Chapter Thirty
Ronin
I come to slowly, my head pounding before I’m even fully awake.
My whole body hurts, but my ribs are the worst of it.
I try to take a deep breath and instantly regret it when pain stabs through my side.
I settle for short, shallow breaths instead.
There’s blood in my mouth, coppery every time I swallow.
I shift, trying to ease the pressure on my ribs, but something digs hard into my chest and wrists, holding me in place. What the hell? Then it all comes back.
The ropes. The chair. I’m tied down again. Christ.
Yesterday was a goddamned mess. What the hell was I thinking?
The answer is simple. I wasn’t. I came all this way telling myself I was going to fight for my wife, that I’d give her whatever she wanted, tell her whatever she needed to hear, so long as she came back to Boston with me because life without her had been no life at all.
And the second it stopped going the way I wanted, the second she pushed back, the second things got uncomfortable, I did what I always do.
I went for the throat.
After that, everything went to hell fast. Alannah walking out. Finn with her on the wall. The rock in my hand. Her fighting me all the way to the car. The boat. Her crying. Her telling me I was hurting her, and me still not stopping.
That’s all I’ve done lately, isn’t it? Hurt her.
Footsteps come toward me, and then Declan’s voice cuts through the room.
“Morning, sleeping beauty.” I lift my head and try to focus on him.
One eye opens, blurry and stinging. The other stays swollen shut.
Figures. He got a few good shots in on me last night after he came back from dropping Alannah at her grandparents’.
Made damn sure I knew she cried the whole ride home from the harbour.
Hearing that hurt worse than his fists ever could.
And bad as Declan was, he wasn’t the worst of it.
That was Eamon. I don’t know how long after Declan finished he showed up.
I’d already blacked out by then. When I came around again, Eamon was standing over me, that big bastard just staring down with pure hatred in his eyes.
No words. No questions. He just started swinging.
There was no holding back. Every hit came hard, one right after another, until they all blurred together.
My head snapped sideways. Skin split under his knuckles.
One punch caught me right in the nose. I heard the sick crack as it broke, then blood poured hot and fast. After that, I couldn’t breathe right.
I had to drag air in through my mouth while he kept coming.
Conor finally stepped in and hauled him off me, but even then Eamon was still trying to land one more.
I’m not stupid. I know who every one of those hits was for.
Finn.
And Alannah.
A sharp slap across my cheek yanks me back.
I flinch hard, but the ropes stop me short.
The sudden movement makes my stomach roll, and I swallow hard against the wave of nausea.
When my vision steadies, Declan’s face is right in front of mine, that smug fucking grin spread across it like he’s enjoying every second of this. “There you are,” he says.
He gives my cheek a lighter pat, just to toy with me, then turns on his heel and walks over to lean against the wall. I follow him with my good eye, and even that small movement makes the pounding in my skull worse.
Malachy sits at one of the tables across from me, forearms braced on the wood, a tumbler near his hand. Conor stands near him, his face unreadable, eyes on me. Declan leans against the wall with his arms folded, split knuckles making it clear he enjoyed himself last night.
It feels too much like the first time I woke up in this room. But it isn’t. There’s no crowd of men drinking and laughing, no one watching me like I’m their entertainment. Just Alannah’s family, and I know I’m out of time.
Nobody says anything. I drag in a breath and immediately regret it. Pain flares sharp through my chest, and a harsh cough tears out of me before I can stop it. “Well,” I rasp. “Mornin’.” I watch Declan’s mouth twist like he hates that I can still talk.
Malachy stares at me. Then he stands, picks up the folded papers from the table, and walks toward me. My jaw clenches the second I see them. He stops right in front of the chair and holds them up where I can see. “You’ll sign them now,” he says.
“No,” I say, my voice rough but firm.
Malachy doesn’t look surprised by my refusal.
His gaze drops to my left hand, tied tight to the arm of the chair, my wedding ring still on my finger.
He snaps his fingers, and Conor moves toward me without a word, reaching into his coat pocket, his eyes fixed on the ring.
When he pulls out a small pair of cutters, I start pulling against the ropes before I can stop myself.
A faint smirk pulls at Malachy’s mouth when he sees me struggle.
