Then he says it.
"Rosalina isn't the Irish princess."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
For a second, the entire house goes silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the sudden, loud hammering of my own heart in my ears. My hand involuntarily tightens on the edge of the counter, knuckles going white, and I hear the faint clink of ceramic as my coffee mug rattles against the stone.
I do not remember my fingers moving.
My body is reacting while my mind is still trying to catch up, still trying to process the words, still trying to reshape reality around what he just said.
The sentence lands like a blade sliding between my ribs—not painful at first, just pressure, just the slow, creeping knowledge that something has pierced skin and is working its way deeper toward something vital.
I stare at him, and the muscles in my jaw tighten so hard my teeth ache, grinding together like they might somehow break the words apart if I just apply enough force.
"Explain." The word comes out barely above a whisper, but it carries more threat than if I had shouted it. "Now."
Gabriel does not look away. Does not soften. "The Irish princess is Erin O'Connor," he says, his voice steady and factual, like he is reading from a report instead of detonating my entire fucking world. "Seamus's real daughter. His biological child."
A face flashes in my mind like a match struck in the dark, sudden and bright and unwanted. Red hair like flames. Pale skin scattered with freckles. The girl I saw briefly at the O'Connor estate, surrounded by guards, laughing at something someone said. The one who looked soft. Delicate. Breakable. Nothing like the woman sleeping in my bed upstairs.
My stomach drops in a slow, sickening way, like an elevator descending too far into darkness, the cables groaning under weight they were not meant to hold.
"And Rosalina," Gabriel continues, and I hear the slight catch in his voice now, the smallest hesitation that tells me he knows exactly what this is going to do to me, "is Rosalina Carter."
The name detonates in my skull.
My hands curl into fists at my sides before I can stop them, knuckles going bone-white, nails biting into my palms hard enough that I feel the sharp sting of broken skin. The name feels familiar—not because I have heard it whispered in Irish political circles or mentioned in negotiations, but because I filed it away under something else entirely. A note in the margin. A suspicion I never followed up on. A thread I never bothered to pull because I assumed the Irish had already bound her into place, had already made her part of their machinery.
Rosalina Carter.
I say the name in my head again, testing the weight of it, and it fits her like a blade fits a sheath. Sharp. Dangerous. Nothing like the soft, political bride I thought I was getting.
"I know that name," I say quietly, and the words taste like ash and betrayal on my tongue.
Gabriel nods once, slow and deliberate, giving me time to absorb the impact. "You should. She's Seamus's adoptive daughter. The security girl who was supposed to come with Erin to ensure her safety."
Fury rises in my chest like bile, hot and sharp and acidic, mixing with something uglier beneath it—betrayal. The kind that burns from the inside out because it comes from someone you let get close. Someone you let touch you. Someone you let inside your defenses.
The door swings open behind me with the careless ease of someone who does not consider this house capable of holding secrets from him.
Luca walks in wearing sweatpants and nothing else, his hair still damp from a shower, chest misted with water droplets that catch the morning light. He takes one look at my face—at whatever expression is carved there—and his eyes flick immediately to Gabriel, then back to me. His entire posture shifts from casual to alert in the space of a single heartbeat.
"He told you," Luca says.
It is not a question. It is a confirmation.
Which means Luca already knew.
Which means they both fucking knew, and I was the only one standing in the dark like a fool.
I turn my head slowly toward him, feeling every muscle in my neck protest, feeling the tension coil tighter and tighter like a spring wound past its breaking point. "You knew."
Luca shrugs, moving toward the coffee pot like the air is not suddenly charged with violence, like he cannot feel the way my entire body is vibrating with the effort of not breaking something—or someone. "We suspected."
"How." The word comes out calm. Too calm. The kind of calm I use when I am deciding how much damage to inflict, how deep to cut, how permanent to make the lesson I am about to teach.
Luca pours coffee with steady hands, takes a leisurely sip, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. When he speaks, his voice is matter-of-fact, almost gentle, like he is explainingsomething painfully obvious to a child who should have figured it out already.
