Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
RONAN
I take the elevator to the penthouse with my hands stuffed into my pockets and my heart pounding in my ears.
It wasn’t the best decision to walk out of the restaurant and leave Ciara alone, but I needed to collect myself before I did something stupid like spill all of her father’s dirty laundry in the middle of La Rosetta.
There’s a time and place for that sort of conversation, and a Michelin- star restaurant isn’t one of them.
So here I am again, ready to eat my damn pride and apologize after walking out on my wife. I swear, I’ve never had to try this hard with any woman before. But then, I’ve never wanted to. But I want her.
I want her.
Something about Ciara makes me want to make it right, and I only hope I’m not too late.
I walked for over an hour, and when I finally made it back to the restaurant, she’d gone, so I hurried back to the hotel, hoping she hadn’t found a way to lock me out.
Stepping off the elevator, I shove the keycard into the lock and shoulder the door to the penthouse suite open.
“Ciara?”
Only silence responds.
I walk through the expansive living space, furiously scanning around for any sign that she’s been back. But the place is pristine and exactly how we left it.
But when I reach the bedroom, something’s off.
I walk right through it and into the bathroom to find Ciara’s makeup bag gone from the counter, and when I enter the dressing room, her carry-on is missing and so are the clothes that she hung in the closet.
My stomach drops.
She left.
“Fuck.” I reach into the inside pocket of my dinner jacket and pull out my phone. I dial her number and start pacing the room. “Come on.”
“You’ve reached Ciara McCarthy…”
“Dammit, Ciara.” I hang up and try calling again.
And again.
And again.
Until eventually, the call connects, and Ciara’s furious voice fills my ears.
“What the hell do you want?” Her voice is hoarse as if she’s been crying.
Fuck.
Relief hits me first at hearing her voice, but it soon turns to fury at the realization she left without telling me.
What if something had happened to her?
“Where the hell are you?”
“Don’t you have a tracking app for that?”
“Ciara…”
There’s a pause, and I catch the sound of an overhead flight announcement in the background.
“Why the hell are you at the airport?”
“Because I’m about to board a flight back to New York.”
A bitter laugh escapes my lips. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re leaving just like that?”
“Wasn’t that what you did? What did you think I was going to do, Ronan? Sit around and wait for you to come back?”
“Well, yes.”
Deciding to be honest is apparently the wrong choice.
“You’re a prick, you know that? You left me stranded in a restaurant after deciding to drop some ridiculous bombshell about my father.”
“Ciara—”
“Wait, scratch that. You didn’t even drop a bombshell. It was like a sprinkle of fucking gunpowder.”
I frown. “Am I meant to be following your ridiculous analogy?”
“Yes! How could you do that to me, Ronan?”
I exhale slowly as I run a hand over my jaw. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I needed space and a second to think—”
“Well, now you have all the time and space you need. Enjoy.”
“Fuck, Ciara, wait!”
“No! You don’t get to dangle half-truths in front of me then walk away like it’s no big deal. Like I’m not a person. If you know something about my father, I have the right to know it. You owe me that much, Ronan.”
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this.” I rake a hand through my hair. “I never wanted you to know.”
“Then we have nothing else to discuss. Goodbye, Ronan.”
“No, wait!”
She’s right. God help me, she’s right.
“Are you finally willing to tell me what you meant?”
I groan. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
“I’m already pissed off, Ronan, you can’t make me feel any worse than I already do.”
Trust me, I can.
I sigh. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, and don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Enough with the stalling tactics. I have a plane to catch.”
“Fine. Your father…” I pace back and forth in front of the emperor-sized bed, my eyes focused on the Vegas skyline beyond the glass. “He was involved in trafficking. And I don’t just mean drugs.”
I stop for a moment to give Ciara a chance to change her mind, but when she remains silent, I know that there’s no turning back.
What I’m about to tell her won’t just ruin the memory she has of her father, it might just ruin any chance we had at building a real relationship.
And that’s what kills me. The fact that telling her the truth is the only way to make her stay, but it is also what will drive her away.
I can’t win here.
“He was selling women, or rather girls.” The words are like poison on my tongue.
“He would take them as young as fourteen, and he auctioned them off to the highest bidder the second they turned eighteen. Virgins. Usually, to men who didn’t give a fuck about limits or consent.
The kind who like to take what they need and dump what is left.
And those are the ones who are not turned into personal slaves. Or worse.”
The silence on the other end of the phone feels suffocating.
“You’re lying…”
I don’t miss the way her voice trembles.
“I wish I were.” I perch on the edge of the bed, the weight of what I’ve just told her so heavy on my shoulders. “But how would I possibly benefit from making something like this up? What angle does that get me?”
Ciara is silent.
I wish I was telling her this in person, not only so I could gauge her reaction, but so I could be there to comfort her, to wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly against me.
I want to be able to catch her when the reality of her father’s dark past hits, but I can’t do that if she’s all the way back in New York.
“Ciara?”
She draws in a sharp breath, then lets it out like she’s been punched in the stomach. “I need to go.”
“Ciara—”
The line goes dead, and I toss the phone onto the bed.
