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“Ovianar, what—”
“STAR!”
Minerva’s scream had me freezing up. “Minerva? What is it?”
Her sobs echoed down the line. “She’s gone. Oh, God, she’s gone.” Her wail hit me straight in the heart. “How could you do this to us? How?”
The anger and the fear and the grief coalesced into one mass that she hurled at me. For a moment, it choked me. I had no words. Nothing to say.What could I say?
“I didn’t…” My mouth worked. “W-What happened? Where are you?”
“We needed milk,” she cried. “I-I went out, came back, and she… Oh, God. She’s gone. She’s fucking gone. Dead. She’s dead.” The sob she released made me realize I did have a heart and it was breaking.
We’d fallen out years ago, but I never wished ill on them.Ever.
A shiver worked its way up my spine. “She can’t be!”
“She is. She goddamn is,” she shouted.
“The cops—”
“They’re here. Tryn too and—”
“How?” I rasped.
“How? That’s all you can ask me? You got her killed, you fucking cunt.”
“I need to know,” I snarled, willing to take her insults on the chin but needing answers nonetheless. “Did she… Could she have…”
“This wasn’t suicide,” she spat. “It was to the back of her head.” This time, the wail that keened from her had me shuddering in response to her grief. “She— Her— Oh, God. How am I supposed to live without her? How? Brady—what am I going to tell him?”
When she started sobbing again, the purest dose of guilt hit me like I’d snorted a gram of fentanyl. I closed my eyes as I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Minerva.”
But she didn’t want to hear it, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her.
“Fuck you,” she spat. “You did this. You brought this to us. She’s deadbecause of you.”
My mouth trembled as I turned to Conor when a hand cupped my shoulder. “What is it?”
“Fuck you, Star. Fuck you. I hope they do to you what they did to her, you fucking bitch.”
When she cut the line, I was almost relieved. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t hang up on her. Not after…
Swallowing, I whispered, “Ovianar was executed.”
53
CONOR
“Did I hear that right?”
The question didn’t come from me or Cin, but Troy.
I stared at the tree where her scope was glinting in the sun, wondering how the hell she’d heard Star when she’d practically whispered what had happened to the woman we’d only just left in London.
Fuck—was her blood on our hands?
It seemed likely.
