This Saturday.
“We moved it up?” I ask, carefully.
“Is that a problem?” My father asks, his tone sharp, which makes me think he is in front of an audience, which means I can’t disagree with him right now.
I close my eyes for half a second. Just long enough to swallow the instinct to argue.
“No, sir,” I say evenly. “Understood.”
“Bene,” he replies. “Congratulazioni.”
The line goes dead.
I lower the handset back into its cradle. The click echoes louder than it should in the car.
“When did they move the wedding to?” Luca asks lowly, as we finally make it to Brooklyn.
“Saturday.”
Luca exhales slowly behind me, then lets out a low whistle. “That’s fast.”
“Shut up,” Gabriel mutters, though there’s no heat in it.
“Well, I guess let's move the bachelor party up to tonight.” Luca laughs, shaking my shoulder lightly and winking Gabriel. “Make some calls!”
I don’t respond. I lean back into the seat, pressing my tongue to the back of my teeth and breathe through the irritation, the anticipation, the faint, unwanted pull of curiosity that refuses to die.
Saturday will come whether I’m ready or not. And when it does, everything changes, for better, or for worse.
3
ROSALINA
I have not spokento Erin for two days, which in itself is a kind of violence, especially now that the wedding has been pushed forward to this weekend. There is no space left to breathe, no time to let emotions settle, only a steady march toward an altar where she is expected to smile at as if nothing inside her is breaking.
I continue protecting her as I always have, because that part of me does not falter, but the shape of my presence has changed. Instead of sitting in her room and helping her pack, listening to her spiral through nerves and jokes and late-night confessions, I take my post outside her door during my assigned shifts. I stand there like any other guard, alert and distant, and when my relief arrives I leave without lingering, returning to my own room down the hall rather than staying close to her like I have for most of our lives.
Dolan has tried to speak to me twice on her behalf, once near the west stairwell and once outside the training yard, and both times I stopped him before he could finish his first sentence. I told him I would gut him like a fish if he said her name again, andhe did not test whether I meant it. He used to lose to me during academy drills, back when he still believed strength alone could win a fight, and he would still lose to me now if he tried. Time has not dulled my edge, and anger has only made it sharper.
I do not pretend that I don’t understand why they kept it a secret. Father would never approve, and a low-level guard touching the Irish princess, much less taking her virginity, would be seen as theft rather than love. Call him old-fashioned if you want, but Seamus O’Connor would kill Dolan for that kind of disrespect without hesitation, and Erin’s feelings would not matter once blood had been drawn. At least, that is what I tell myself, even as doubt presses in.
Seamus has surprised us before. He was given the decency of true love once, before Erin’s mother died and grief reshaped him into something harder and more dangerous. He knows what it is to choose someone over duty, and part of me still clings to the idea that he would understand, that he would recognize the difference between defiance and devotion if it were placed plainly in front of him.
My gaze drifts to him at the head of the dinner table as I sit to the right of Seamus at the dinner table, posture straight and expression carefully neutral. He leans forward over his cottage pie, laughing at something Patrick Murphy, the right hand and cousin of my father, has just said, the sound full and unguarded, as if nothing in this house is about to fracture.
“Murphy, you son of a bitch,” Seamus says, shaking his head. “We are in the company of ladies.”
Patrick lifts his fork, potatoes clinging to the tines. “I told you the story wasn’t for the company of ladies. You insisted.”
“I suppose I did,” Seamus snorts, then reaches out and elbows me lightly in the arm. “But I raised my girls to be as strong as an ox, didn’t I?”
Erin perks up immediately, nodding with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Right, Daddy.”
I slide my fork across my plate and mutter, barely audible, “Yes.”
Seamus’s amusement fades just a fraction, his sharp eyes flicking between us. He exhales slowly, the way he does when he has already drawn a conclusion but wants to give us the courtesy of explaining ourselves.
“All right,” he says, setting his fork down. “What is going on between you two? Erin, you’ve been blinking and rocking like a wind-up doll, and you,” his gaze cuts to me, “have barely touched your shepherd’s pie, which I know is your favorite.”
