“What do you think,husband?”
The word lands low in my gut. Sticks there. I step closer. Too close. Close enough to smell her—smoke, sweat, something metallic beneath the perfume. My hand lifts, slow, deliberate, stopping just shy of the stain on her dress.
“You’re smilin’,” I murmur. “That tells me enough.”
Her chin lifts in challenge. “I screamed,” she says softly. “I threw a chair. Broke a lamp. Someone bled.” A beat. “Wasn’t me.”
Christ.Heat slams through me, instant and unforgiving. My body reacts before my mind catches up—hard, ready, aching with it. She sees it. Of course she does. Her eyes flick down, then back up, satisfaction curling through her like smoke.
“Good,” I say hoarsely. “I’d have been disappointed otherwise.”
Silence stretches between us, thick with everything we’re not saying. Not yet. My thumb brushes the air just beside her waist—never quite touching—and she shivers anyway. Dangerous girl. Beautiful, violent, defiant thing.And mine.
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Well,” she says lightly, cruelly, gesturing at herself, the dress, the ring, the gold at her throat. “Congratulations. You got what you wanted.”
I don’t move.
“I’ve your name now,” she continues. “Your ring. Your house. Your bloody city watching me kneel at an altar like it meanssomething.” She steps closer. Too close. Always too close. “But don’t flatter yourself,” she says quietly. “None of this fixes what you broke. You can chain me to your life, Finnian O’Callaghan, but you don’t get absolution just because a priest said the words.”
There it is. The blade.
“You think a wedding heals a massacre?” she asks. “You think wearing your name over mine makes me forget the night you took my brother from me?”
The air goes tight. Sharp. Like it did in the chapel all those years ago. I laugh once. Low. Ugly.
“You’re still bleeding from that night,” I say. “Aren’t you.”
Her chin lifts. Defiant. Furious. Beautiful. “And you’re still lying,” she snaps. “That’s the only thing you’ve ever been good at.”
That does it. The scar under my ribs burns like it remembers her hand on the knife.
“You ran,” I say, stepping into her space, voice dropping. “You ran before you ever looked back.”
“Because I watched him die,” she spits. “Because I heard your name when the gun went off.”
“And you believed it,” I snarl. “So you buried steel in me and called it justice.” Her breath hitches. “You didn’t hesitate,” I continue. “Didn’t shake. Didn’t cry. You aimed.”
Her voice cracks, raw and furious. “Ilovedyou.”
The words hit harder than the blade ever did. “And I was double-crossed,” I roar back. “The meet. The chapel. Your brother’s blood—none of it was mine to give.”
She goes very still.
“They fed you the lie,” I say, relentless now. “Same way they fed me to the slaughter. Same way they wanted us both dead.”
Her hands tremble. Rage. Grief. Want. All tangled and vicious.
“You stabbed me,” I say again, low and unyielding. “And I survived you.”
Her eyes lift to mine. Not forgiveness. Recognition. She laughs. It’s brittle. Broken. Wrong.
“Liar.”
The word cracks like a gunshot. Her hand disappears into the folds of white silk and lace—too smooth, too practiced—and when it comes back out, there’s steel in her grip. Slim. Familiar. The kind of blade that’s lived against her thigh for years.
“I remember that night,” she says, voice shaking but deadly steady. “I remember the smell of incense and blood. I remember Ciaran’s body hitting the stone. I remember them saying your name.”
I don’t move. Don’t flinch.