This is not how she should have found out about this. She deserved better. Hell, maybe she deserved to never know that part of her father’s past is toxic and poisonous.
I didn’t want it to come anywhere near her, but it’s too late to go back now. I had to make a choice in order to try and regain her trust, but from the pain in her voice, I can’t help but feel I may have just lost her either way.
I reach across the bed for my phone and send her a text, needing to make sure she’s going to be safe when she reaches JFK.
Me
I’ll have a car come and pick you up at the airport.
My phone pings a minute later.
Ciara
Don’t bother. Mila is picking me up.
A bitter sense of relief washes over me that she’s not going to be alone, but it also means she likely won’t be waiting for me at the house when I eventually arrive back in New York.
The laughter we shared on the plane ride over here feels like decades ago, and I wish I could go back in time and hold on to that moment for a while longer.
While this trip also has a business purpose, I genuinely wanted to show Ciara the city.
It was meant to be a chance for us to truly connect, away from all the noise of New York and the reality of our lives.
But instead, I’ve somehow managed to drive her even further away, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get her back.
The next flight to New York isn’t until nine a.m. so I take my mind off of my disaster of a marriage by moving my meeting with Angus O’Malley to first thing this morning.
After pacing around the penthouse until I eventually passed out on the couch from exhaustion, I woke around five, had a shower, and packed my things before heading to meet Angus.
He suggested a coffee shop just off the strip that seems quiet and low-key, which is perfect for the sort of meeting I’m about to have.
As I sip on my black Americano, grimacing at the bitter taste, eyes burn into the back of my head, and I turn to look over my shoulder as Angus approaches.
The one and only time we met was the night my father got shot, and even then we didn’t exchange more than a simple greeting. But his graying auburn hair has gained a few more streaks of silver since that night, and the creases on his forehead and around his mouth appear deeper.
“Angus.” I get to my feet and hold out a hand.
He shakes it firmly, and I spot a Celtic cross tattoo etched onto the back of his weathered hand, along with a handful of names in the center, but before I can ask about the nod to his Irish heritage, Angus pulls his hand away and takes the seat opposite me.
“Ye’re lookin’ like shite, boyo. But then again, it’s been a rough few weeks for ye.”
“You could say that.” I sit back down and reach for my coffee.
He folds his arms over his chest, causing the buttons on his white button-down to strain. For a man in his mid-sixties, he’s still packing just as much muscle as I am, and I’m easily half his age.
“I’m sorry about Seamus.” He offers me a sympathetic look. “He was a good one.”
One of the servers approaches, but Angus waves her off before leaning forward and resting his forearms on the rickety table. “So, what did ye need to talk to me about?”
“It’s about my father.” I set my coffee down on the table. “There are a few things that aren’t adding up, and I was hoping you could shed some light on the situation.”
He frowns. “Ye think I know somethin’ ye don’t?”
I shrug. “You knew him for a long time. I’m guessing if he was doing anything shady, I thought perhaps you might know about it.”
Angus lets out a bark of a laugh. “Yer father was a shady man. But he always knew when to not cross the line.”
I nod slowly. “That’s what I thought, too, but I’m questioning some of the things that have been brought to my attention.”
“Like?”
“Encrypted payments and secret phone calls.”
“Who to?”
“I haven’t been able to decode the payments. They’re so secure that even my best guys are struggling to break them.”
“And the calls?”
“To Callum McCarthy.”
Angus whistles as he runs a hand over his stubbled jaw.
“And Ciara? Does she know about this?”
“That her brother was in on something with my father? No, I don’t think so.”
“Ye don’t think so?”
“I haven’t brought it up. But the last call my father made before he died was to her brother, so I can’t help but wonder if he’s somehow involved.”
“I agree, it’s suspicious,” Angus muses. “Look, if ye need help diggin’ deeper into this and verifying things, I’ve still got contacts that might be useful. I can run some names, shake some trees, the like.”
“Thanks. But I need you to make sure that Ciara isn’t dragged into this. She’s got a lot on her mind.”
Laughter dances in his eyes. “What did ye do?”
“I had to tell her the truth about her father.”
“Oh, yeah. That’ll do it.”
“I take it you know the sort of shit Ryan McCarthy was caught up in?”
“He was one shady fucker, that’s for sure. Why would ye tell Ciara the truth about that piece of shite?”
“Because apparently, I can’t keep my damn mouth shut, and now she’s on a plane back to New York, and who the hell knows if she’ll ever speak to me again?”
“Can ye blame her?”
“No. But I wish I could make her understand why I had to tell her. Why I couldn’t just let her believe the lie that her father was a saint.”
Angus nods. “She’s always been fiercely loyal to her father.”
“I know. But she’s married to me now, and I need her to know the truth. I need her to trust me when I say that I’m not the villain she thinks I am.”
“Do you trust her?”
That question hits me harder than I expect.
Do I trust her?
I want to, but after learning that her brother was one of the last people to speak to my father before he died, I can’t help but wonder whether the Ciara I know is even the real her or if it’s all been a facade.
Maybe she’s just as much a villain as I am, and I’ve just been too blind to notice.
“I’m working on it,” I eventually reply.
“Then keep working. And if ye need backup, ye know where I am.”