police—”

“There is nothing they can do.” He finally forced his neck to the side to peer down at her. “This was a message for me and I need to handle it.”

“Handle it? What are you talking about? This is a job for the authorities!”

Any other time, the bewilderment on her face would have been comical. It was clear that she had faith in the system. She honestly believed they would be able to handle this and he didn’t have the heart to tell her they couldn’t. He didn’t have the energy to do anything.

“You should go home,” he decided.

Juliette immediately recoiled like the very idea disgusted her. “No! I won’t leave you like this.”

But he didn’t want her there. He didn’t want her to see him like that. He couldn’t think or let himself grieve properly when he worried about scaring her or letting her see a side of him he never wanted her to see. He couldn’t be himself when she was there.

“You need to leave,” he told her with as much patience and cogency as he could muster without actually snarling at her. “You need to leave now.”

She shook her head. “No, please, don’t.” Tears crystalized along her lashes. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to … you’re not alone this time. I’m here. Please let me … no!” She tore away from the hand Frank settled lightly on her arm. “I’m not leaving, damn it! Please just talk to me! Let me in. We can get through this. Please, Killian!”

Get through this.

He wondered for a moment what that meant. What was she thinking? Did she honestly believe he could walk away? That he could let this go unanswered? Did she really think he’d be able to sleep knowing he’d failed Molly twice? Maybe she expected him to grieve like a normal person, to take flowers to Molly’s headstone once a week and pray she was in a better place. That was what people expected, he supposed. They put their faith in the authorities and trusted their problems would be solved.