"Because it's not sinking." Father stands, matching my posture. We're the same height when I'm in heels. "It's transforming. William Murphy may be volatile, but he's their future. And we need to be part of that future."
"And what am I?" My voice drops to barely above a whisper. "What do I need, Father?"
Something flickers across his face, pain maybe, or guilt, but it's gone before I can name it.
"You need to do your duty to this family." He picks up the contract and holds it out to me. "Just like I did. Just like your mother did. Just like every O'Rourke before you."
I stare at the papers but don't take them.
"Your mother would understand," he says quietly.
"Don't." The word comes out sharp. "Don't you dare use her to justify this."
My mother died when I was fifteen. Cancer, they said, but I knew better. She died from the weight of this life, the constant fear, the violence that lurked beneath every polite conversation, the knowledge that the man she loved could be killed at any moment.
She died from being married to the Mafia.
And now Father wants the same for me.
"You have one day," Father says, setting the contract back on his desk. "One day to prepare yourself. Then we meet the Murphys, and you'll be formally engaged."
"And if I refuse?" I already know the answer, but I ask anyway.
Father's jaw tightens. "You won't refuse."
"You can't force me to marry him."
"No," he agrees. "But I can remind you what's at stake." He walks around the desk, and for the first time, I see how much this is costing him, too. "The Russians have already hit two of our shipments. They've killed five of our men. They're coordinating with someone inside Ireland, someone who knows our movements, our weaknesses. If we don't unite with the Murphys and the O'Reagans, they will pick us off one by one."
"Then unite," I argue. "Form an alliance. You don't need a marriage for that."
"Yes, we do." Father's voice is firm. "Because alliances break. Promises are forgotten. But family, blood, and marriage, that's permanent. That's unbreakable."
I want to argue that marriages break, too. That vows are just words. But I know what he really means.
Once I'm married to William Murphy, the O'Rourkes and Murphys are bound together. An attack on one is an attack on both. It's insurance. Protection.
It's smart strategy.
I hate that I can see the logic in it.
"What about Reilan?" I ask, grasping for any alternative. My brother has always been Father's right hand. "He could…"
"Reilan has his own role to play." Father's tone suggests that topic is closed. "This falls to you, Aoife. I'm sorry, but it does."
He leaves me standing in the library, surrounded by broken porcelain and the ruins of my future.
I don't go to my room. Instead, I walk through the estate, past the sitting rooms and parlors filled with antiques my father collected to project old money, past landscapes and still lifes that give the house a history it doesn't really have. Past the kitchen where staff prepare dinner. Past the security stationed at every door.
I end up in the gardens.
The O'Rourke estate sits on two hundred acres of land in County Galway. The house itself is eighteenth-century, all stone and history and ghosts. But the gardens are mine. I designed them when I was nineteen, fresh from university, desperate for something I could contrdol.
Roses line the pathways. Lavender fills the air with its scent. A fountain sits in the center, water trickling over smooth stones in an endless loop.
It's peaceful here. Safe.
I sit on the edge of the fountain and let myself feel everything I'd been holding back in Father's office.
