Her laugh was bitter. "Your association. Is that what you're calling it?"
I set down the whisk, moving to stand before her. "Aoife?—"
"No, I understand." She slid off the stool, creating distance between us. "Family comes first. Loyalty above all else. I should know."
"It's not that simple."
"Right … as I said. Family." Her eyes flashed with fire. "You've made your position clear, Alexander. Even if you fuck me, even if you protect me, ultimately you serve Ronan Flanagan."
The accusation stung because it held truth. "Ronan is my brother in everything but blood. He saved me when I had nothing, gave me purpose, family?—"
"Yes," she interrupted, moving closer. "The housekeeper's son, elevated just high enough to be useful but never truly blood."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" She reached out, tracing the scar on my wrist. "Tell me about this. Tell me how you really got it."
My breath caught at her touch, memories I'd buried clawing to the surface. "It doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
I pulled away, returning to the stove with deliberate movements. But the words came anyway, pulled from some deep well of need I hadn't known existed.
"I was seven," I said, whisking eggs with a certain focus. "Caught taking food from the kitchen between meals. The Flanagans' head enforcer—won’t say his name or I’ll spit on it—decided to teach me a lesson about knowing my place."
I sensed her absolute attention as she watched me.
"He heated his signet ring over the gas stove’s flame," I continued, my voice carefully neutral. "Pressed it into my wrist while my mother watched. Said it would remind me that some lines couldn't be crossed. He’s dead now…"
"Where was Ronan?"
"Already sent away to boarding school." I poured the eggs into the hot pan. "His father was a dickhead… Well, Ronan has his own story that’s not my place to tell right now…”
She nodded in understanding. "But you stayed."
"Where would I go except with my mother?" The eggs sizzled, filling the silence. "The Flanagans were actually kind to me. Murphy, on the other hand, was another matter. They didn’t know him like I and Mum did… When my mother died of cancer three years later, Ronan's grandfather could have thrown me out. Instead, he paid for my education and training. Said I showed promise. He was a good egg."
I could feel the weight of her gaze, the questions she wasn't asking.
"When Ronan returned, I thought he'd have changed," I admitted. "Maybe resent how his grandfather had championed me while he’d been sent away. But on the contrary, he never saw it that way. He saw a brother, an ally. Someone who understood this world perhaps even more than he did."
"And now you'd die for him."
"Without hesitation." I turned to face her, letting her see the absolute certainty in my eyes. "That will never change, Aoife. Not for you, not for anyone."
She stared at me a long while, unwavering, then, at last, she nodded.
"I understand loyalty," she said quietly. "My father inspired the same devotion in his men."
"Tell me about him." I plated the eggs, adding smoked salmon with careful precision. "The real Connor O'Malley, not the monster Ronan knew."
She accepted the plate with a nod of thanks, considering her words. "He was ... complicated. Brilliant, ruthless, but he genuinely believed in protecting our people, our territory. The old ways."
I watched her take a delicate bite, struck by the contradiction she presented—aristocratic grace mingled with a shrewd mind and deadly skills.
"Frankly, he really didn’t want me to take over," she continued. "Had two sons he preferred. But my oldest brother was killed in a territorial dispute when I was sixteen. The younger one…" She shrugged dismissively. "Weak. More interested in drugs and whores than building an empire."
"So he trained you instead."
