He was already there when I got home.
Sitting in my armchair like he'd always sat there. One leg crossed over the other. A glass of water on the side table he'd never once asked permission to touch. The lamp behind him was on. I hadn't left it on.
I stopped in the doorway.
"Close the door," Cillian said.
I closed it.
He didn't look up from his phone right away. He finished whatever he was reading, set it face-down on his knee, and finally looked at me. His expression was the same one he'd worn at the gala. Composed. Faintly inconvenienced.
"You left early," he said.
"You had me escorted out."
He tilted his head slightly. Like I'd said something mildly interesting. "There's a situation that needs handling tonight. Uncle Gerald's condition has worsened. He needs a transfusion. Rare type." He paused. "AB negative."
I set my bag on the console table by the door. Very slowly. Very carefully.
"Peyton volunteered," he continued. "It was a generous gesture. Unfortunately, her blood type doesn't cooperate."
I looked at him.
"Yours does," he said.
The room was very quiet. The radiator ticked once.
"How many vials," I said.
"However many they need."
Not a question. Not a request. Just a man telling me where we were going and when. His tone was the same one he used to confirm restaurant reservations.
I went to the bedroom and changed my shoes. I didn't say anything else. Neither did he.
His car was waiting downstairs.
---
The private hospital wing smelled like antiseptic and money. Pale walls. Soft lighting. The kind of quiet that costs extra.
The nurse was kind. She had a small voice and warm hands and she apologized twice when the needle went in. I told her it was fine. It was fine. I watched the dark red fill the first vial and move to the second and I kept my face very still.
Cillian stood near the window. He checked his phone once while she was labeling the tubes. Then again when she was switching to a fresh vial. His thumb moved across the screen in small, efficient strokes.
Four vials. Five. The nurse said something about hydration. I nodded.
At no point did Cillian look at my arm.
When it was over, he told me his driver would take me home. He had somewhere else to be. He said it the way you'd say the weather was cold. A fact. Unremarkable.
I didn't watch him leave.
---
The cab smelled like pine air freshener and old vinyl. I sat in the back with my sleeve rolled down over the cotton ball taped to my inner elbow. My head felt light. Not dizzy. Just untethered, like a balloon someone had let go of and forgotten about.
We crossed the bridge. The East River was black below us. The city lights broke across the surface in long, shifting lines. Beautiful, in the way that things are beautiful when you're not really seeing them.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.
Peyton would donate the blood. Mrs. Hayes would hear about it at dinner. She would reach across the table and take Peyton's hand and say something about character. About family. About what it means to give without being asked.
Adalynn, who? Adalynn, nothing.
I watched the river.
And I thought: I won't just leave. He needs to believe he killed me.
The thought arrived fully formed. No fanfare. No trembling. Just a door opening in a dark house, and the light on the other side.
I sat with it all the way home.
---
It was past midnight when I called Kingsley. I sat on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinets because the chair felt too far away.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Ada." Alert. Already awake, or never asleep.
"I need to tell you everything," I said. "All of it. From the beginning."
So I did. The phone call in the study. The penthouse. The necklace on the white cloth. The nurse's warm hands and five vials of my blood that would carry Peyton's name by morning.
Kingsley didn't interrupt. Not once. He just listened, and I could hear him breathing, steady and slow, and that steadiness was the only reason I didn't come apart on the kitchen floor.
When I finished, there was silence.
Long enough that I counted the refrigerator hum.
Then, very quietly: "I'm going to need twenty-four hours."
"Okay."
"Don't do anything yet. Don't move anything. Just—go to sleep if you can."
"Kingsley."
"I know," he said. "I know, Ada. I've got you."
I hung up. I sat there a little longer. My arm ached dully where the needle had been.
Somewhere across the city, five vials of my blood were sitting in a refrigerated tray with my half-sister's name on the label.
I got up. I washed my face. I made the bed.
I didn't sleep. But I was already somewhere else.
