Chapter 12 Declan
Declan
The Sullivan situation is worse than I thought.
"They want our section of the docks," Cillian says. "They've always wanted the docks. The whole marriage alliance they tried to rope me into with Aoife was never about the business deal.” He taps the map with one finger. "It was about getting access to the docks."
Ronan crosses his arms. "They figured Cillian marrying Aoife would give them leverage. A foot in the door, then a foot in the operation. When that fell through—"
"They decided to take what they wanted the old-fashioned way." Lorcan leans back in his chair. "Arson, hijacking, pressure. Make us bleed until we negotiate."
"We're not negotiating." Cillian's voice doesn't rise. It never does when he's serious. "We hit back. Hard, fast, and targeted. Ronan—"
"Political angle's already in motion."
"Good. Lorcan, I need more bodies on the docks by tomorrow morning. Full rotation." Cillian's gaze moves to me. "And the women."
"I've already doubled Nora's detail," I say.
"Triple it." He meets my eyes. "Saoirse?”
I nod. “Saoirse’s gotta go.”
Everyone at the table stills.
"You're sending your wife away?" Cillian asks. "You sure you want to do that?"
"I'm sure." The words come out flat. Final. “I’ve held off as long as I could, but…I just can’t stand it anymore. It’s time. I’ve gotta get her out of here.”
All eyes are on me. Cillian’s expression is understanding, Lorcan’s is sympathetic. Ronan’s is questioning.
It’s mostly to Ronan I’m speaking when I say, “I don't want her anywhere near this clusterfuck. She's either going to one of the safe houses, or I’ll send her to Aunt Brigid in Galway. Either way, she's gone before the end of the week."
Lorcan frowns. "She just got here."
I hold his gaze until he drops his eyes. "She's not equipped for this. She's spent her whole life running from danger, not toward it. I'm not putting her in the middle of a war." A beat passes before I add, “I want her settled before we make the next move. End of discussion."
Cillian watches me the way he watches everything—like he's reading three layers beneath the surface. Whatever he sees, he keeps to himself.
The rest of the meeting passes in logistics and numbers.
I hear most of it. My mind is somewhere else—to my bedroom, our bedroom now, the bedroom we shared last night in the brownstone.
To Hope curled up sleeping at the foot of the bed, and a woman who told me, with her whole body pressed to me, that she was mine.
I have to send her away because the alternative could mean watching her pay too high a price simply for being with me.
The ride home is quiet.
We drove to the estate in comfortable silence. This silence is different. It's heavy and weighted. I glance at her in the passenger seat—her spine straight, her hands folded in her lap, her face turned to the window.
She was fine at dinner. Better than fine, actually.
She held her own in an atmosphere that must have been completely foreign to her.
She didn't balk at Lorcan's questions or Kathleen's careful scrutiny.
She ate what was served. She spoke when spoken to and didn't shrink.
I'd watched her across the table the way I watch everything I want to protect—cataloging, assessing, feeling an unfamiliar warmth spread behind my ribs every time she answered one of Lorcan's stupid questions with a dry precision that made Ronan hide his smile.
Now she won't look at me.
"How do you feel about tonight?” I ask.
A beat. "Fine."
I wait. Nothing more comes.
“They all like you," I try.
"Good."
The city scrolls past. I drum one finger against the steering wheel and stop when I realize I'm doing it.
This tension is my fault. I was distracted at dinner, she could probably tell, and now she's reading it as something directed at her when it's directed at the situation. I know her instincts. She reads rooms and people for threat, and she's reading something off me and drawing the wrong conclusion.
I want to fix it. Tell her about the threat and what I’ll do to keep her safe.
But when I do tell her, I know I’ll have to watch her absorb the information without argument or demand. Just her quiet, competent acceptance of whatever damage is incoming.
And I can't do it yet. I will. Soon. Once I have all the details ironed out.
I reach across the console and cover her folded hands with mine. She doesn't pull away. But she doesn't lean into the contact either, and the absence of her usual response is uncomfortable.
I leave my hand where it is for the rest of the drive.
At the brownstone, she goes upstairs without a word while I retreat to my office.
The lamp on the desk throws a pool of light across the papers I haven't touched in hours. I sit and pull out my phone.
Start the safe house timeline. I want her out by Thursday.
I stare at the message. Then I put the phone face down on the desk, press both palms flat against the wood, and hang my head.
Thursday, she won't be here when I come home. I’ll send Hope with her.
The safe house closet will have her clothes because I'll make sure she has everything she needs and then some.
But the brownstone will go back to being what it was before—a functional, empty space where I sleep and work and move through in silence.
The thought of it makes me want to put my fist through the wall.
This is love. The realization doesn't arrive gently.
It lands like a body blow—blunt, winding, the kind of impact you feel in your back teeth.
I've never had to name this before. I've watched Cillian with Nora and filed it under something I didn't have a word for.
Now I have the word, and I hate it almost as much as I need it.
Love. The thing that makes a man willing to be without a woman who is becoming the air he breathes because her safety matters more than his own respiration.
I don't know how to love someone. I don't know how to say it aloud.
But I feel it. God help me, I feel it. I love my wife.
I lift my head from my hands when I hear the soft pad of bare feet outside in the hallway.
Saoirse stands in the doorway, her hair loose and flowing over her shoulders. She's so beautiful.
Her eyes move over the desk—the papers, my phone face-down, my hands still flat against the wood—and she crosses to me.
I reach up and pull her down onto my lap.
I can tell her everything right now—the Sullivans, the docks, the threat, the plan—all the things weighing so heavily on my mind. I’ll tell her that sending her away is the only way to ensure her safety and that I'd rather tear myself apart than let harm touch her.
Her free hand comes up and her fingers trace my jaw—hesitant, then firmer. "Come to bed," she says.
I don't answer with words. I stand cradling her in my arms with her head tucked under my jaw. Her body fits effortlessly against mine.
She wraps her arms around my neck as I carry her out of the office, down the hall, up the stairs.
She'll be safe. That's what matters. I'll be here working to annihilate the enemy while she's a hundred miles away in a house I've secured, surrounded by people I trust.
I press my mouth to her temple.
I have to tell her. I know I have to tell her.
But right now, in the dark of our bedroom, the truth can wait one more day.