“Like I will ever tell you that again. You fucking blew it, asshole. New low, even for you. Was it thirty pieces of silver or did you get them to adjust it up for inflation?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I wish that was true. I wish to God it was. You’re the only one who knew where we were going to be. Fuck! You’re always hustling. Negotiating for the greater part of nothing. You’re like a broker for irrelevance.”

“Hey now—” Declan started.

“All you care about is finding something to keep Matthew awake. To keep your life in place. You watch the world screw us over on a large scale over and over, and—all I needed was for you to stay out of the way. I never asked for anything else. Just stay the hell out of the way.”

“I wasn’t trying to stop you.”

Ronan looked out the window but now it was the opposite of before; his eyes weren’t taking in anything. He saw the rose garden again and again. Encountering not Matthew walking through the trellis, but a woman flying at them with Hennessy’s stolen sword in hand. “Were you just willing to take the risk they might kill me, too?”

“I was doing it for you.”

Ronan laughed. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was funny.

When he had stopped, Declan said, “I had to get you away from him. The risk was worth it to get you away from him.” When Ronan didn’t reply, he said flatly, “They didn’t get him, did they.”

Behind the wheel, Bryde’s expression didn’t change. He looked neither angry nor surprised. He knew Declan had betrayed him, but he had not said a word against him. He hadn’t said much at all, since they escaped.

“You’re still with him,” Declan said. It wasn’t a question. “You’ve left the city.”

Ronan knew when silence was the meanest thing to deploy and he understood that now was the time.

He let Declan sit with the truth.

After nearly a minute, when Ronan wasn’t sure if Declan was really still there but refused to say You still there? Declan finally said, “He’s dangerous, Ronan. They’re not wrong about him. I know you’re not like that. I know you wouldn’t kill people. I know you care about your future. About Matthew. About Adam. About—”

Ronan hung up on him.

For several long minutes the car was silent. Ronan’s mind turned over the rose garden again. Not the beginning, this time, but the end. When he and Bryde had run, and Hennessy hadn’t.

“Are you going to do it or not?” Bryde asked softly. “Make a decision.”