I stop breathing.
His eyes come up to mine, and they're wet. Not falling, not spilling over, but there. A glaze across the dark of his irises that I have never seen on this man's face. Not when he shot Frank across the table from me. Not when he pressed a gun to my brother's forehead. Not once.
"You reminded me of who I was meant to be," he says. "Of who I am."
The room is so quiet that I can hear the beeping and nothing else. My throat is closed. My eyes are burning. William Murphy is sitting in a hospital chair with tears in his eyes, telling me I showed him who he is, and I don't know what to do with that.
I can't speak. If I speak, I'll cry, and if I cry, I won't stop.
"So the only way you will get out is through death," William says.
I bite my lip. Hard. Trying to hold something inside my chest that wants to break open.
"That's a tall order," I say.
He wipes the tear with the back of his free hand. One quick motion. Then he sits up straight in the chair. Squares his shoulders.
"It's the only order, Aoife."
My chest swells. My eyes spill over. I let them.
"I accept," I whisper.
He smiles. Not the almost-smile. Not the twitch at the corner of his mouth. A real smile that changes his entire face and makes him look like someone I haven't met yet.
"This is it," he says. "You can never leave."
I smile back. Through the tears. Through everything.
"Good."
He leans in. Presses his lips to my forehead. Soft. Deliberate. His hand on the side of my face, holding me steady. The kiss stays there for a long time. Longer than it needs to. And I feel it all the way down to my toes, warm and slow and certain, like a door closing behind me that I never want to open again.
When he pulls back, his thumb brushes the tears from my cheek. He doesn't say anything else. Neither do I.
Some things don't need words.
EPILOGUE
Aoife
THREE MONTHS LATER, the Murphy house is rebuilt.
Not the same house. The old one is gone, reduced to a blackened shell that William had cleared within days of leaving the clinic. This one sits on the same foundation, but everything above ground is new. Stone walls. Slate roof. Windows that let in the gray Irish light and hold it. Jason found the contractor. Aidan handled the permits. The Brennans sent a crew from Limerick who worked fourteen-hour days without being asked.
I stand in the kitchen doorway and watch William drop a teabag into a mug that doesn't match anything else in the cupboard. The kitchen still smells faintly of paint in the corners where the sun hits, but mostly it smells like the tea he's been drinking since six this morning. It's just past nine. He's alreadytaken two calls and reviewed a report from Lorcan about the western ports.
"Aidan and Raven are coming for lunch," I say.
He nods without looking up. "Matty?"
"I called him this morning. He said he'd come."
Jason went back to Kira after the clinic. He helped find the contractor for the rebuild, handled things by phone, but he hasn't been back to Ireland since. William doesn't mention him. I don't either.
I cross the kitchen and take the mug from his hand before he can drink. He's left the teabag in again. He always does. I fish it out and drop it in the sink and add milk from the fridge because he won't do it himself. He watches me. Lets me. Something he wouldn't have done when I first came here. Something that would have felt like an intrusion instead of what it is, which is me knowing how he takes his tea and caring enough to fix it.
"Your father wants to visit next week," he says.
