Chapter 44
THE LAST WORD
Matteo
Leo’s crew ghosts into the McKenna compound ahead of us, black-clad shadows sliding through hedges and over the low stone wall I’ve already memorized three ways to breach.
I don’t trust Seamus as far as I can throw him.
I’ve already seen firsthand what loyalty means to the McKennas.
Two men peel off toward the carriage house, one takes the rear garden, and another scales the drainpipe to the dormer window Cat’s brother probably used to climb out of as a boy. The hand signal comes a minute later.
Clear, for now.
I walk around the car and open Cat’s door. “My lady…” With a silly bow, I do my best British accent. Anything to distract her. The mood in the car grew heavier with every inch closer to her childhood home.
She tries not to smile, but she does anyway. I reach for her hand and half-expect her not to take it. When she does, I give it a quick squeeze that says all the words we don’t have time for.
The home she grew up in looks exactly like the sort of place that ingrains hardness into your bones.
We walk up to the door, and dim light seeps through the iron letter slot.
A Virgin sits in a chipped niche watching our approach, reminding me of a similar one my nonna kept in her garden.
I keep my weapon low but ready as we pause at the door.
Cat’s hand closes around the old iron knob, and she draws in a breath, squaring her shoulders. She crosses the threshold, and something in her crosses into somewhere I can’t follow.
The woman from last night, the one who said I love you like a secret and a dare, folds herself up and locks the box. What’s left is blade-cold and steady, breathing like she learned it under orders. Her chin tips up, and her whole body stiffens. Assassin, not girl. Soldier, not lover.
Seamus waits in the sitting room like he’s hosting a wake. His gray hair is sharply trimmed, jaw carved into a permanent scowl. They’re Donal’s eyes, minus the humor. The fire beside him ticks low, the steady crackle the only sound.
His gaze flicks to me, notes the gun, then lands on Caitríona and stays there. Disgust curdles the air.
“So,” he grates out, voice rough as gravel. “There she is. Not my daughter, only shame with a story.”
Cat doesn’t blink. “Hello, Da. Missed ya too.”
“Is that all you are now?” His mouth twists. “Some Italian’s shadow?”
“No,” she grits out.
“You couldn’t manage the one job I gave you, could you? Three chances and you still missed. And now what?”
Heat pops behind my ribs. “Careful, McKenna,” I utter, voice an eerie calm.
He doesn’t look at me. “The Rossi pup has a voice. Imagine that.” Then, to Cat, soft but laced in poison. “You’re a disappointment, girl. Your mother would—”
“Don’t you say another fucking word,” I snap, and it hits the mantle like a crack of thunder.
The hell I’m going to just stand here silently as this pezzo di merda berates my Cat.
Besides, from everything I’ve heard about her mother, she would be thrilled to see her daughter escape this life. Why else would she have run?
Cat’s eyes tip to mine for half a second, both a warning and a thank you. “Don’t waste your breath.” Her tone is glacial. It’s not anger, just resignation. She turns back to him. “I didn’t come for approval or absolution. I came to say I’m done.”
Seamus laughs once, it’s too sharp and sounds all wrong. “You don’t get to be done. This family is not a hobby, Caitríona.”
“Then call it what it really is.” Her voice remains remarkably steady despite the storm I can feel brewing just beneath the surface. “It’s a leash I’m cutting.”
He rises a fraction from his chair, age and fury bracing the same bones. “You think you can walk away from this house and not have it follow you? From our name? From the men we owe and the ones who owe us?”
“I think I’ve already been followed enough.” She tilts her head, and for the first time something hot slips under the ice. “Did you know about Donal?”
Seamus stills. “Know what?”
“That he put a tracker on my back at the hangar in New Jersey.” Her mouth flattens. “My own brother sold me to Tiernan while smiling in my face.”
The smallest pause, then a practiced scoff. “Your brother did what he had to do.”
“So you knew.”
“I said—”
“You knew,” she repeats, and the quiet in it is uglier than any scream. “Of course you did.”
His eyes flash. “You’ve been living long on other men’s mercy, girl. Don’t lecture me about what it takes to keep this family breathing.”
She inhales once, a controlled rise and fall, and I can see the little girl she must have been, memorizing that trick in a mirror so the tears never showed. “If I leave now… I don’t come back. Ever. No father. No brother. You understand?”
He bares his teeth like a priest pronouncing a sentence. “You leave this door, and you’re no daughter of mine. Belfast won’t know your name.”
She nods, as if his words are a kindness. “All right. I suppose we’re done then.”
My hand tightens on the gun. “No, we’re not done,” I interject, stepping forward until the fire shines green in my eyes, and he’s finally forced to look at me.
“I’ve stood by quietly as you insulted the woman I love, and now it’s my turn to speak, you fucking bastard.
” I move closer, so my shadow casts over him ominously.
“You won’t send men. You won’t send messages.
You won’t so much as breathe in her direction. Same goes for Donal.”
He sneers. “Or what, boy?”
“Or I make a lesson of what’s left of your empire,” I whisper, because threats said gently are the kind that stick. “Stone by stone, name by name. I will demolish the ground you stand on until even your ghosts can’t find their way home. And then I’ll come for your son, and I’ll leave you for last…”
Silence crouches in the corners.
“Kindly pass on that message to Donal as well. We don’t have time for another visit.” Then I shoot him a wink.
Leo shifts in the doorway, a shadow with a pulse.
My men are statues on the periphery, already mapping exits and sequencing disaster.
Cat stands very straight, and I realize my chest aches for her.
For the shit home she grew up in, for the shitty mother who walked out on her and the shittier father left to raise her.
Seamus’s stare slides back to her. “Choose, then, girl.”
“I already did,” she replies, and somehow there’s grace in it. “I’m going to make a new family, Da. A real one.” She turns, stepping past the worn couch, past the scuffed threshold she must have crossed a thousand times. She doesn’t look back.
I do. I want him to see my face when I say this. “I hope every door you open answers with your daughter’s absence, and that it eats you alive, piece by shitty piece.” Then I whirl on my heel and follow after the woman who deserved so much more than this.
Outside, the Virgin watches us go, rain needling the stone. Leo murmurs clear into his mic, and the gate yawns wider like the house itself is relieved to have us off its conscience.
Cat doesn’t speak until we reach the car. When she does, her voice is whole and destroyed all at once. “Thanks for not letting Da turn that into something worse.”
I slide the gun away and open my palm to her. “It was already worse.” She hesitates, then threads her fingers through mine. “But he doesn’t get the last word.” I tug her closer and press a kiss to her knuckles like a vow. “We do.”