Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
RONAN FLANAGAN
The Maserati engine roared as I pushed it harder than necessary through the winding roads leading to the Ashford estate.
My knuckles were white against the steering wheel, the familiar weight of dread settling in my chest like a stone.
Every mile closer to those wrought-iron gates felt like stepping backward through time, toward ghosts I'd spent too long trying to bury.
I'd sworn—on my father's grave, on every scar he and Connor O’Malley had carved into my soul—that I'd never return to this cursed place.
The manor held too many shadows: Eleanor's betrayals echoing through marble halls, my father's blood staining memories that should have been sacred, the hunt that had nearly ripped Cressida from my arms forever.
But then she'd mentioned the gardens. Just once, quietly, while we'd been lying in our London penthouse watching rain streak the windows. The way spring used to look at her childhood home. The roses she’d planted. The wistful longing in her voice had been a blade between my ribs.
That was what loving Cressida Ashford did to me—made me willing to walk through hell if it meant seeing her smile.
Then again, with her mother and sister, she’d been through worse hell, so who was I to complain?
She loved that garden, which was why I’d given her a new one in the big city townhouse to design and nurture. Not as big as the Ashford one, though.
"You're thinking too loud," she said softly, her fingers finding mine on the gear shift. The contact sent a shot of warmth up my arm, grounding me in this moment and yanking me out of the past. "We don't have to do this, Ronan. I'd rather have you whole in London than haunted here."
The concern in her voice nearly undid me. After everything I'd put her through—the violence, the secrets, the world of blood and brutality I'd dragged her into—she still worried about my demons more than her own.
"I want to give you this," I said, bringing her hand to my lips, tasting the salt and sweetness of her skin.
It wasn't the complete truth. Alexander's reports had been increasingly cryptic, and there were business matters that demanded my physical presence.
But watching her face light up when she'd spoken of home.
.. Christ, I'd have faced an army of ghosts for that expression.
The estate loomed ahead, its stone facade catching the dying afternoon light like a mausoleum.
Beautiful and cold and haunted. I'd taken it over for revenge, torn it from Eleanor's grasping fingers as payment for my father's betrayal.
But now, with Cressida beside me, it felt like something else entirely.
A reckoning waiting to happen. Maybe the place was cursed beyond redemption.
Willis appeared before we'd even stopped, his weathered face creasing with genuine joy at the sight of us.
The old man had served this house through three generations of Ashfords, had watched Cressida grow from a wild-haired child into the woman who'd brought me to my knees. He was now mostly retired and living off property in a small house I’d provided for him and his new puppy, Tommy, although he insisted on working some days to keep busy.
"Miss Cressida, Mr. Flanagan," he greeted with his usual dignity, though I caught the tremor in his voice. Emotion, kept in check but unmistakable. "Welcome home."
Home. The word hit me like a punch to the gut.
This place had been many things—conquest, fortress, monument to my father's failures.
But never home. Watching Cressida's face soften as she took in the familiar surroundings, I wondered if that might change.
If love could transform even the darkest places.
"Willis." Cressida embraced him with the unselfconscious affection that still amazed me after eighteen months together. She'd learned to be guarded with most of the world, but not with those who'd earned her trust. "You look wonderful. How are the gardens?"
"Maintained exactly as you requested, madam." His eyes sported a conspiratorial twinkle. "The east wing has been prepared as well. Both rooms, though I suspect..." He trailed off with the discretion of a man who'd served an elite family his entire life.
Both rooms. A polite fiction. We hadn't slept apart since the night I'd almost lost her to Connor O’Malley.
"Is Alex around?" I asked, scanning the grounds.
My man had been managing operations here while I focused on expanding into Ireland.
His reports had been thorough, professional, and lately, wrong in ways I couldn't define.
Something in his tone during our calls had set every instinct I possessed on high alert.
"He's waiting in the drawing room, sir." Willis's voice carried that carefully neutral tone that suggested storms brewing beneath calm surfaces. "He's ... eager to speak with you."
