Chapter Twenty-Six
Ronin
The latch turns, jerking me awake, and my whole body bucks hard against the ropes tied around me before I can stop it. Pain rips through me all at once—head, ribs, shoulders, everywhere—and a groan tears out of me.
For one blissful second, I don’t know where I am. Then it all comes roaring back. Declan had worked me over pretty good earlier after I told him flat out I wouldn’t sign those goddamn papers. I must have blacked out after that.
Everything blurs for a moment, then slowly clears enough for me to make out the figure in the doorway. Malachy steps in.
I haven’t seen the old man since the first night I got here. I’m pretty sure it’s been four days now. At least that’s how many times they’ve hauled me between that damned icebox they call a cellar and this chair. Unless I lost count after one of the blows to the head I’ve taken.
Most days they shoved my food at me in the cellar and left me alone with it long enough to eat.
But this morning was different. Conor and Declan hauled me out of there, past the chair they keep me tied to, and sat me at one of the long tables instead.
A hot bowl of stew was waiting for me, and beside it was a bowl of soapy water, a cloth, and a folded clean shirt.
Declan told me to eat first. Then he looked me over, his lip curling, and ordered me to clean myself up when I was done.
I wasn’t sure what they were playing at with the sudden change in routine, but the hot food was welcome.
So was the chance to wash some of the dried blood and grime off my face, especially the crusted mess under my nose.
They’d wrenched it back into place the day before—or maybe the day before that.
Hard to say. Time had gone to hell in here.
I only knew it had sat crooked after that first night, and now it wasn’t.
After I ate, I stripped off my shirt and cleaned myself up as best I could with what they gave me. The warm water felt good, and by the time I was finished, I felt a little more human again.
Once I was as clean as I was going to get, Conor came round behind me with a roll of bandage, and Declan told me to sit still.
Like I had much choice. They wrapped my battered ribs rough, each pull sending black spots swimming in my vision.
I locked my jaw and kept my mouth shut, not about to give them the satisfaction of hearing how much it hurt.
Then they got the clean shirt on me and buttoned it up.
I smirked at the look of disgust on Declan’s face as he helped me with it. Easy to rile up, that one.
Then Conor leaned over where I still sat at the table and set the papers in front of me again, the pen beside them. “Sign it,” he said.
I looked at the pen, then sent it skittering off the table with the side of my hand. “I’d rather not.”
Declan let out a short laugh. “Stubborn prick,” he muttered. He yanked me up from the table and dragged me back to the chair they kept me tied to. He cinched the ropes down hard, then cracked me across the head. Everything started to go dark after that.
The scrape of a chair dragging over the flagstone cuts through the fog in my head. I blink hard and lift my head just enough to see Malachy pulling one over from one of the tables. He sets it down in front of me and sits, looking me over without saying a word.
I meet his gaze and hold it. “Mornin’,” I rasp.
Malachy tips his head, looking perfectly at ease sitting there, like this is nothing more than a routine conversation. “Mornin’, Ronin. I see Conor and Declan paid you a visit this morning. You’re looking a bit more presentable.”
I taste blood when I smile, the split in my lip opening again. “I’m touched by the effort.”
One corner of his mouth twitches. “It wasn’t for you. But before we get into that, you and I need to have a little chat.”
I shift in the chair, trying to ease the pressure on my ribs. “What about?”
“About my granddaughter, for a start,” he says. “About the men who’ve made a habit of failing her. About how quick you were to prove yourself no better than the rest of them.”
I say nothing, just sit there and wait for him to come out with it.
“She told me about you,” he goes on. “The way she spoke of you, you’d have thought you were some great blessing sent down to her. Said you were kind. Thoughtful. That you made her happy.” His eyes stay on mine. “That girl believed she had been given a good man.”
My jaw tightens. God, I wish more than anything I’d been the man she thought I was.
“And I’d hoped she was right,” he says. “That for once there’d be a man in her life who’d put her first. Her father never did.
