that had been Devlin. Grief poured through Teague. He gritted his teeth, trying to ride out the pain. Carrigan needed him to stay focused, no matter how hard it was. “Fast-forward to around one a.m. They found his body pretty quick, and I don’t get the feeling she stuck around.”
His phone rang as a woman stumbled out the back door. He answered without looking at the screen. “Now’s not a good time.”
“Teague…”
His attention sharpened. “Angel?” The woman on-screen lifted her head and, even though the video was grainy and she was in the distance, he knew that face. He knew every line of that body, barely covered by the skimpy dress. Teague shook his head. He had to be wrong. There was no fucking way Callie was the person who’d killed Brendan. He was so focused on trying to figure out who the woman really was, he forgot he was on the phone.
“I just wanted to say good-bye.” Callie’s voice slammed him back into reality.
“Good-bye?” Even as he said the word, he knew. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Her laugh was filled to the brim with hopelessness. “I did it. I killed Brendan. It wasn’t…I didn’t go in there planning to do it, but I was the one who pulled the trigger. This is all my fault. Your brother died because of what I did.”
Teague flinched. He might have been willing to lay the blame at the faceless killer’s feet, but the truth was that there was plenty of blame to spread around. “If we’re going to blame you, then let’s heap a load onto the Hallorans because they gave the order, and my older brother because he knew war was a distinct possibility when he and my father agreed to marry me off to you. And, fuck, let’s blame me, too. Because I knew what the danger was and I didn’t get Devlin and the girls out of town.”
“If I hadn’t gone to that strip club, none of this would have happened, and you know it.”
Maybe not, but she’d be dead. He knew enough about Brendan to know that. Maybe not right away, but he would have killed Callie at some point. “Come here. We’ll talk about this.”
Her sigh was so faint, he barely heard it. “I can’t. You’ll convince me there’s another way, and I won’t do what needs to be done. I won’t let another person be hurt because I’m too much of a coward to step forward.”
“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
“No, Teague. I didn’t call for that.” It sounded like a car door opened and background noise whispered through the line as she must have stepped onto the street. “You’ll be okay without me. This was…God, being with you was like being in a dream I never wanted to wake up from. Even though the world’s been falling apart around us, I’ve been happier in the last two weeks than I have in a very long time. Because of you.”
His throat burned, but he swallowed past it. “Callie, don’t do this.”
“You’ll be okay, Teague. I promise. This isn’t the end for you. You’ll survive and your family will be safe. I’m only sorry I didn’t do this a week ago.”
Before Devlin died.
His brother was gone. There was no getting him back. Teague couldn’t lose Callie, too. “Angel, please.”
“Promise me it stops here. Promise me that you and James will sit down and do whatever it takes to make peace.”
He couldn’t do it. If she died, he’d set the world on fire in retaliation. “Callie, goddamn it, it doesn’t have to be this way. We’ll get James here. We’ll figure this shit out. Just give me some fucking time to find a way around this.”
“I—” Her voice caught. “I have to go. I love you.” And then she ended the call.
Teague redialed, gripping the phone so tight he was afraid it’d crack as the call rang and rang. It went to voice mail, and he redialed again. This time it didn’t even ring. “Fuck!”
“What’s going on?”
He turned to find that Aiden had paused the security footage with the woman in the middle of the screen. He pointed. “That’s my wife.”
Aiden swung around so fast, it was a wonder he didn’t fall out of his chair. “That’s Callista Sheridan?” He shook his head. “Wait, wife?”
“I married her last night.” He frowned at the screen. He should have seen this coming. Hadn’t there been bruises on her throat less than twenty-four hours after Brendan was killed? Hadn’t she been