I find my voice finally, and it comes out steadier than I expected. I’m proud of myself for that.
"You're right," I say flatly. "I didn't have a choice about marrying him."
Brennan's smile widens. "Exactly. You see?—"
"But I'm not buying what you're selling," I continue, cutting him off. "You're not rescuing me. You're using me. And you can dress it up in pretty words all you want, but we both know what this really is."
The smile freezes on his face, going brittle at the edges.
"I'm trying to help you," he says, and the warmth is gone from his voice now, replaced by something harder. "I'm trying to make you see reason."
"Reason?" I almost laugh, but it comes out choked. "You kidnapped me. You had your men throw me in a van and tie me to a chair. You're planning to kill my husband. What part of that is reasonable?"
"Your husband," Brennan says, standing up now and looming over me, "tried to kill me. He planted a bomb in my car. He would have murdered my family and me if I hadn't been smart enough to see it coming."
“Youdidn’tsee it coming,” I hiss. “Sean told me. He fired a warning shot so that you wouldn’t get in the car. And you used your wife and child as shields. What kind of man does that?"
His face darkens, the mask slipping completely. "You don't know what you're talking about. You believe him? A killer?"
“I do.” I meet his eyes, refusing to look away even though every instinct is screaming at me to back down, to be quiet, to be the meek little girl everyone expects me to be. "Sean told me about it. How you used your own family as cover. How you were willing to risk them to save yourself. And you want to lectureme about monsters?" I realize, as I say it, that I mean all of it. I might be angry with Sean, but I do believe what he told me. And I don’t believe this man is anything like what he wants me to think he is.
The slap is so fast I don't see it coming. His palm cracks across my cheek, snapping my head to the side, and pain explodes through my face. My eyes water, and I taste blood again, fresh and coppery.
For a moment, everything is silent. The men around the warehouse have all gone still, watching. Brennan is breathing hard, his hand still raised, his face flushed with anger.
I laugh.
It's not a happy sound. It's harsh and bitter, on the verge of becoming hysterical, but I can't stop it. Blood trickles from my split lip, and I look up at Cormac Brennan with all the contempt I can muster.
"There it is," I spit out. "I was wondering how long it would take. Men like you always show your true colors eventually."
His face goes from flushed to pale, and then he backhands me, harder this time. The impact rocks me and the chair both, and for a moment I think I'm going to tip over. The metallic taste of blood floods my mouth, and my vision swims.
But I don't cower. I don't cry. I've spent my whole life being quiet, being meek, being the invisible daughter who never made waves. I let Siobhan bully me, let Desmond ignore me, let my father treat me like a pretty doll to be married off to whoever would benefit him most. I let everyone with a louder personality and bigger dreams overshadow me, push me down, and make me small.
But something has changed in me since I married Sean. Something has shifted and grown stronger. I've found a part of me that refuses to be a victim anymore.
And I realize, sitting here with blood in my mouth and my face throbbing and my wrists bound, that despite everything—despite the forced marriage, despite being a punishment, despite all of it—Sean is the reason for that.
It was always in me—he couldn’t have created it from nothing. But he saw it in me. And I wonder if two things can be true at once—that I was his punishment and an unwanted burden, and also that he saw more in me than he expected to, just as I started to feel more for him than I thought I would.
He's a broken man. A killer. Someone who has done terrible things and will probably do more. But he's also the man who taught me to defend myself because he believed I was capable of it. The man who held me while I cried about my family and didn't tell me to stop. The man who touched me like I was the only thing in the world he’d ever want… and a part of me, no matter how angry I am, can’t believe that was entirely a lie.
He tried to push me away for what he thought was my own good, because he thought he was too damaged, too cold, too wrong for me. Because he felt guilty for wanting me. And I ran away from him when he told me the truth, because I was hurt and humiliated and couldn't see past my own pain.
I wish I hadn't run. I wish I'd stayed and listened and tried to understand. This is all so new to me, all of it—being married, being wanted, being with someone who sees me as more than just a quiet little shadow. I don't know how to be a wife, and he doesn't know how to be a husband.
I don’t know if that argument would have ended in us fixing anything, or just making it worse. But I threw the chance away because I was hurt. I didn’t stay to hear him out… and that was a mistake.
Maybe we could have figured it out together if I’d let myself hear what he was trying to tell me. Or maybe there would havebeen nothing he could have said that would make it better, that would make me feel less lied to, less betrayed.
Now I’m not sure if I’ll live long enough to find out.
But I know, with absolute certainty, that he's coming for me. He'll come. He has to. Because whatever he said about the marriage being a punishment, whatever his reasons for trying to keep his distance, he cares about me. I saw it in his eyes last night. I felt it in his touch. I heard it in his voice when he told me about his mother, when he opened up to me in a way I don't think he's ever opened up to anyone.
He'll come for me, and God help anyone who gets in his way.
Even if I’m imagining all of the caring, even if I’m nothing but a job to him, he’s a man who’s only ever failed one job.
