“That he put a tracker on my back at the hangar in New Jersey.” Her mouth flattens. “My ownbrothersold me to Tiernan while smiling in my face.”
The smallest pause, then a practiced scoff. “Your brother did what he had to do.”
“So you knew.”
“I said?—”
“You knew,” she repeats, and the quiet in it is uglier than any scream. “Of course you did.”
His eyes flash. “You’ve been living long on other men’s mercy, girl. Don’t lecture me about what it takes to keep this family breathing.”
She inhales once, a controlled rise and fall, and I can see the little girl she must have been, memorizing that trick in a mirror so the tears never showed. “If I leave now… I don’t come back. Ever. No father. No brother. You understand?”
He bares his teeth like a priest pronouncing a sentence. “You leave this door, and you’re no daughter of mine. Belfast won’t know your name.”
She nods, as if his words are a kindness. “All right. I suppose we’re done then.”
My hand tightens on the gun. “No, we’re not done,” I interject, stepping forward until the fire shines green in my eyes, and he’s finally forced to look at me. “I’ve stood by quietly as you insulted the woman I love, and now it’s my turn to speak, you fucking bastard.” I move closer, so my shadow casts over him ominously. “You won’t send men. You won’t send messages. You won’t so much as breathe in her direction. Same goes for Donal.”
He sneers. “Or what, boy?”
“Or I make a lesson of what’s left of your empire,” I whisper, because threats said gently are the kind that stick. “Stone by stone, name by name. I will demolish the ground you stand on until even your ghosts can’t find their way home. And then I’ll come for your son, and I’ll leave you for last…”
Silence crouches in the corners.
“Kindly pass on that message to Donal as well. We don’t have time for another visit.” Then I shoot him a wink.
Leo shifts in the doorway, a shadow with a pulse. My men are statues on the periphery, already mapping exits and sequencing disaster. Cat stands very straight, and I realize my chest aches for her. For the shit home she grew up in, for the shitty mother who walked out on her and the shittier father left to raise her.
Seamus’s stare slides back to her. “Choose, then, girl.”
“I already did,” she replies, and somehow there’s grace in it. “I’m going to make a new family, Da. A real one.” She turns, stepping past the worn couch, past the scuffed threshold she must have crossed a thousand times. She doesn’t look back.
I do. I want him to see my face when I say this. “I hope every door you open answers with your daughter’s absence, and that it eats you alive, piece by shitty piece.” Then I whirl on my heel and follow after the woman who deserved so much more than this.
Outside, the Virgin watches us go, rain needling the stone. Leo murmursclearinto his mic, and the gate yawns wider like the house itself is relieved to have us off its conscience.
Cat doesn’t speak until we reach the car. When she does, her voice is whole and destroyed all at once. “Thanks for not letting Da turn that into something worse.”
I slide the gun away and open my palm to her. “It was already worse.” She hesitates, then threads her fingers through mine. “But he doesn’t get the last word.” I tug her closer and press a kiss to her knuckles like a vow. “We do.”
CHAPTER 45
TO LIVE
Catriona
I swallow down the ache in my throat, the one that’s resided there for days now, months if I’m being completely honest, and stuff my shirt into the duffel bag. It’s time. I can’t delay it any longer. I have to tell him.
Matteo is at the desk with his phone in one hand and the room key in the other, already half gone. He’s a second away from calling the jet, plotting the route, and making the next impossible thing look simple.
A life, together, in Manhattan. But nothing is ever simple between us.
“Wait.” I force the word out, around the ache.
He pauses, thumb hovering over the screen. “Kitty Cat, the sooner we’re wheels up?—”
“Wait.” My voice is steadier than I feel. I step between him and the door, between us and the life that moves on without her. But I know there’s no future in which she doesn’t exist. I’ve kept her hidden for long enough.
