I still see her looking at me to make sure she’s not saying anything out of line. One thing she will learn from us, we’re a family who joke with each other, and once she’s confident, she needs to have fun with everyone.
It should feel like peace.
But even in the sun, my mind is dark.
The final trial is coming.
Leo’s warning about the Irish choosing their killer haunts me. I don’t know his name. Don’t have a face. But I can feel him getting closer. Every good moment now feels like something I’ll have to pay for in blood.
I glance at Aoife, still smiling, still laughing, and I wonder if this peace is what they’ll try to steal from me next.
I crush my cigarette into the ashtray and light another.
I’ve always been a smoker, but never the amount I have been smoking the last week. Maybe it’s to calm the storm that’s building around me, or to keep my hands busy from two things. Touching Aoife all the time and wanting to punch someone.
Seems like we’ve been out here for hours laughing and joking, that the edge of the sky is bleeding orange and red across the garden’s stone courtyard. Sunset is coming, and it should be a good moment.
Marco’s making jokes, Remo teasing back, and for once, the Messina garden feels like a haven.
But the mood fractures.
I feel them before I see them. The air tightens, like it knows something’s coming. Conor O’Brien steps out from the ivy gate, flanked by two of his Irish lapdogs. His eyes are on Aoife.
Marco’s up before I am. “Well, well…” He laughs, folding his arms. “Look what the famine dragged in.” I grin.
“I just want to talk,” Conor says.
“Not happening.” The words are out of my mouth before I even stand. I rise slowly, deliberately, placing myself between him and Aoife.
Conor’s eyes lock with mine, cold and bitter. I don’t back away.
“You want to talk to her?” I say, voice razor-edged. “Talk. But you do it with us right fucking here.”
Aoife stands, but I catch the shiver that moves through her. Conor notices too, and it fuels something cruel behind his eyes. She stands next to me, and I take her hand in mine, to stop them trembling and to show her I’m right here with her.
“I thought you were smarter than this,” he says to her. “You think this ends with flowers and a fairytale? You’re nothing to them.”
I step forward, and Aoife’s hand brushes mine, like she knows I’m about to lose it.
“Next time you talk to her, I want you to remember something.” I move into his space, nose almost touching him. “Remember this… Because of you and your family, she jumped off the roof behind you and if I hadn’t been there to catch her, she’d be dead.” I take a small step back, to see his reaction.
Silence.
Conor’s mask slips for a second. Just a second, but I see it. The guilt. The fucking shock.
He turns to Aoife. “Is that true?”
I push him hard and he stumbles back.
“She doesn’t owe you a single word. Fuck off before I hurt you in ways that’ll leave you screaming for weeks.” It’s taking everything in me not to punch him, and that’s mostly becauseno fighting on school grounds. It’s the number one rule of Blackstone.
The garden stills. Even the birds stop singing.
Marco and Milo stand between Conor and me, no words needed.
Conor keeps his eyes on me, before looking back at Aoife and something in his eyes changes, but I have no idea what.
“Watch your back Aoife, something around the corner can come at any time.” I go to take a step closer to him, not liking the words, but he finally backs off.