The way he said it made ice form in my veins. In my world, eager conversations rarely ended well.
"Go," Cressida said, reading the tension in my shoulders. "Handle whatever needs handling. I want to walk through the gardens anyway—see if the climbing roses survived the winter."
Every protective instinct screamed against leaving her alone.
This place held too many bad memories, too many corners where nightmares could hide.
But she was right—I couldn't shield her from shadows forever.
Part of healing meant reclaiming this ground, making new memories to overlay the blood-soaked old ones.
"Stay where Willis can see you," I said, unable to help myself.
She rose on her toes to kiss me, soft and reassuring. "I'll be fine. This is our home now, remember?"
Our home. The words sent something warm and terrifying through my chest. I watched her disappear toward the gardens that had once been her sanctuary, her honey-dark hair catching the light, and tried to push down the feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong.
I found Alexander in the drawing room, standing rigid by the window like a man facing a firing squad. Everything about his posture screamed tension—shoulders locked, spine straight, hands clasped behind his back in a position I recognized from our military days. He was preparing for battle.
"Alex."
He turned with the precise control that had made him invaluable to our operations, but I caught the micro-expression before he smoothed it away. Dread. Not of me, but of what he was about to tell me.
"Ronan." He moved to the sidebar without being invited, pouring two glasses of whiskey with hands that were almost steady. "We need to talk."
"The distribution routes?" I accepted the glass he offered, noting how he gripped his own like a lifeline. "Your report mentioned concerns."
"Handled." The word came out too sharp, too quick. "Production numbers are solid. The greenhouse expansion planning is ahead of schedule."
All the right answers, delivered in his usual professional tone.
But Alex's tells were carved into my memory after over a decade of business partnership and an even longer friendship, of watching each other's backs in situations that would have unravelled lesser men.
The way he held his glass without drinking, fingers tight around it, spoke volumes.
The absolute stillness of his free hand instead of his usual economical gestures.
The eyes … skilled as Alex was, lying was not his strong point.
"What else?" I settled into the leather chair, keeping my voice conversational despite the alarms screaming in my head.
"What do you mean?"
"Cut the shit, Alex." I let steel creep into my voice. "You're wound tighter than a piano wire, and you've been dancing around something for weeks. As long as I’ve known you, you've never been afraid to give me bad news. So what the fuck is it?"
He drained half his three fingers of whiskey in one swallow—another tell. Alexander Moore didn't drink like that when he needed his wits sharp unless the situation was catastrophic.
"There's someone here," he said finally. "Someone you need to meet."
"Who?" I asked flatly.
"Aoife O'Malley."
The name hit me like a physical blow. The glass in my hand would crack if I held it any longer. I set it down. Aoife O'Malley. Connor's daughter. The man who’d taken Cressida and laid his filthy hands on her. Death hadn’t been enough to erase him from our lives…
"Here?" My voice dropped to a whisper. If it wasn’t Alex but any other grown man on the hot seat, he’d have wet himself by now. "In my house?"
"Yes."
I was on my feet before conscious thought kicked in, my hand moving instinctively toward the Glock concealed beneath my jacket.
"It's not what you think." He stepped between me and the door, and the fact that he was willing to block my path told me exactly how fucked this situation had become. "She's not a threat. Not anymore."
"Every O'Malley is a threat." The words came out like bullets. "You know this. You helped me burn their shit to the ground."
"I know." Alexander's composure finally cracked, revealing something raw and desperate underneath. "But Ronan... Christ, it's complicated."
Complicated. In our business, complicated meant dead bodies and destroyed lives.
"Uncomplicate it. Now."
He moved away from the door, beginning to pace like a caged animal.
"I told you I had an O'Malley asset providing information. What I didn't tell you was that she's been living here. Or that she's Connor's daughter. Or that..." His jaw tightened. "Or that everything changed."
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. The evasive reports. The tension in his voice during calls. The way he'd been avoiding direct questions about security.
"You're fucking her."
It wasn't a question. The guilt written across his face was answer enough.
"I'm in love with her."