“I told you to keep her calm!” he snarls at the men dragging me back to the seat. My arms are yanked behind me. Something cold snaps around my wrists again.
"You thought you'd what? Run into the fog? You’re back where you belong now, and don’t worry, Aoife.” His voice drops. A poisonous lullaby. “We’ll make sure you stay this time.”
I lift my head, blinking through the blood in my eye.
“You should’ve let me jump,” I whisper to myself and to Matteo.
Liam crouches beside me. Smiles like a priest over a corpse.
“Sweet girl, you won’t jump.” His words hit me hard, and I close my eyes knowing this might be the last time I can pray for Matteo to help me in time, because they will do anything to make me forget him.
I wake up to silence.
The air smells of sea salt, peat, and rosewater.
My head is pounding. My mouth is dry. My tongue feels heavy.
Everything hurts.
And the worst part?
I know this room.
It’s the old O’Brien estate. Not my father’s modern house. No, this is the ancestral place. Hidden. Sacred. Guarded. This is where we spent our summers when we were little.
The room is dimly lit by candlelight.
My eyes fall to the object waiting for me.
On the chair at the foot of the bed, draped in shadow and ivory, a wedding dress. Lace. Corset. Beading that catches the firelight like shattered glass.
My breath shudders out.
My throat burns with bile.
This is happening.
I’m being dressed for burial in white.
I try the door.
Locked.
I check the windows.
Barred.
They’ve brought me back to Ireland.
And this time, they won’t just marry me off. They’ll bury me in silk and pearls, and swear it was love.
But as I stand in the center of the room, trembling, heart racing, I whisper to the air, to him.
“Find me, Matteo. Please.”
Chapter 45
Matteo