The first chance he got, he handed her over for the life he wanted instead.
Truth is, my son was never much interested in the burden of leading here, but standing second to your da in Boston?
That suited him just fine. And once Cormac started talking of a match between you and my granddaughter, Seamus was only too happy to take what came with it. ”
I frown. “That’s not how it happened.”
“No?” A small smirk touches his mouth. “Then tell me, Ronin. How did it happen?”
“Seamus had been in Boston for years before I was asked if I had interest in a match with Alannah.”
“You think so?” He tips his head, just a little.
“Funny, then, that the minute a match with Finn Walsh was spoken of here, my son was suddenly making plans to leave for Boston to be your da’s second.
And when I raised the matter before they left, asking for Alannah to be allowed to stay here with her family, Seamus told me she was already spoken for, and that she needed to go with them. ”
What the hell am I supposed to say to that? I search his face, looking for any sign of a lie, but I find nothing but cold disdain.
“Cormac may have brought the match to you later and made it sound like it had just come to him, but don’t be stupid enough to think your father didn’t know exactly what it meant to have his son tied to my family, or that Seamus didn’t know what he was getting in return for it.”
He lifts a hand and counts them off on his fingers, one by one.
“You. Her da. Your father. And then there’s her brother, Michael.
” His mouth tightens. “He’s no better than the rest of you.
Angry because his father chose for the both of them.
Bitter because the life he might’ve had here was gone before he was old enough to fight for it.
Jealous because in Boston the best he could hope for was second to another man, while his sister stood closer to power than he ever would by marrying you. ”
He pauses, letting his words sink in. “Your father wanted the power that came with tying his family to mine. Seamus wanted power without ever having to carry what came with our name here. Michael wanted the power he thought he was owed. And in the end, it was Alannah who paid for the lot of it. And you—”
He leans forward, eyes locked on mine. “You wanted her well enough. You just wanted everything else too.”
I swallow hard. “I came here because I love her.” The words come out rougher than I mean them to, and weaker too.
“Do you?” he says evenly. “The moment you walked out of that ballroom with another woman on your arm, I had no less than three men who were there ringing me to tell me what you’d done.
By the time they realized Alannah was gone and that joke of a reception had ended, I’d heard enough to know you’d been carrying on with other women the whole time you were meant to be with my granddaughter.
“What you did to that girl is not what a man does to the woman he loves. Too many men have wanted things from Alannah and called it love, and you’ve proven yourself no different.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he keeps going before I can get a word out.
“She knows you’re here,” he says. “I told her you wanted to speak to her. And against my better judgment, she wanted to hear you out.”
For a second I forget the ropes, the pain in my ribs, the hard wooden seat of the chair beneath me. “She’s coming?”
“She was willing to hear what you had to say,” he says. “Don’t make me regret allowing it.”
The denial is out before I can stop it. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
That earns me a look colder than any he’s given me so far.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t put much stock in your promises where my granddaughter is concerned.
” He leans back in the chair, relaxed as ever.
“I’ll tell you this: if you upset her more than she already is, if you frighten her, distress her, or put so much as one more crack in that girl than you’ve already managed, I’ll kill you where you sit and be done with it.
“The only reason you’re still breathing now is because your father had the balls to ring me and ask that I not put you in the ground the moment you arrived in Ireland.
And because once, before he made a mess of his own house, he was one of mine.
Not the worst of them, either. But that goodwill only stretches this far and no farther. ”
So that answered one question. My da knew exactly where I’d gone.
A soft knock sounds at the door, and my eyes go to it at once. Malachy catches the look. “Mind yourself,” he says, getting to his feet. “You said you wanted to talk to her, and you’ll have your chance. After that, I expect you to sign the papers and go home.”
I meet his eyes. “I’m not signing.”
“No,” he says. “I gathered that. But it’ll be happening anyway.”
He turns and crosses to the door, then lets himself out. The door thuds shut behind him.