Then he lifts his left hand, bringing it close enough for me to see the Celtic knot engraved in the band.
“Looks familiar, does it?” he says. “A romantic, that girl. Just like her grandmam.” He lowers his hand and holds it out to Conor, palm up.
Conor places the cutters in it. Malachy looks back at my ring.
“That ring was meant to stand for something. You made a mockery of it, lad. You’ve no business wearing it now. ”
My throat tightens at his words. We’ll always be woven together now.
Alannah’s voice cuts through my head, and I jerk hard in the chair, pain tearing through my body as I try to wrench my hand free.
Conor steps in behind me, one hand clamping down on my shoulder while the other pins my forearm to the chair.
Malachy works the thin edge of the cutters under the band where it sits tight against my finger.
Metal presses into skin. Then he starts to squeeze. “Don’t!” I shout.
Pain flares through my finger and up my arm. I pull in a breath and hold it, willing the ring to hold. Just hold. Don’t break on me now. But the cutters keep biting deeper, the gold buckling under the steel, until one side gives with a hard, metallic snap.
And something in me gives with it.
Malachy shifts the cutters to the other side of the band. The second cut comes quicker, and the knot breaks completely. The ring falls from my finger in two halves, hitting the stone floor with a soft clinking sound that hollows me out. I stare down at them.
That ring was meant to stand for something I never knew how to be.
A husband. A safe place. The man she should have been able to trust. Instead, I gave her my name and not one damned thing that should have come with it.
Not loyalty. Not honesty. Not gentleness.
Not peace. I took too many wrong turns. Made too many bad choices. Kept going when I should have stopped.
I think of her sitting across from me in this same room, eyes shining, voice shaking while she asked me how many women there had been.
I think of her standing at our reception while I made a public show of ruining her.
I think of the boat. Her crying. Me still putting my hands on her like wanting her gave me the right.
And after all that, they want me to sign the papers because I’m cornered, because I’m beaten, because a gun might do what sense never could.
Satisfaction flashes in Malachy’s eyes. He hands the cutters back to Conor, who steps around me to stand at his side. “Now,” he says. “Are you ready to sign?”
I drag my eyes up from the broken ring. “No.”
Malachy studies me for a moment. “What are you holding on to, lad?” he asks. “There’s nothing left. Alannah wants nothing to do with you now. Once you sign those papers, the marriage is gone. Like it never happened.”
His head tilts, and the pity in his eyes is worse than the satisfaction. “She’ll move on. She’ll marry Finn before the year’s out. And you’ll be forgotten.”
I look at the papers in Malachy’s hand and drag my tongue over my split lip, fighting back a wince when it passes over the broken skin. “I’m not signing those,” I say. “Not for you.”
Malachy goes still. “What are you on about?”
I drag in a breath that hurts. “If Alannah wants me to sign them, she can ask me herself.”
Declan lets out a short, disbelieving laugh.
I catch him out of the corner of my eye as he pushes off the wall and walks toward us, stopping in front of me.
I look at each man standing there. “I’ve done enough to her.
Enough deciding. Enough taking. Enough calling it love when all I did was wreck everything she gave me.
” I shake my head. “I’m done making choices for her. ”
Malachy watches me, then folds the papers and slips them inside his jacket. “Are you certain of that?” His expression hardens. “Last chance, lad.”
“I’m not signing.”
Malachy shakes his head, then reaches into his coat and draws out a pistol.
He steps in close and presses the barrel to my forehead.
The metal is cold against my skin, and my pulse jumps hard enough that I feel it in my throat.
The sharp click of the hammer cuts through the shed.
I hold Malachy’s stare with my good eye, refusing to look away.
“No!” Alannah’s scream rips across the room.
The gun lifts off my forehead, and every head snaps toward the sound as she runs to us, boots hammering against the stone floor.
She stops when she reaches the three men standing between us, breathing hard, eyes wide as they move past them to the chair, the ropes, my face.
Then she sways, the colour draining from her face, and Malachy moves fast, catching her by the arm before stepping in front of her and blocking me from view. “Alannah, leave,” he demands. “This doesn’t concern you.”