Chapter 11 Aisling
AISLING
My brothers swagger out of the room like they own it, shoulders bumping furniture, laughing loudly enough to be heard from bloody Dublin.
They’re drunk, glaikit, happy, and already back to their old rhythm despite the roiling tension they’re leaving behind. The door swings shut on their belligerence, muffling it, and the silence in their wake is abrupt and heavy.
It’s just me and Raf now.
Him with his stupidly handsome, purple-mottled face, sprawled in a chair like a king who lost a bar fight and still thinks he won.
And me, sitting with my arms crossed, the body language of a woman who wants to rip someone’s throat out but gave her word she wouldn’t.
He looks at me for a long second, his gaze darkening alongside his black eye.
His split lip curves up at one corner, and for the first time in forever, I remember that he’s dangerous—and not just because he’s lethal with a gun.
His presence is everywhere, filling the air like cigar smoke, thick and invasive.
Rising tensely to my feet, I clench my fists and lift my chin, eyes burning. “So, you think everything’s alright between us just because you took a few punches?”
“Oh, come on. These weren’t just any punches,” he quips playfully. Then the humor drains from his eyes as he meets my gaze and sits up, resting his elbows on his knees. “No, Aisling, in fact, I was under the impression that came with our marriage vows.”
“Just because we’re married doesn’t mean I forgive you,” I snap.
“You forgive me?” he sneers. “I think it’s time you stop playing the victim, because as you said yourself, you’re the one who orchestrated this alliance.
So it seems to me that you have a habit of tucking your whole bleeding-heart story up your sleeve and pulling it out whenever the mood suits you. ”
I scoff, my blood boiling over at how quickly he can flip the script to make it sound like I’m the manipulative one in this relationship. “I hate you.”
His hazel eyes study me with that unnerving intelligence, his gaze lingering on my warm cheeks and that signature smirk returning slowly to his lips. “Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped wanting me.”
My jaw clenches as I resist the urge to scream my denial, even as my heart flutters traitorously against my ribs. “You wish,” I hiss, my cheeks flaming.
“You’re a terrible liar, focosa,” Raf teases, setting his whiskey aside and rising to take a bold step toward me. “Especially when you’re drunk. You might not want to want me, but I’ve seen the truth you hide behind your eyes.”
My temper flares, heat, whiskey, and rage consuming me, and before I know what I’m doing, I’ve closed the distance to come toe-to-toe with the man who broke my heart. “Don’t you dare call me a liar.”
The air hums between us as we glare at each other.
When Raf breaks the silence, his deep, smooth voice vibrates through my body like an earthquake.
“So, that was your best impression of a loving couple, then?” he challenges, his speech slurred just enough to sound reckless as he gestures vaguely toward the door, indicating my brothers, who are long gone by now.
“Because you told me you would convince your family that this alliance—this marriage—is real and worth backing. But as far as I can tell, you’re not even trying to sell it, are you? ”
I look at him flatly. “What does it matter if my brothers think I hate you?” I challenge. “That won’t change the fact that they believe in this alliance.”
He lifts a brow. “It doesn’t matter aside from the fact that you agreed to make them believe it, and you’re clearly incapable of keeping your word.”
“I am keeping it!” I shout, my temper getting the better of me. “Just let me worry about my brothers. I know how best to handle them.”
“Why, because they already know you hate me?”
“Yes,” I say flatly. “So it would look more suspicious if I suddenly stopped hating you.”
“And what happens to our little arrangement if they tell your father?”
I laugh. “Tell my father what? That you fucked me before we got married? You think he’ll back out of the alliance if he knows you ruined his little girl?”
Raf leans forward, his face within inches of mine now as his voice drops into a deadly murmur. “Stop messing around, Aisling. Does he know what happened between us?”
My stomach tightens, but there’s no sense in keeping it from Raf any longer.
My brothers blew the chance of him not discovering the truth the moment they decided to take his punishment into their own hands. “Why else would my family hate you so much? You think they would go to war just for the hell of it?”
He doesn’t blink. “So, they allied themselves with the Yakuza to get back at me? They came after my entire family because you and I have a history?” His jaw tics, a tendon jumping beneath his skin as he grinds his teeth.
“Something like that,” I say bluntly. “But it’s not like the apple fell far from the tree when it comes to Chiaroscuros screwing the people around you.
Judging by how many enemies came for you that day, I’d say we were all tired of watching your family running around Chicago like you own the entire city.
Like your claim on this town and everyone in it is some kind of divine right.
Like you can take whatever you want without consequences. ”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I stare him dead in the eyes. “You took my virginity, and when you were done with me, you tossed me aside. Don’t deny it.”
His reaction is immediate, ugly, and unfiltered as a snarl erupts from his lips, and then Raf’s hand is curling around the base of my throat, not choking, but shoving me back until my spine meets the wall.
His face is so close, I can smell the whiskey on his breath, and the room seems to shrink around him as his fury turns dark and frightening.
“I didn’t force myself on you,” he growls, voice low and full of heat.
“You came to the club that night looking for an experience. You wanted it. You even came back for more. And now you want to tell me your family’s part in the destruction of my house—my entire family—was all because I fucked you before I knew who you really were? ”
“I never said you forced—”
“Yeah, well, you must have implied it. Because, shy of that, your family has no defense for their actions. What happened, Aisling? Did they find out you weren’t a virgin anymore, so you made up some sob story about me stealing your innocence to protect yourself?
Or are you so petty that when I broke things off that night, you wanted to hurt me, to make me pay, and you didn’t care who else got caught in the crossfire? ”
“I would never do that!” I say, slapping his hand away and stepping forward to get in his face.
His nostrils flare. “No? Then what? Tell me why your family believed that what happened between us was worth going to war over.”
The blood drains from my face as I realize we’re getting far too close to a deeper truth that I refuse to voice—a truth we’ve kept so quiet that nobody knows outside my immediate family.
We haven’t even told Siobhan and Riley.
Because it could cost me everything—could cost those I hold dear so much more.
And though it kills me to do so, if I don’t back down from this fight, I know Raf will pry the answers from me, one way or another.
“Isn’t the fact that you broke my heart enough?” I whisper. “Men have gone to war for far less.”
He scoffs, his sneer cold and unapologetic.
“That would require having a heart in the first place, and considering you unleashed an army on my entire family over my ending a three-night fling, I can’t imagine your chest is anything but hollow.
Besides, you’re leaving out the part where you tricked me. ”
I throw my hands up, anger bubbling inside me once again.
“You think I asked for what happened?” I practically scream.
“I have no more control over my father’s temper than you would yours.
I didn’t get a say in how he or my brothers chose to respond.
And don’t go accusing me of deceiving you.
You didn’t tell me who you were either. That’s kind of the point of those clubs, isn’t it?
Anonymity? Masks? Not exactly the environment for swapping legal names and family pedigrees. ”
“You could have told me who you were.”
“So could you,” I fire back.
His mouth opens—then closes as he seems to realize he walked into that one.
“I wouldn’t have walked away because of your last name, either,” I add, softer, more bitter. “I wasn’t afraid of who you were. But you wanted nothing to do with me.”
His expression flickers as something vulnerable and dangerous tries to surface—but he shoves it down. “Can you blame me after what’s happened? This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.”
“Oh, please. Don’t pretend you cut me loose for anyone’s benefit but your own,” I say. “You don’t care about women. You just use them and toss them aside, and my last name was a convenient excuse to end things once you got what you wanted from me.”
“I don’t care about women?” he says, voice tight. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Because it seems like the only reason you don’t want to hear the truth is because of the repercussions your actions caused—not because you have any qualms with the fact that you destroyed me.”
His eyes flash, and he moves so fast, it takes a moment for my whiskey-addled brain to register it.
One second, I’m glaring defiantly.
The next, he’s in my space, arms caging me in, trapping me against the wall once more.
He’s close enough that I can feel the warmth of his anger radiating from his body.
The oxygen vanishes from the room, and my breath hitches as an inexplicable electricity crackles to life between us.
It’s a connection I shouldn’t still want but can’t ignore.